Alignment no longer a restrictive issue???

[Kerilstrasz]

By browsing the classes i saw no restriction such Barbarian=chaotic or Monk=Lawful etc etc...
that means that someone that meets ability score criteria can be Barb/Monk ???

[Falka]

Monks do need to be Lawful. And depending on which oath do you pick for your Paladin, he also has alignment restrictions.

[Hyena]

It's been that way since 4E. I think it's a good thing, since it allows playing interesting concepts - like those arrogant "Skip the discipline" guys from kung-fu movies, or a knight, who channels his anger towards injustice in the battle.

[HugeC]

Monks do need to be Lawful. And depending on which oath do you pick for your Paladin, he also has alignment restrictions.

Monks are "almost always" lawful, but it is not a requirement. For paladins, it isn't strictly required that you're a particular alignment, but if you're following e.g. the Tenets of Devotion, they look pretty LG to me.

[Inevitability]

4e indeed had almost no alignment requirements, except for a couple of artifacts, the odd paragon path and a few Essentials Classes.

I personally think it's a good thing.

[Falka]

Monks are "almost always" lawful, but it is not a requirement. For paladins, it isn't strictly required that you're a particular alignment, but if you're following e.g. the Tenets of Devotion, they look pretty LG to me.

The Oaths are pretty strict, imo. The only Oath that leaves some margin to be Neutral Good is Ancients. Vengeance, if you don't try to twist its interpretation, is the prototype of a Lawful Neutral oath.

And yeah, it doesn't say that you can't be a Neutral or Chaotic Monk, but if you're playing a guy that follows the traditions of a monastery, whose whole concept revolves around self control and discipline... As a DM I would find really hard to accept a character concept of a Monk that isn't Lawful. 'Almost always', I guess, is just to leave some room for snowflake concepts / players, but the lore is pretty clear.

The only 'significant' changes are those for Bards (never understood why a Bard couldn't be Lawful, actually), Barbarians and Druids. The fact that you don't need to be Neutral as a Druid anymore gives room for the worship of some interesting dieties (I once tried to play a Moon Druid, worshipper of Selune).

[Malifice]

The Oaths are pretty strict, imo. The only Oath that leaves some margin to be Neutral Good is Ancients. Vengeance, if you don't try to twist its interpretation, is the prototype of a Lawful Neutral oath.


Im playing a LE Paladin of Vengance who worships Bane, and is a member of the Zhents. Formerly a LG worshipper of Torm.

He'll do anything for the 'greater good'. Which is of course establishing a utopia (in his eyes) whereby Bane is worshipped and order enforced by fear, tyranny and strict and brutal discipline. I see this as needed for the greater good of society.

I see myself as striving to end all wars, remove all religious conflicts and unify civilisation under the banner of the Black Hand, the one true God (with myself at the top of this utopia, second only to Bane of course). And you cant make an omlette without cracking a few eggs.

Tormites, Dragon Cultists and Cyricists recieve no mercy. None at all. To the point of genocide.

Being an orphan (Martyrs Progeny to be precise - I was raised in a Church of Torm after my parents - who were both Tormites - were killed in Tantras by sacrifcing themselves so Torm could kill Bane -somehwat ironically), I'm nice to kids. Particularly orphans.

He's one messed up cat.

For what its worth. 'Avengers' (which is what Paladins of Vengance are also called) have their origins in D and D (Rules cyclopedia but they first showed up in the Companion rules set) as 'Anti Paladins' effectively - Chaotic (which was evil back then) Paladins. There may have been a 4th edition variation as well.

And if youre playing one, dowload 'Dark Avenger' by the heavy metal group Manowar and play it during combat.

Goes off.

[1of3]

No. There are no alignment restrictions in 5e. If there were, there would need to be sanctions for loosing your alignment. No such rule exists. At most there are alignment suggestions.

There is a box about Paladins breaking their Oaths, but if you take your oath literal, you can do quite a lot of things. Especially, if certain portions of your oath contradict one another.

[Malifice]

No. There are no alignment restrictions in 5e. If there were, there would need to be sanctions for loosing your alignment. No such rule exists. At most there are alignment suggestions.

There is a box about Paladins breaking their Oaths, but if you take your oath literal, you can do quite a lot of things. Especially, if certain portions of your oath contradict one another.

Its a GM call, like so much in this edition.

Im loving a return to overt GM empowerment.

[Naanomi]

Non-Lawful Monks: Drunken Master, Monkey-King Types
Non-Chaotic Barbarians: Later-Day Conan

I love to see Druids open to the alignment spectrum, I can envision a Druid of any alignment.

As for the new Paladin Oaths... Devotion seems pretty 'good', but I could see a CG character following those tenants just fine (A 'Goku' naive-honesty type character?). Likewise Ancients seems to be less 'must be good' and more 'can't be evil'.

Vengeance seems to be open for any alignment, assuming 'Fight the Greater Evil' means 'evil' as 'what I philosophically oppose' as opposed to the actual alignment. Even if it means actual 'Evil' evil, any character who sees themselves as 'doing good'; even if their heinous methods give them an Evil alignment themselves, probably still qualify.

[TheOOB]

So far in 5e I have found no game mechanic that links to alignment except for a few magic items from the playtest documents. Alignment seems to be a purely roleplay thing.

[Malifice]

So far in 5e I have found no game mechanic that links to alignment except for a few magic items from the playtest documents. Alignment seems to be a purely roleplay thing.

It is what the GM and Players want it to be for the story. Which is as it should be.

[Warskull]

I like the way 5E handles it, classes are not alignment restricted. However, alignments are recommended.

[Demonic Spoon]

Alignments are used less as restrictions and more as examples. "Monks are almost always lawful" is there more to tell you about how monks behave and think like than what you need to put down on your character sheet.

Which is good. Alignment should be a primarily RP concept, used to describe a character's ideals.

[Lokiare]

And yeah, it doesn't say that you can't be a Neutral or Chaotic Monk, but if you're playing a guy that follows the traditions of a monastery, whose whole concept revolves around self control and discipline... As a DM I would find really hard to accept a character concept of a Monk that isn't Lawful. 'Almost always', I guess, is just to leave some room for snowflake concepts / players, but the lore is pretty clear.

Your argument about monks can apply to any class just about:

Fighter - Must train rigorously with a variety of weapons and armors strictly following the forms of each weapon. Hmmm... must be lawful.

Wizards - Must study ancient tomes of magic and the physical and magical laws of the universe and thus must be lawful right?

Rogues - Must study the law for loopholes and to know what they can get away with, so they must be lawful too.

Clerics - Must study and follow the strict rules of their religion, and thus must be lawful.

Yeah, alignment isn't about your environment, its your inner choice of whether you like to follow the rules (whether they are a loose set of codes or laws set down by kings) or whether you do your own thing.

A Paladin that kills evil creatures even though the laws of the land protect the evil creature is neutral (think of the episode of Claymore where Clare sneaks into the city undercover and kills the Yoma, totally broke the trespassing laws).

[Sartharina]

A paladin, barbarian, bard, or Monk can be of any alignment.

Lawful Barbarian - Sam Vimes (Don't tell me he's not. WHERE IS MY COW!?)
Chaotic Monk - Jackie Chan.

As for Paladins - I'm gonna get my PHB tomorrow hopefully, and see what I can do with the Oaths.

[Vitruviansquid]

Jackie Chan is not a crook! He is an archaeologist!

[TheOOB]

Paladins are not required to be good, but the Oaths are unlikely to appeal to an Evil character. It works out.

[Falka]

Your argument about monks can apply to any class just about:

Fighter - Must train rigorously with a variety of weapons and armors strictly following the forms of each weapon. Hmmm... must be lawful.

Wizards - Must study ancient tomes of magic and the physical and magical laws of the universe and thus must be lawful right?

Rogues - Must study the law for loopholes and to know what they can get away with, so they must be lawful too.

Clerics - Must study and follow the strict rules of their religion, and thus must be lawful.

Yeah, alignment isn't about your environment, its your inner choice of whether you like to follow the rules (whether they are a loose set of codes or laws set down by kings) or whether you do your own thing.

A Paladin that kills evil creatures even though the laws of the land protect the evil creature is neutral (think of the episode of Claymore where Clare sneaks into the city undercover and kills the Yoma, totally broke the trespassing laws).

First of all, do not confuse exception with generality. Through DM fiat you can allow any kind of weird combination. That doesn't make it likely to happen (precisely many people like to do them because they're weird and unlikely).

Monks aren't guys who just train hard and smack things with their fists. They need to learn self restraint. To develop willpower, to learn meditation and all that through strict training that most likely involves heaps of physical exercise and self-deprivation. If you aren't heavily disciplined, I can't see how would you become a Monk (unless you are thinking about characters like Naruto or your average shonen protagonist, but in the real word, nobody is the chosen one and you need to train really hard to develop your inner talents).

Lawful doesn't mean that you strictly adhere to the king's laws: it's the belief that order is important in life, may it be through a strict moral or traditional code, through codified law or big hierarchies. I find it's kind of hard to depict a Chaotic monk, honestly.

Fighters do not need to be strictly lawful, as 'Fighter' is a broad archetype that fills many combatants. You can be a pirate, a fencer, a knight.

Rogues aren't what I would call a 'law student'. Most fit the stereotype of scoundrels and criminals. They tend HEAVILY to Chaotic. Those that take advantage of the law or play along with criminal bands are neutral, since they defy official authority when it's convinient, but they are willing to play along with society's unwritten rules.

Clerics depend heavily on the teachings. Many dieties that are Chaotic do not even have strict church hierarchies (Selune, Sune, Tymora, Shaundakul), so your point is moot. It would only be valid for lawful dieties (like Bane, Torm... They have very strict orders).

Wizards do tend to be lawful as they thrive better in organised societies and developing strict routines for their studies. But most also tend to stay away from politics, so the classic alignment for a Wizard is True Neutral.



Your observation regarding the Paladin needs further clarification:

- Paladins are guided through their oath or knightly ethos which is what bounds them more than any mundane law, or even divine (that's why not all gods can have Paladin orders, since their purposes do not match the Paladin oath). They follow their oath strictly, no exceptions made. I cannot think of anything more lawful than adhering to a rigid (read carefully this, it means the opposite of flexible) morality code in all situations.

[LordVonDerp]

There seems to a misconception in this thread, namely that a person's level of discipline has any bearing whatsoever on whether they are lawful or chaotic.
One can be the most disciplined monk in the world yet still be dedicated to the spread of anarchy.

[CyberThread]

Drow are chaotic yet still a pretty organized society

[Falka]

Drow are chaotic yet still a pretty organized society

Drow actually tend to found very strict heriarchies. Their societies are very lawful. However, Lolth's influence, who is constantly promoting strife and chaos among them, makes them become NE.

If left alone, I'm sure they would tend to form LE societies. Actually, those that aren't rulled by Lolth's priesthood (magocratic societies, there are a couple in the Underdark) are mostly LE.


One can be the most disciplined monk in the world yet still be dedicated to the spread of anarchy.

Yet you probably don't think anarchy is the best way of ruling your life, and you're promoting strife to seize power/raise station in your society. In the end, it's not a goal but a means to the end. LE are very methodic and everything they do has a purpose (Chaotic characters act more based on whim).

[hawklost]

Drow actually tend to found very strict heriarchies. Their societies are very lawful. However, Lolth's influence, who is constantly promoting strife and chaos among them, makes them become NE.

If left alone, I'm sure they would tend to form LE societies. Actually, those that aren't rulled by Lolth's priesthood (magocratic societies, there are a couple in the Underdark) are mostly LE.



Yet you probably don't think anarchy is the best way of ruling your life, and you're promoting strife to seize power/raise station in your society. In the end, it's not a goal but a means to the end. LE are very methodic and everything they do has a purpose (Chaotic characters act more based on whim).

By the way the Chaotic Evil is written out, it doesn't indicate that someone like a Monk cannot be it in any way or form. "creatures act with arbitrary violence, spurred by their greed, hatred, or bloodlust". Nothing in that says that someone who isn't extremely well trained (Monk lvls) can't have a love for bloodlust/violence or greed enough to cause them to be considered CE. Every single class effectively has to be 'well disciplined' to be able to gain levels. Do you think a Bard or Rogue who are both pointed as being inclined towards Chaotic Netrual cannot be highly disciplined? All characters are disciplined when they want to, but that does not mean they don't let themselves follow a whim for things they don't want to be disciplined with.

[Falka]

I do not think that any monastery would take anyone that recurrs to arbitrary violence and is spurred by their most lowly passions (greed, hatred and bloodlust). Even ninjas are supposed to stay loyal to their clan. They value hierarchies and the authority of their superiors over everything else. Doing things against the local law (which probably forbids any activity related with trained assasins like ninjas) doesn't stop you from being Lawful (big misconception).

Being a Monk isn't just about training - it's about following a tradition and abiding to discipline.

Just like it makes no sense for a Paladin to be Chaotic (they are based on making oaths and following a code).


Do you think a Bard or Rogue who are both pointed as being inclined towards Chaotic Netrual cannot be highly disciplined? All characters are disciplined when they want to, but that does not mean they don't let themselves follow a whim for things they don't want to be disciplined with.

Sorry, but Chaotic Neutrals are completely against discipline. That doesn't mean that they can't be good at something - it's just that they are usually disorganised, independent and improvise rather than sticking to a method.

Yes, I believe that a Rogue or a Bard can be Lawful. Doesn't mean I think it's likely. Artemis Entreri is a trained assasin and he is Lawful Evil (because he's methodic and values self discipline above anything else).

[Sartharina]

It doesn't require a monastary. Just grab a few self-help books, like "Monkeying Around for Dummies" and spend a few hours a day practicing and mediating. Or, think the Sith Academy from Star Wars (Sith are generally Chaotic Evil. There are occasional exceptions.)
Sorry, but Chaotic Neutrals are completely against discipline. That doesn't mean that they can't be good at something - it's just that they are usually disorganised, independent and improvise rather than sticking to a method.No they're not. They're against someone else trying to impose their version of 'discipline' on them, but get along just fine with their own sense of self-discipline.

[hawklost]

I do not think that any monastery would take anyone that recurrs to arbitrary violence and is spurred by their most lowly passions (greed, hatred and bloodlust). Even ninjas are supposed to stay loyal to their clan. They value hierarchies and the authority of their superiors over everything else. Doing things against the local law (which probably forbids any activity related with trained assasins like ninjas) doesn't stop you from being Lawful (big misconception).

Being a Monk isn't just about training - it's about following a tradition and abiding to discipline.

Just like it makes no sense for a Paladin to be Chaotic (they are based on making oaths and following a code).



Sorry, but Chaotic Neutrals are completely against discipline. That doesn't mean that they can't be good at something - it's just that they are usually disorganised, independent and improvise rather than sticking to a method.

Yes, I believe that a Rogue or a Bard can be Lawful. Doesn't mean I think it's likely. Artemis Entreri is a trained assasin and he is Lawful Evil (because he's methodic and values self discipline above anything else).

"Chaotic neutral - creatures follow their whims, holding their personal freedom above all else." Nothing says they can't be fully disciplined, they just hold their personal freedom first and foremost. I don't if you read the 5e alignments or are just using the old 3e version which is different then 5e's description of alignments.

[Falka]

It doesn't require a monastary. Just grab a few self-help books, like "Monkeying Around for Dummies" and spend a few hours a day practicing and mediating

... You wouldn't become a Monk by reading a couple of books. That's the cheesiest excuse for a Monk background that I ever heard, no offense. :smalleek:


.No they're not. They're against someone else trying to impose their version of 'discipline' on them, but get along just fine with their own sense of self-discipline.

Yeah, which includes being submitted to a monastic tradition. You only value discipline if you think that discipline is important in your life and you work hard every day to attain it. Everything the Monk has (at least from all the fluff that has been layed down in all editions, and the Monk doesn't seem to drift away from it in 5e) screams discipline, stoicism and denial of one's ego (which is one of the basics of Buddhism and shaolin-based martial arts). It's not just 'training', but a way of living.

The only reason I think that 5e hasn't imposed a mechanical alignment restriction (as in, if you don't take Lawful alignment in a Monk you will lose class features or not be able to progress) is just due to marketing reasons. They didn't want to scare of the 4e crowd (it caters a lot to the snowflake 'don't-tell-me-how-my-character-must-be-I-follow-my-own-way' crowd).

People just want to have all the mechanical benefits with no RP downsides whatsoever. They don't like limits, find playing along with codes 'boring' instead of a challenge that makes a character a different experience than your average 'chaotic manga hero'.

Meh, I sound old sometimes. :p

Edit: The perfect example for the 'Chaotic Monk' dilemma is quite obvious in Neverwinter Nights 2 (a PC game). There is a dwarf NPC called Khelgar who loves brawling over anything else. He got asskicked by Monks in a tavern and since then wants to become one. So he just wants to learn how to smack things. The fact is, when you take him to a monastery, they don't want to accept him because he doesn't seem to have the right atitude to become a Monk (he actually says "I just want to learn how to punch stuff").

Guess his alignment: he's Neutral Good (he values a little bit of tradition, as he's a dwarf and lives by the name of his clan, but he doesn't feel compelled to follow the dwarf way. Hence why he can't be a Monk - if he doesn't value the importance of traditions, how can a monastic order train him?).

After he lives a few ordeals (sidequests that are meant to show him the importance of his acts, lawful good sidequests, yadda yadda), he manages to get into the monastery. Rigid? Yes. Monks are supposed to be that way.

[KillianHawkeye]

I do not think that any monastery would take anyone that recurrs to arbitrary violence and is spurred by their most lowly passions (greed, hatred and bloodlust).

Looks like SOMEBODY has never had to deal with the Cobra Kai dojo!
http://content9.flixster.com/question/49/76/33/4976339_std.jpg

[Sartharina]

... You wouldn't become a Monk by reading a couple of books. That's the cheesiest excuse for a Monk background that I ever heard, no offense. :smalleek:You have to act on them, and discipline your own life and self.


Yeah, which includes being submitted to a monastic tradition. You only value discipline if you think that discipline is important in your life and you work hard every day to attain it. Everything the Monk has (at least from all the fluff that has been layed down in all editions, and the Monk doesn't seem to drift away from it in 5e) screams discipline, stoicism and denial of one's ego (which is one of the basics of Buddhism and shaolin-based martial arts). It's not just 'training', but a way of living.It doesn't require a monastic tradition. It just requires self-discipline. But just because he chooses to live a specific way doesn't mean he expects the rest of the world to do so.

[pso_zeldaphreak]

I do not think that any monastery would take anyone that recurrs to arbitrary violence and is spurred by their most lowly passions (greed, hatred and bloodlust). Even ninjas are supposed to stay loyal to their clan. They value hierarchies and the authority of their superiors over everything else. Doing things against the local law (which probably forbids any activity related with trained assasins like ninjas) doesn't stop you from being Lawful (big misconception).

Being a Monk isn't just about training - it's about following a tradition and abiding to discipline.

But a monastery isn't necessary for a Monk to continue gaining levels/knowledge. Especially in the case of a Way of Shadow Monk, I think that chaotic is acceptable - my monk holds very Robin Hood-esque ideals, among other things. In fact, he plays a LOT like a rogue, from an RP perspective, but he also has a very monk-like dedication to his craft (which, in this case, is being a cat burglar). He has no real desire for gold himself, being both a wood elf and a monk, but views the act as a personal challenge, with the poor being the benefactors.

Plus, due to getting caught stealing from a vengeful Lord, his sister was captured and sold into slavery, where she died not long after due to abuse. So he's got a pretty major hate for slavery.

[Lord Raziere]

There seems to a misconception in this thread, namely that a person's level of discipline has any bearing whatsoever on whether they are lawful or chaotic.
One can be the most disciplined monk in the world yet still be dedicated to the spread of anarchy.

hm. the conflict here seems to be between:

the internal law/chaos of the person

and

the wider beliefs about the world of the person.

which raises the question: a clearly disorganized bureaucrat who nonetheless believes in the law: lawful or chaotic? I'd say lawful. the beliefs of the person should be more important to their cosmic alignment than whether or not they have a messy room. the cosmic alignment thingies are ideals. ideals have no bearing on the practical everyday life of the person, but what they do when they are faced with an important moral decision.

a disorganized ditzy relaxed paladin who follows their code when it comes down to it, is still a paladin. hey that sounds like a good character idea: the oddest paladin ever that can't seem to keep her own house organized, but enforces lawful goodness in the world just as good as all the others while being cheerful about it.

[Sartharina]

Remember - alignments are broad, cosmic forces that have an impact on the world. Whether someone's chaotic or Lawful depends on whether their actions make the world more orderly and predictable, or less orderly and predictable. A self-disciplined person that stands against the orderly quantification of the world is either Neutral or Chaotic.

[Falka]

Remember - alignments are broad, cosmic forces that have an impact on the world. Whether someone's chaotic or Lawful depends on whether their actions make the world more orderly and predictable, or less orderly and predictable. A self-disciplined person that stands against the orderly quantification of the world is either Neutral or Chaotic.

Alignments are all about intent. Because if I were to interpret alignments by your definition, I should think that the Paladin that opposes an evil baron and seeks to slay him is Chaotic. That's absurd!

That's equating Lawful = Evil or simply status quo. Law is just the belief that order is important. The more importance you give to code, organisation and tradition, the more Lawful your character will be. Likewise, Chaos tends to creativity, individuality and self-expression. It has nothing to do with the 'cosmic consequence' of actions.

That's way Evil characters can be Lawful (they can give importance to tradition, method and order, even if it serves to depraved or twisted ends) or Chaotic (anything goes, nothing is sacred for them and they are completely unpredictable).

Not even a Paladin, or a Monk by that sense, is perfect. They will not be Lawful 100% of the time, but they try to be, because in the end, they believe that their codes of honor, their discipline, is important and should live by them. There is intent of following a way. Which also makes them predictable. Everybody knows how a Paladin thinks (which makes them unflexible in some situations). Chaotics don't mind resorting to 'dirty' or simply unpredictable methods if it fosters their ends (which can be Good ones, hence Robin Hood).

[hawklost]

In 5e dnd, Law is "I follow 'rules'" (where rules can be of the land or tradition or something) and Chaos is "I say scr-w what other people demand of me".

Someone who is chaotic might have been brought up in a very 'lawful' family but still is chaotic (You can equate this to the whole 'religious women gets out from family's thumb and goes crazy drinking and partying type scenario. She was brought up 'lawful' but is being chaotic, her alignment is chaotic). Equate that to someone who was brought up in a monastery or church and when they finally leave the group are chaotic (Monk who is no longer part of monastery is still a monk)

A Lawful person can be brought up in a Chaotic environment and still be Lawful even if they were 'taught' to be chaotic.

[Sartharina]

Alignments are all about intent. Because if I were to interpret alignments by your definition, I should think that the Paladin that opposes an evil baron and seeks to slay him is Chaotic. That's absurd!No he's not. A Paladin is Lawful Good, not Lawful And Good. The Evil Baron represents a mockery of Justice and Law, and destroys the faith in Rule of Law and Justice. A Paladin opposing a Baron is upholding a Greater law - the one of Good and Justice. The Baron weakens the hold of Lawful Good through his corruption of Law through Evil, and opposing him is a Lawful Good act. Of course, a Paladin that seeks to destroy a Lawful Evil baron without ensuring that the pieces get picked up and put in their place properly (Such as by instating a Lawful Good baron, ensuring the community becomes an orderly standalone haven of justice, or assimilating the barony into a greater Lawful Good Kingdom) to maintain order would be Chaotic.

[Raimun]

Just because someone is Chaotic doesn't mean that individual can't be disciplined or work hard... at least when it comes to some things in life like self improvement through training.

Really, as long as the backstory makes sense, go for a Chaotic Monk or Paladin.

For example: The monk grew up in a monastery. At very young age and through formative years, the character lead a Lawful life, like most Monks and trained as one of them. Then one day, bang! The character discovers that the dojo master is actually a text book example of Lawful Evil. Some other LE Monks try to kill him but he escapes and vows to fight evil outside the law. So when he meets the other party mmebers, he's Chaotic.

The above seems to be pretty standard fare in ninja movies and such films. It also happened in Batman Begins. A man who follows only one rule in life ("Don't kill.") and does the stuff Bruce did in Dark Knight-trilogy is pretty Chaotic, no matter what the classic Batman Alignment-chart says.

Besides, I don't know about most shonen heroes but at least Naruto and Goku are both known to take their training very seriously, even if their methods usually err on the side of Chaos and they don't really follow traditional ways.

Now, if Monks were empowered by Lawful Outsiders like Inevitables, things would be different. Even Paladins seem to get their powers from different divine sources, especially Ancients and Vengeance Paladins. That's different from 3.5 where it was mentioned that Lawful Good Alignment itself was the power source of Paladins and not any individual god... and even there they eventually released Paladin variants that weren't Lawful Good.

[Falka]

Just because someone is Chaotic doesn't mean that individual can't be disciplined or work hard... at least when it comes to some things in life like self improvement through training.

Really, as long as the backstory makes sense, go for a Chaotic Monk or Paladin.

Besides, I don't know about most shonen heroes but at least Naruto and Goku are both known to take their training very seriously, even if their methods usually err on the side of Chaos and they don't really follow traditional ways.

Now, if Monks were empowered by Lawful Outsiders like Inevitables, things would be different. Even Paladins seem to get their powers from different divine sources, especially Ancients and Vengeance Paladins. That's different from 3.5 where it was mentioned that Lawful Good Alignment itself was the power source of Paladins and not any individual god... and even there they eventually released Paladin variants that weren't Lawful Good.

And that's why shonen manga heroes don't really make any sense. Everyone who has played a sport or simply studied a discipline knows that talent by itself needs to be backed up by hard training. Most of Goku and Naruto's power-ups and improvements seem half-baked and plucked right from the writer's ass.

That's precisely what I mean. People get the 'Chaotic Monk' reference from characters that lack complete verisimilitude. In a proper story, a character like Goku would become way more disciplined and methodic if he really became a Monk.

I recommend a novel, 'Siddharta' by Herman Hesse. It doesn't really depict a martial Monk, but what underlies beneath these philosophies. They strive to do the opposite of what Barbarians do: martial arts are a way that oriental philosophers found to control the bestial side of human beings, by channelling it through strict discipline and ego denial. While Barbarians set it free and revel on the ride (hence why a Barbarian should never be Lawful).


For example: The monk grew up in a monastery. At very young age and through formative years, the character lead a Lawful life, like most Monks and trained as one of them. Then one day, bang! The character discovers that the dojo master is actually a text book example of Lawful Evil. Some other LE Monks try to kill him but he escapes and vows to fight evil outside the law. So when he meets the other party mmebers, he's Chaotic.

The above seems to be pretty standard fare in ninja movies and such films. It also happened in Batman Begins. A man who follows only one rule in life ("Don't kill.") and does the stuff Bruce did in Dark Knight-trilogy is pretty Chaotic, no matter what the classic Batman Alignment-chart says.

That Monk can be Lawful Good just fine. Being disciplined has worked for him so far, and it led him to believe that order is important in one's life. If the dojo master ends up being LE, then he can try to clean the dojo's name and show people that his are the correct ways.

See here, just like the Paladin that opposes the baron: the character doesn't need to stop being Lawful to fight Evil. You only turn into Chaotic if you stop valuing Lawful values. It's not about respecting the local authorities (Lawful Goods still fight against unfair laws).

Heck, I can't see Batman as other thing that isn't Lawful Neutral. He is extremely disciplined, he has a set goal (fight Gotham's crime and return it to its citizens). He believes that promoting order and fighting Chaos is important and he is strictly methodic. He doesn't pull half assed tricks or improvise, to see how 'things go' (he completely abhorrs the concepts of collateral damage, which a Chaotic wouldn't mind at all).

Just because he is doing an illegal thing doesn't make him Chaotic. Again, going against the local law doesn't mean you are Chaotic.


Someone who is chaotic might have been brought up in a very 'lawful' family but still is chaotic (You can equate this to the whole 'religious women gets out from family's thumb and goes crazy drinking and partying type scenario. She was brought up 'lawful' but is being chaotic, her alignment is chaotic). Equate that to someone who was brought up in a monastery or church and when they finally leave the group are chaotic (Monk who is no longer part of monastery is still a monk)

Monks that say 'screw tradition' and stop valuing discipline cannot progress more in Monk levels. Yes, they don't stop being Monks (they don't lose class features) but they can't take extra Monk levels.

I don't see the problem of just getting a few levels and then becoming a Fighter or something. You can't half all the cake if you're not willing to put some effort into earning it. That's exactly what I did with my best Monk character (for reasons she became NG, so she became a Fighter after getting 6 Monk levels. She broke with tradition and thus, it had consequences).


Even Paladins seem to get their powers from different divine sources, especially Ancients and Vengeance Paladins. That's different from 3.5 where it was mentioned that Lawful Good Alignment itself was the power source of Paladins and not any individual god... and even there they eventually released Paladin variants that weren't Lawful Good.

Since when Paladins got their powers from 'alignment' itself? They always got it from divine sources, but at the same time, their class follows rigid oaths that cannot be patronised by every god. Hence why not all gods have Paladin orders (because no Paladin would follow a god that defies the Paladin oath). The only exception being Sune, but they state it quite clear that it's because she adores the concept of the romantic shining armor knight and so, she promotes Paladins while not forcing them into following her dogma 100%.

Btw, the alignments you get from reading the oaths (unless you want to twist the interpretations) are:

- Devotion: LG.
- Vengeance: LN (they always strive for greater good and are highly disciplined, even if they do recognise that they value any means for an end and are willing to ignore the lesser evil).
- Ancients: LG / NG (their tradition is quite informal, hence why I would allow NG Paladins that take Ancients)

[Falka]

No he's not. A Paladin is Lawful Good, not Lawful And Good. The Evil Baron represents a mockery of Justice and Law, and destroys the faith in Rule of Law and Justice. A Paladin opposing a Baron is upholding a Greater law - the one of Good and Justice. The Baron weakens the hold of Lawful Good through his corruption of Law through Evil, and opposing him is a Lawful Good act. Of course, a Paladin that seeks to destroy a Lawful Evil baron without ensuring that the pieces get picked up and put in their place properly (Such as by instating a Lawful Good baron, ensuring the community becomes an orderly standalone haven of justice, or assimilating the barony into a greater Lawful Good Kingdom) to maintain order would be Chaotic.

I agree with this - but this wasn't what you were saying before! You just admitted that there is a need to value order (Law) for you to be Lawful. It's not just about results. It's a philosophical belief.

A LE can be a very organised society, have no crime whatsoever, etc. Maybe it can be actually better to solve social conflicts in an area. But the Paladin will STILL try to do it the LG way.

[Forum Explorer]

And that's why shonen manga heroes don't really make any sense. Everyone who has played a sport or simply studied a discipline knows that talent by itself needs to be backed up by hard training. Most of Goku and Naruto's power-ups and improvements seem half-baked and plucked right from the writer's ass.

That's precisely what I mean. People get the 'Chaotic Monk' reference from characters that lack complete verisimilitude. In a proper story, a character like Goku would become way more disciplined and methodic if he really became a Monk.



(he completely abhorrs the concepts of collateral damage, which a Chaotic wouldn't mind at all).



Monks that say 'screw tradition' and stop valuing discipline cannot progress more in Monk levels. Yes, they don't stop being Monks (they don't lose class features) but they can't take extra Monk levels.

I don't see the problem of just getting a few levels and then becoming a Fighter or something. You can't half all the cake if you're not willing to put some effort into earning it. That's exactly what I did with my best Monk character (for reasons she became NG, so she became a Fighter after getting 6 Monk levels. She broke with tradition and thus, it had consequences).


It's a relatively common trope in fiction. Take Michelangelo from TMNT. He's a ninja and trained hard, but at the same time he's relaxed, goofs off, and is definitely the least disciplined of the 4. Raphael could similarly be called chaotic because he's got a short temper, lacks respect for authority, and is basically a loose cannon, despite having the skills of a highly skilled ninja.

In other words, one aspect of their life may be Lawful, but if the rest is Chaotic, then they are still a likely Chaotic.

As for Goku, Naruto, and Natsu, well I disagree. They don't become more disciplined, because they aren't training to be more disciplined, but to reach greater levels of power. They'd likely be a lot more effective if they were more disciplined, but instead their solution is just output more force rather then use existing force more efficiently. If you feel that disqualifies them from being monks, well that's a different problem.


Hold up! A Chaotic character can and would care about Collateral just as much as their lawful equivalent. But while a Lawful character plans for the collateral and how to deal with it, the chaotic character deals with the collateral as it happens.


Again I don't see why a monk order can't be chaotic. Something that's all about living and acting in the moment to reach enlightenment seems legit to me. Something like "I don't dodge the dragon's fire because I've practiced dodging like that for hours everyday, but because my mind isn't cluttered with trying to think of which technique is moving and just acts with what I know is right."

In real life that's bogus and would never work. But this isn't real life. It's fiction, and it's not uncommon for fiction to do that.

On a side note, I do think people struggle with what Chaotic is, because human society is mostly very Lawful. You've given a lot of examples and words about what you consider a lawful person to be, but what about a chaotic one? Which famous examples from history/fiction would you consider chaotic and why? Which general traits are chaotic?

[Falka]

On a side note, I do think people struggle with what Chaotic is, because human society is mostly very Lawful. You've given a lot of examples and words about what you consider a lawful person to be, but what about a chaotic one? Which famous examples from history/fiction would you consider chaotic and why? Which general traits are chaotic?

It's pretty simple, actually. Chaotic characters do not think tradition is that important. Tradition needs to work. They want to be heard and they set the individual before the community. They think that creativity is more important than method and they prefer to do things on the fly rather than relying on heavy planning. This means that they are often impredictable - and perhaps whimsical, since they tend to think that imposing discipline and living through a strict set of rules an order is bad for the soul and makes people lose what makes them 'different'.

Hence why Elves are Chaotic. Though they also are attracted to the gentler side of chaos - which means they live in communes and anarchy, where every individual is heard and people are supposed to take care of themselves. They don't think rules are necessary since everyone is supposed to be nice to each other anyway (Chaotic Good), so why would we need to write that down?

The other side of the coin for Chaotics is that they are impredictable. They don't think that holding promises, oaths and deals is that important. Loyalty is relative, it depends on the individual's merit to maintain it. They also tend to think that anything goes as long it fosters an end. They abhorr people that try to justify social inequalities based in "rights", since they think people should earn their station anyways. Order feels for them constraining, and they tend to think that authority is never to be trusted since giving power to an organisation tends to strip individuals of their autonomy.

Discipline and ego-denial turns people into robots as it's the complete opposite of creavity and self-expression! (Hence why I will never understand Elf Monks, they would never last long in a monastery :p)

Examples of Chaotic characters? Let's see... The classic example is Robin Hood, obviously. He fights for the poor, he thinks lords are corrupt and that riches are to be shared with everyone. He doesn't believe that station is something to be cherished or maintained (Chaotics usually loathe the concept of 'nobility').

Another famous character who is the quintessence of everything Chaotic Good, in my opinion, is Aragorn. Maybe because he spent most of his time as a lonesome ranger instead of being an uppity noble, but he certainly has all the traits. He isn't judgemental about people, he thinks of every individual as potentially equal. He's a lone wolf. He doesn't value station (he has no qualms in censoring Theoden into protecting his people, even if he's the king of the Rohirrim). He fights for a noble purpose but not because he thinks that he's destined for it or because he wants to build a kingdom, but because he thinks that if nobody else will do it, who will?

Heck, he's supposed to be the next king of Gondor but in the end, he only accepts it because there is no one better for it (and probably because Gondor would be screwed without a proper king). He may turn a little bit into Neutral due to it.

If you go down the ladder and reach CN, those characters just do whatever they feel like doing. Most are bohemians, cynics and just carefree creatures that don't really give a damn for anything and don't think self-restraint is important. Epicureans and seekers of pleasure are usually CN.

Lastly, Chaotic Evil characters just do whatever the hell they want, stepping over somebody's head if necesary. They think might makes right. They don't think holding their word is important at all. They usually enjoy killing for sport and indulging in their pleasures, even if it's at the cost of someone else (the difference between Neutrals is that these don't really intend to hurt anyone and they usually would prefer to not deal with the moral issue if they can avoid it). CE characters are usually fueled by hatred, revenge or any other kind of unsatiable urge. They are not necesarily stupid - just whimsical and prefer to follow their guts instead of their reason.

Archetypes that fit Chaotic characters are usually misfits, rebels, anarchists and those that think communism (CG) is the best political system. CE would prefer anarchy more than anything since that means everything goes.

[Raimun]

And that's why shonen manga heroes don't really make any sense. Everyone who has played a sport or simply studied a discipline knows that talent by itself needs to be backed up by hard training. Most of Goku and Naruto's power-ups and improvements seem half-baked and plucked right from the writer's ass.


Have you ever watched those shows? Both Naruto and Dragon Ball Z feature many training sections in the story. Sure, most of the actual work is off-screen but it's still there. Just like we didn't see every push up Rocky did when he prepared for his championship boxing matches.



That's precisely what I mean. People get the 'Chaotic Monk' reference from characters that lack complete verisimilitude. In a proper story, a character like Goku would become way more disciplined and methodic if he really became a Monk.


RPGs, like tv-series and movies are fictional. If you can imagine it and find a way to implement a Chaotic Monk in the story, you can do just that.



I recommend a novel, 'Siddharta' by Herman Hesse. It doesn't really depict a martial Monk, but what underlies beneath these philosophies. They strive to do the opposite of what Barbarians do: martial arts are a way that oriental philosophers found to control the bestial side of human beings, by channelling it through strict discipline and ego denial. While Barbarians set it free and revel on the ride (hence why a Barbarian should never be Lawful).


Thanks for reminding me. The first barbarian I'll make for 5e will be of Lawful Alignment and it will all make sense.



Monks that say 'screw tradition' and stop valuing discipline cannot progress more in Monk levels. Yes, they don't stop being Monks (they don't lose class features) but they can't take extra Monk levels.

I don't see the problem of just getting a few levels and then becoming a Fighter or something. You can't half all the cake if you're not willing to put some effort into earning it. That's exactly what I did with my best Monk character (for reasons she became NG, so she became a Fighter after getting 6 Monk levels. She broke with tradition and thus, it had consequences).


See, there's no rule in 5e that says Monks who become Chaotic can't take further Monk levels.



Since when Paladins got their powers from 'alignment' itself? They always got it from divine sources, but at the same time, their class follows rigid oaths that cannot be patronised by every god. Hence why not all gods have Paladin orders (because no Paladin would follow a god that defies the Paladin oath). The only exception being Sune, but they state it quite clear that it's because she adores the concept of the romantic shining armor knight and so, she promotes Paladins while not forcing them into following her dogma 100%.


In 3.5 Paladins weren't required to worship any gods. It was purely optional. Instead they heard "a calling" and the power manifests after devoting themselves to the cause of Law and Good. Those two divine sources they got their powers from were impersonal and metaphysical divine forces directly unrelated to gods. Stray from either Law or Good (or both) and you cease to be a Paladin (until you atone). By that definition, the alignment itself is the source of their power.

I mean, what else would power Paladin special abilities? It's divine magic and requires devotion but it's not dispensed by devotion to gods or nature. Therefore, they devote themselves to a cause, a metaphysical force that powers them. That's an actual thing in PHB and not my invention because Clerics can also devote themselves metaphysical forces of Law and Good (among other things) as Clerics of a Cause.

Remember, Alignment in D&D is an actual metaphysical force that can be used to produce measurable effects.



Btw, the alignments you get from reading the oaths (unless you want to twist the interpretations) are:

- Devotion: LG.
- Vengeance: LN (they always strive for greater good and are highly disciplined, even if they do recognise that they value any means for an end and are willing to ignore the lesser evil).
- Ancients: LG / NG (their tradition is quite informal, hence why I would allow NG Paladins that take Ancients)

Yeah, those make perfect sense... among other options. Do note that by RAW they are not the only options this time.

I'm sure that people can make CG Paladins with backstories that will make perfect sense. Just off the top of my head that kind of character could be a Paladin of Freedom.

[Falka]

Geez... I'm not saying you can't do that stuff in 5e. I'm just giving reasons to why it makes little sense, and why you shouldn't. But of course, you can snowflake your character all you want. You want to pretend that you are a knight as a Barbarian? Be my guest.

Still, do not try to sell what's an oddity as a normality. Anything can happen, in theory, if you give it a cheesy backstory. My Sorceress could be the daughter of a dragon. Doesn't mean that I should come up with that background just because she's got dragon bloodline.

It's obvious why they removed the mechanic restriction. It's because restrictions don't sell. They asked the crowd, and there were more people who found alignment restrictions 'boring' than those who prefered them. I'm certainly going to keep it in my games.

[Dienekes]

I'll admit, I've always hated alignment restrictions. Why should a concert pianist need to be chaotic? Have you ever even seen a kung fu movie? There's always that chaotic evil ******* of a villain. And more close to my own personal experiences, in my old high school days I knew a kid. Best lineman on our football team, he was rigorous in practices, refused to swear, one of the handful of guys I knew on the team who never drank or as far as I know did anything illegal, never talked back to the coaches, and was friendly to everyone. If I could give him an alignment he's one of maybe 3 people I know who qualified for Lawful Good. But Hell, in a game, he got angry. Sincerely, even frighteningly pissed off. He'd work himself into a frenzy and completely lay out whoever was in front of him. So, with him in mind, yeah I don't see how a lawful barbarian is really out of the question. Even going by legend the berserkrs could be loyal champions for the laws of the land, comparing them to knights is not really that far off. Honor codes, forms of fealty, dedication to a god. That was all there. You're morals, goals, and intentions are your alignment. Your class is just how you go about working toward those goals. Sure, some are more prone to one alignment or another but to put hard restrictions on things I've seen done in my own life is just weird.

[KillianHawkeye]

Regarding Goku:

We're talking about a character who basically does NOTHING but eat, train, and fight (whether that's fighting the villain of the week or fighting in a friendly competition doesn't matter to him). He is courageous and never backs down even if he might lose. And when the world or the lives of his friends are at stake, he never EVER gives up.

Regardless of whatever alignment you'd ascribe to him, the only way I can imagine anybody saying that Goku is not disciplined is that they have a poor memory or never actually watched the show or read the manga to begin with.

[Forum Explorer]

Geez... I'm not saying you can't do that stuff in 5e. I'm just giving reasons to why it makes little sense, and why you shouldn't. But of course, you can snowflake your character all you want. You want to pretend that you are a knight as a Barbarian? Be my guest.

Still, do not try to sell what's an oddity as a normality. Anything can happen, in theory, if you give it a cheesy backstory. My Sorceress could be the daughter of a dragon. Doesn't mean that I should come up with that background just because she's got dragon bloodline.

It's obvious why they removed the mechanic restriction. It's because restrictions don't sell. They asked the crowd, and there were more people who found alignment restrictions 'boring' than those who prefered them. I'm certainly going to keep it in my games.

Well yeah, most people are going to want their characters to be special. Otherwise why isn't NPC #32123 dealing with the BBEG instead? As long as they can throw out a believable backstory, I don't see why the rules should force their alignment. On a side note, barbarians are much easier to make Lawful then Chaotic. A proud warrior who follows the age old traditions of his tribe, obeys the tenants of his god, and lives in a society of strict social status and rules? Seems to be easily made lawful.


I see the norm as recommendations to the DM. Monks are usually Lawful is good information for the DM to have, so when they set up their monastery it's more realistic. You don't want everything to be an exception.

I'd say they are more stupid then boring. In part because the abilities of the class of my character are only a small part of my character and why should a major part of my character (alignment) be dictated by the that small part? Like if I wanted to make my character a street fighter, I'd likely look to monk, because I'd think it's abilities would likely more accurately represent what a street fighter would be like, but the character isn't a monk, just uses monk abilities.

Of course it's your prerogative to run your games as you like. I prefer for alignment to be cut out altogether. That is, they design their backstory, their personality, and choose their actions in game, and then I discuss with them what alignment I think they've chosen for purposes of spells and other features.


(On a side note I'm surprised that you felt Communism was a chaotic society. I'd think ultra-capitalism (where government doesn't interfere with business at all) is a much more chaotic ideal then everything being controlled by the state.)

[hawklost]

......

Of course it's your prerogative to run your games as you like. I prefer for alignment to be cut out altogether. That is, they design their backstory, their personality, and choose their actions in game, and then I discuss with them what alignment I think they've chosen for purposes of spells and other features.


(On a side note I'm surprised that you felt Communism was a chaotic society. I'd think ultra-capitalism (where government doesn't interfere with business at all) is a much more chaotic ideal then everything being controlled by the state.)

You do realize that Alignment is effectively cut out. Nothing has a pre-set alignment in 5e. There are recommendation and there are guidelines for what NPCs normally are but a PC is different. Just like Races might say "X is generally Y Alignment" this does not mean the PC is that alignment, just that the race is generally that alignment. Even the ability to detect someones alignment has been removed from the game. Alignments in 5e are general guidelines for how your PC and NPCs see the world, not something you are forced into. You can pick your alignment before, during or after any part of your character creation without any negative effect, you can change it over time because your PC has grown in the world and still not have negative effects.

The only class that has the effective alignment restriction is the Paladin, and even he can loosely interpret his codes to be almost anything (I have yet to figure out how he could be CE, but otherwise anything).

[Forum Explorer]

You do realize that Alignment is effectively cut out. Nothing has a pre-set alignment in 5e. There are recommendation and there are guidelines for what NPCs normally are but a PC is different. Just like Races might say "X is generally Y Alignment" this does not mean the PC is that alignment, just that the race is generally that alignment. Even the ability to detect someones alignment has been removed from the game. Alignments in 5e are general guidelines for how your PC and NPCs see the world, not something you are forced into. You can pick your alignment before, during or after any part of your character creation without any negative effect, you can change it over time because your PC has grown in the world and still not have negative effects.

The only class that has the effective alignment restriction is the Paladin, and even he can loosely interpret his codes to be almost anything (I have yet to figure out how he could be CE, but otherwise anything).

I haven't gotten the book yet, so no I wasn't aware that it was completely cut out. It's good, that's pretty much exactly what I want.

[Malifice]

Paladins are not required to be good, but the Oaths are unlikely to appeal to an Evil character. It works out.

My evil Paladin defines 'the LG Church of Torm' as the 'Greater Evil' that needs to be stopped.

Its a question of perspective.

[Malifice]

Sorry, but Chaotic Neutrals are completely against discipline. That doesn't mean that they can't be good at something - it's just that they are usually disorganised, independent and improvise rather than sticking to a method.

I disagree. Look at a classic movie example of CN; Brad Pitts Achillies in Troy.

Very disciplined when it comes to training for war. Drills and trains all day to be the best he can be. The best in history in fact.

But he sleeps in drunk on the morning of a battle, tells Agamemnon where to go when he doesnt get what he wants, breaks ranks to get to the front of the conflict and be the first boat to land, fraternises with the enemy, pulls his forces out of the battle out of spite etc.

He fights... for his own reasons. Like Agamemnon says; 'Can he be controlled?'

So many good examples of alignments in that movie. I use it as a guide for my PC's. Hector is depicted as LG. Paris CG. Odysseus as LN and Agammemnon as LE.


Yes, I believe that a Rogue or a Bard can be Lawful. Doesn't mean I think it's likely. Artemis Entreri is a trained assasin and he is Lawful Evil (because he's methodic and values self discipline above anything else).

I can clearly see an argument for a LE Rogue.

LE people are often either tyrants, or peeps who live according to a twisted moral code.

I can think of many Rogue archetypes that fit this model; many criminal orginisations have a strict heirarchy and enforce a reasonably strict code for members (Mafia, Yakuza etc).

[Malifice]

I do not think that any monastery would take anyone that recurrs to arbitrary violence and is spurred by their most lowly passions (greed, hatred and bloodlust).

Yet the Monk who does just this, is a common fantasy trope.

See Tong Po in Kickboxer for an example.

Also for an equivalent from a different genre, see the Sith order in Star Wars. Remember both the Jedi and Sith were losely based on Eastern martial arts and Zen concepts.

Theyre all about following your base passions and giving into hatred, fear and anger. They believe it makes them better warriors, and more skilled and better able to channel the Force.

Its certainly not a stretch to extend that philosophy to a DandD Monk.

[Dienekes]

I disagree. Look at a classic movie example of CN; Brad Pitts Achillies in Troy.

Very disciplined when it comes to training for war. Drills and trains all day to be the best he can be. The best in history in fact.

But he sleeps in drunk on the morning of a battle, tells Agamemnon where to go when he doesnt get what he wants, breaks ranks to get to the front of the conflict and be the first boat to land, fraternises with the enemy, pulls his forces out of the battle out of spite etc.

He fights... for his own reasons. Like Agamemnon says; 'Can he be controlled?'

So many good examples of alignments in that movie. I use it as a guide for my PC's. Hector is depicted as LG. Paris CG. Odysseus as LN and Agammemnon as LE.


Puh, Paris was a whinny nobody who seduced his hosts wife and stole her away and then did nothing of any importance good or bad for the rest of the epic. He's neutral at best. Odysseus as well did nothing so much lawful so much as valuing his own self preservation and knowing just not to mess with Agamemnon.

Though thank you for reminding me of one of the best LG barbarians in fiction (or myth I guess would be a more accurate term). Ajax the Greater, gets moody and flies into unstoppable rages? Check. Honorable? Check. Honest? Check. Good guy? Treats everyone well, making his slaves seem like friends. Treated his slave mistress as one would their wife and depending on the version of events planned to just marry her when the war was over. Follows his word? So honest and honor bound that Odysseus (who I must point out is a complete *******) mocks him for it. Dedicated? His skill with the spear and sword is the stuff of legends. He was regarded as the second greatest warrior on the Greek side. He tied Hector in a duel, and fought off the entire Trojan army at one point, and was just about the only character who was not receiving divine help at some point or another. Of everyone in the Illiad and the surrounding works he's just about the only character that comes out of it not looking like a piece of crap. Totally Lawful Good, and definitely a Barbarian.

Also, it's generally considered good form to edit one post rather than to repeatedly post after yourself when you have a new thought, unless a significant amount of time took place between your two posts. This isn't a bannable offense of course, it's just generally considered the etiquette around here.

[Malifice]

Puh, Paris was a whinny nobody who seduced his hosts wife and stole her away and then did nothing of any importance good or bad for the rest of the epic. He's neutral at best. Odysseus as well did nothing so much lawful so much as valuing his own self preservation and knowing just not to mess with Agamemnon.

He tried to live up to his brothers altruism though. He just lacked the same honor and strength in his convictions to see it through (the duel, running away with Helen etc).


Also, it's generally considered good form to edit one post rather than to repeatedly post after yourself when you have a new thought, unless a significant amount of time took place between your two posts. This isn't a bannable offense of course, it's just generally considered the etiquette around here.

I know. Not my first forum mate. Sometimes you have other **** on.

[Sartharina]

He tried to live up to his brothers altruism though. He just lacked the same honor and strength in his convictions to see it through (the duel, running away with Helen etc).That's one of the textbook definitions of Neutral.

[Malifice]

That's one of the textbook definitions of Neutral.

Maybe.

But I also see N characters as striding the fence between altruism and immorality.

Paris actively tried to be altruistic and never did anything that could be defined as evil (or even close to it).

Im not saying that N charactes swing between the two; just that they live in a grey area in the middle. You could argue that Paris was N but trying to live up to his brothers ideals (i.e. change alignment) and failed.

Each to their own I guess. There is no 'objective' evil or good, so its really a player and GM call.

[Raimun]

Geez... I'm not saying you can't do that stuff in 5e. I'm just giving reasons to why it makes little sense, and why you shouldn't. But of course, you can snowflake your character all you want. You want to pretend that you are a knight as a Barbarian? Be my guest.


Yeah, well, I prefer special snowflakes to cliche storms. I'm weird like that because I don't like to use cookie cutters when I design my characters.

And as mentioned above, a barbarian or berserker could be Lawful Good, without being a knight.

...Then again, a LG Barbarian Knight does sound like a fun concept. Perhaps he just happened to lead a Lawful Good life, fought valiantly in a battle at some point and was knighted because of that? Man, I've got to write all this down. I can even make that character with 5e rules.



Still, do not try to sell what's an oddity as a normality. Anything can happen, in theory, if you give it a cheesy backstory. My Sorceress could be the daughter of a dragon. Doesn't mean that I should come up with that background just because she's got dragon bloodline.


I merely suggested that a player character class should have the room to choose. If anything, a player character is an oddity and not a normal citizen... unless the player wants to play a normal citizen.

It's just that literally every player character backstory I've ever read (or written) has been about a remarkable individual who could not be replaced by some other member of the same class. Most fictional heroes of heroic fantasy are far from ordinary or typical... at least those are that I remember.

"Typical" heroes are usually for the one shots where no one really feels like investing that much time for a single use character or everyone is stuck using pre-generated characters that aren't usually that original.

[Dienekes]

Yeah, well, I prefer special snowflakes to cliche storms. I'm weird like that because I don't like to use cookie cutters when I design my characters.

And as mentioned above, a barbarian or berserker could be Lawful Good, without being a knight.

...Then again, a LG Barbarian Knight does sound like a fun concept. Perhaps he just happened to lead a Lawful Good life, fought valiantly in a battle at some point and was knighted because of that? Man, I've got to write all this down. I can even make that character with 5e rules.

Psst, Sandor Clegane. Though technically never knighted, and multiclassed fighter for the proficiencies. Gets whole unstoppable anger when he fights. Always follows orders and never breaks his word. Except once, but that was when he failed his Will Save against his phobia.

[LordVonDerp]

And that's why shonen manga heroes don't really make any sense. Everyone who has played a sport or simply studied a discipline knows that talent by itself needs to be backed up by hard training. Most of Goku and Naruto's power-ups and improvements seem half-baked and plucked right from the writer's ass.

That's precisely what I mean. People get the 'Chaotic Monk' reference from characters that lack complete verisimilitude. In a proper story, a character like Goku would become way more disciplined and methodic if he really became a Monk.

I recommend a novel, 'Siddharta' by Herman Hesse. It doesn't really depict a martial Monk, but what underlies beneath these philosophies. They strive to do the opposite of what Barbarians do: martial arts are a way that oriental philosophers found to control the bestial side of human beings, by channelling it through strict discipline and ego denial. While Barbarians set it free and revel on the ride (hence why a Barbarian should never be Lawful).



That Monk can be Lawful Good just fine. Being disciplined has worked for him so far, and it led him to believe that order is important in one's life. If the dojo master ends up being LE, then he can try to clean the dojo's name and show people that his are the correct ways.

See here, just like the Paladin that opposes the baron: the character doesn't need to stop being Lawful to fight Evil. You only turn into Chaotic if you stop valuing Lawful values. It's not about respecting the local authorities (Lawful Goods still fight against unfair laws).

Heck, I can't see Batman as other thing that isn't Lawful Neutral. He is extremely disciplined, he has a set goal (fight Gotham's crime and return it to its citizens). He believes that promoting order and fighting Chaos is important and he is strictly methodic. He doesn't pull half assed tricks or improvise, to see how 'things go' (he completely abhorrs the concepts of collateral damage, which a Chaotic wouldn't mind at all).

Just because he is doing an illegal thing doesn't make him Chaotic. Again, going against the local law doesn't mean you are Chaotic.



Monks that say 'screw tradition' and stop valuing discipline cannot progress more in Monk levels. Yes, they don't stop being Monks (they don't lose class features) but they can't take extra Monk levels.

I don't see the problem of just getting a few levels and then becoming a Fighter or something. You can't half all the cake if you're not willing to put some effort into earning it. That's exactly what I did with my best Monk character (for reasons she became NG, so she became a Fighter after getting 6 Monk levels. She broke with tradition and thus, it had consequences).



Since when Paladins got their powers from 'alignment' itself? They always got it from divine sources, but at the same time, their class follows rigid oaths that cannot be patronised by every god. Hence why not all gods have Paladin orders (because no Paladin would follow a god that defies the Paladin oath). The only exception being Sune, but they state it quite clear that it's because she adores the concept of the romantic shining armor knight and so, she promotes Paladins while not forcing them into following her dogma 100%.

Btw, the alignments you get from reading the oaths (unless you want to twist the interpretations) are:

- Devotion: LG.
- Vengeance: LN (they always strive for greater good and are highly disciplined, even if they do recognise that they value any means for an end and are willing to ignore the lesser evil).
- Ancients: LG / NG (their tradition is quite informal, hence why I would allow NG Paladins that take Ancients)

I recommend watching season 3 of Legend of Korra, two of the major characters in that season are chaotic monks. One of them is the highly disciplined and philosophical leader of a group of anarchists and the second is a young orphan thief who was at one point adopted only to rob his new parents blind and run away. It probably helps that two of the core philosophies of the air nomads are freedom and detachment from the world.

If you want to see an undisciplined lawful good monk watch Avatar: The Last Airbender (the cartoon, not the movie), Aang is rather undisciplined yet at times manages to border on lawful stupid.


EDIT: oh, and if you think being a dual class monk/barbarian would be wierd, you should read up on the Order of Righteoua and Harmonious Fists, also known as the people behind the Boxer Rebellion.

[Sartharina]

It's pretty simple, actually. Chaotic characters do not think tradition is that important. Tradition needs to work. They want to be heard and they set the individual before the community. They think that creativity is more important than method and they prefer to do things on the fly rather than relying on heavy planning. This means that they are often impredictable - and perhaps whimsical, since they tend to think that imposing discipline and living through a strict set of rules an order is bad for the soul and makes people lose what makes them 'different'.

Hence why Elves are Chaotic. Though they also are attracted to the gentler side of chaos - which means they live in communes and anarchy, where every individual is heard and people are supposed to take care of themselves. They don't think rules are necessary since everyone is supposed to be nice to each other anyway (Chaotic Good), so why would we need to write that down?

The other side of the coin for Chaotics is that they are impredictable. They don't think that holding promises, oaths and deals is that important. Loyalty is relative, it depends on the individual's merit to maintain it. They also tend to think that anything goes as long it fosters an end. They abhorr people that try to justify social inequalities based in "rights", since they think people should earn their station anyways. Order feels for them constraining, and they tend to think that authority is never to be trusted since giving power to an organisation tends to strip individuals of their autonomy.

Discipline and ego-denial turns people into robots as it's the complete opposite of creavity and self-expression! (Hence why I will never understand Elf Monks, they would never last long in a monastery :p)

Examples of Chaotic characters? Let's see... The classic example is Robin Hood, obviously. He fights for the poor, he thinks lords are corrupt and that riches are to be shared with everyone. He doesn't believe that station is something to be cherished or maintained (Chaotics usually loathe the concept of 'nobility').

Another famous character who is the quintessence of everything Chaotic Good, in my opinion, is Aragorn. Maybe because he spent most of his time as a lonesome ranger instead of being an uppity noble, but he certainly has all the traits. He isn't judgemental about people, he thinks of every individual as potentially equal. He's a lone wolf. He doesn't value station (he has no qualms in censoring Theoden into protecting his people, even if he's the king of the Rohirrim). He fights for a noble purpose but not because he thinks that he's destined for it or because he wants to build a kingdom, but because he thinks that if nobody else will do it, who will?

Heck, he's supposed to be the next king of Gondor but in the end, he only accepts it because there is no one better for it (and probably because Gondor would be screwed without a proper king). He may turn a little bit into Neutral due to it.

If you go down the ladder and reach CN, those characters just do whatever they feel like doing. Most are bohemians, cynics and just carefree creatures that don't really give a damn for anything and don't think self-restraint is important. Epicureans and seekers of pleasure are usually CN.

Lastly, Chaotic Evil characters just do whatever the hell they want, stepping over somebody's head if necesary. They think might makes right. They don't think holding their word is important at all. They usually enjoy killing for sport and indulging in their pleasures, even if it's at the cost of someone else (the difference between Neutrals is that these don't really intend to hurt anyone and they usually would prefer to not deal with the moral issue if they can avoid it). CE characters are usually fueled by hatred, revenge or any other kind of unsatiable urge. They are not necesarily stupid - just whimsical and prefer to follow their guts instead of their reason.

Archetypes that fit Chaotic characters are usually misfits, rebels, anarchists and those that think communism (CG) is the best political system. CE would prefer anarchy more than anything since that means everything goes.

You grossly overestimate the lawfulness of some 'monastic orders' (Read - anywhere that trains people with Kung Fu). Saying they'd all be Lawful is like saying all Churches would be lawful. Instead, with the four alignments, it's not implausible for there to be monastic orders dedicated to understanding all nine combinations. You have your 'stereotypical' monastery that pumps out cookie-cutter Lawful monks... but you might also have lots of smaller martial-arts communes around that focus on tailoring people to their individual strengths and personalities, and exploring personal expression. After all - chaotic does not mean incompetent slob. Others would be people who train themselves or someone else. I wouldn't consider Splinter or Miyagi's pupils (Or Miyagi himself) to be "Lawful", even though they're definitely Monks.

[Talakeal]

The problem with lawful is of course that it encompasses so many different things, many of which are mutually exclusive.

Logic, honor, obedience, respect for civilization, inflexibility, discipline, adherence to tradition, etc. It is easy to imagine a character who embodies some of these concepts while opposing others.

My favorite example is a character who is extremely logical and efficient. Totally ordered in his thinking, and nearly as emotionless as a Vulcan. He has little time for tradition or honor, considering them merely pointless superstition, and prefers to discard them entirely. He sees laws only as tools for keeping society running smoothly and efficiently and considers them important, but would not think twice about breaking them when they get in the way of his goals.

Such a character is simultaneously extremely chaotic and extremely lawful, and is very hard to place in D&D, but I don't see any reason why he couldn't be a monk.

[Arzanyos]

Also, to give another example of a chaotic monk: Tai Lung from Kung Fu Panda. And also Po. Tai Lung is extremely disciplined, able to become the best of Master Shifu's students, but was still chaotic evil, because at his core he was all selfish and bloodthirsty.

[obryn]

D&D alignment causes brain damage. Real people - and well-written fictional ones - do not fit into one of 9 distinct boxes, which is what leads directly to these debates.

Use it for extraplanar beings, sure, but people aren't tidy like that.

[zephirum]

Alignment restrictions to classes are ultimately bad for the game. They make a certain amount of character concepts and idea's invalid and that just sucks.

Arguments for alignment restrictions are based more on interpretation of a title to a class then on either good roleplay or mechanical balance.
Having alignment restrictions is a net loss of player agency and creativity.
I don't see any loss to removing them then some people complaining that the system no longer matches their specific interpretation and vision of what a word means. Its all fluff text that doesn't matter, let it go.

3.x had powers and abilities in the classes that also had specific alignment properties, (ki strike/smite evil) with those in the game alignment restrictions made sense. In 5e there is nothing in the paladin mechanics that isn't as effective against an angel as a demon. If I wanted to play a Blackguard/Shadow Knight/Death Knight character I can just write Paladin on the character sheet and ignore the fluff text. Since everything would be mechanically the same. I don't need some other #$%@in' prestige class or template or supplement cause it works just fine as it is with re-fluff.

I want to play a character who values quickness of hand and mind and cleverness. uses cunning and deception and favors quick precise strikes in combat. uses a quarterstaff as preferred weapon and uses dexterity in combat. I envision him as a trickster type with a glint of mischief his eye and a willingness to slit his enemies throats if given half a chance. I like having shadow themed powers and always wanted the shadow dancer power set to meld in shadows and have short range teleport. The thing I write on my character sheet is monk, way of shadows, chaotic/neutral. Do I think of my character as a monk? not for a moment I think of him as pirate who got thrown overboard by his crew washed up at some shadow cult recuperated there learned a couple of tricks and then stole/hijacked the ritual the imbues their members with elemental shadow. The word monk written on my sheet really has not a thing to do with my character it just denotes what package of mechanics give my character the abilities I want to roll with. if the monk class can only work as lawful from a shaolin monestary then it doesn't make much sense without the acolyte background either and is a bit of a racist stereotype since their is a larger tradition of prayer and study and beer brewing attached to the word monk than their is martial arts traditions. I do not want to play a monk. but the character I do want to play has pretty damn close to the same mechanics anyway. Fluff shouldn't restrict mechanics. its just dumb to have it do so. My characters alignment and personality and character is almost entirely from background. Class is just a pile of mechanical abilities.

you could say the character has special snowflake syndrome.... but my response would be that playing the character I want to play is pretty much the entire point of the game. Doing so probably results in a lot of awful mary sue poorly made characters, but every character who is well written and awesome also happens to be a M'F'ing snowflake. All the paladins out there with lawful good alignment with oath of devotion and noble/knight background probably aren't the one worth telling a story about. sure some of em are, but most of them are only good enough for npc status.

[obryn]

This whole "snowflake" thing is just so much groggy nonsense.

First, it presupposes knowledge of earlier editions. There's nothing special about a chaotic monk in 5e, since there's no alignment restrictions. A Lawful barbarian is no kind of snowflake because - again - there's no alignment restrictions in 5e.

Second, the PCs are, by definition, unique and important individuals by virtue of being actively played by the players. Pretend they're just normal NPCs all you like, it'll never be true.

13th Age has the awesome "One Unique Thing" for all PCs. It encodes their uniqueness into the game's assumptions. And somehow the game doesn't break.

[Gnomes2169]

Honestly, NG or LN are probably the easiest alignments to make a well rounded, or at the very least consistent, paladin out of (other than maaaaybe LE or NE... But we won't talk about those here). Heck, they might just be the easiest ones to use for any given character.

NG is basically the "do good" alignment. They are the people who do not go out of their way to break laws, but they do not have any moral dilemas if they are forced to do so. Their cause is the propagation of what they believe is right and proper, nothing else matters. At their best they are the most likely people to invoke the tropes "The Pacifist (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BadassPacifist)", "Good is not Soft (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoodisnotSoft)" and "The Hero (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheHero)", while at their worst they can invoke the occasional, "What the hell hero? (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Whatthehellhero)", "Good is not Nice (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoodIsNotNice)" and "Exalted Torturer (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ExaltedTorturer)", though usually only to try and prove a point. (Note: I will be linking those tropes when I get access to my computer. You have been warned. :P) It captures both the quiet law abiding citizen who is wiling to do anything to protect his home and family, and the tormented outcast who wants nothing more than to be accepted and have a home to call their own. Specific characters from literature would be heroes such as Iron man and Spider man from the DC universe, Richard Rahl and Zeddicus Zul Zurrandor from the Sword of Truth series and Perrin Aibarra from the Wheel of Time.

Lawful Neutral, on the other hand, is a fantastic starting block for a character that you aren't quite sure about. A character who, while he or she still has their own beliefs that might not be 100% in line with all laws everywhere, does their best to obey the law and live an ordered life style. Now, I call this a starting point because, while being Judge Dredd is fun and all, it also makes for a shockingly boring and one dimensional character if the character does not develop beyond just being 100% law. Being lawful does not mean that the character cannot be interesting, after all, and the player should decide if their avatar is more selfish, selfless or truly a mix of the two as they continue to play. The mist common trope for this alignment is "The Lawman" (No link on TV tropes), but it also tends to devolve into "Judge Dredd (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/JudgeDredd)" or "Exalted Torturer (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ExaltedTorturer)" on occasion when taken to the extremes. Examples in literature would be characters such as Judge Dredd (who saw that coming? :P), Sandor Cleagan and Stannis Barathion from the A Song of Ice and Fire series and... I'm actually not able to think of anyone else. XD

Of course, any alignment can be a valid option, and you could justify any kind of paladin. CG? Champion of Freedom. TN? Champion of Balance. CN? The arrogant Campion of a deity's Glory. LE? Tyrant for a god. NE? Servant of the Abyss. CE? Ahahahahaha Bane.

Monks are actually rather easy to justify as well, since really, they are just rather fancy karate and their little knives. We have guns! But more seriously, V from V for Vendetta would be a CG monk. Willing to die for his cause and obviously disciplined, but so far outside of the law and society that he cannot be seen as remotely lawful.

All in all, I'm happy to see alignment restrictions go poof... Just like I enjoy the absence of BAB. It's just a way to restrict ideas unnecessarily to the point where you need special permission and a game system rewrite (however minor) to let a player play their idea. >_>

[pwykersotz]

Honestly, NG or LN are probably the easiest alignments to make a well rounded, or at the very least consistent, paladin out of (other than maaaaybe LE or NE... But we won't talk about those here). Heck, they might just be the easiest ones to use for any given character.

NG is basically the "do good" alignment. They are the people who do not go out of their way to break laws, but they do not have any moral dilemas if they are forced to do so. Their cause is the propagation of what they believe is right and proper, nothing else matters. At their best they are the most likely people to invoke the tropes "The Pacifist (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BadassPacifist)", "Good is not Soft (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoodisnotSoft)" and "The Hero (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheHero)", while at their worst they can invoke the occasional, "What the hell hero? (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Whatthehellhero)", "Good is not Nice (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoodIsNotNice)" and "Exalted Torturer (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ExaltedTorturer)", though usually only to try and prove a point. (Note: I will be linking those tropes when I get access to my computer. You have been warned. :P) It captures both the quiet law abiding citizen who is wiling to do anything to protect his home and family, and the tormented outcast who wants nothing more than to be accepted and have a home to call their own. Specific characters from literature would be heroes such as Iron man and Spider man from the DC universe, Richard Rahl and Zeddicus Zul Zurrandor from the Sword of Truth series and Perrin Aibarra from the Wheel of Time.

Lawful Neutral, on the other hand, is a fantastic starting block for a character that you aren't quite sure about. A character who, while he or she still has their own beliefs that might not be 100% in line with all laws everywhere, does their best to obey the law and live an ordered life style. Now, I call this a starting point because, while being Judge Dredd is fun and all, it also makes for a shockingly boring and one dimensional character if the character does not develop beyond just being 100% law. Being lawful does not mean that the character cannot be interesting, after all, and the player should decide if their avatar is more selfish, selfless or truly a mix of the two as they continue to play. The mist common trope for this alignment is "The Lawman" (No link on TV tropes), but it also tends to devolve into "Judge Dredd (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/JudgeDredd)" or "Exalted Torturer (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ExaltedTorturer)" on occasion when taken to the extremes. Examples in literature would be characters such as Judge Dredd (who saw that coming? :P), Sandor Cleagan and Stannis Barathion from the A Song of Ice and Fire series and... I'm actually not able to think of anyone else. XD

Of course, any alignment can be a valid option, and you could justify any kind of paladin. CG? Champion of Freedom. TN? Champion of Balance. CN? The arrogant Campion of a deity's Glory. LE? Tyrant for a god. NE? Servant of the Abyss. CE? Ahahahahaha Bane.

Monks are actually rather easy to justify as well, since really, they are just rather fancy karate and their little knives. We have guns! But more seriously, V from V for Vendetta would be a CG monk. Willing to die for his cause and obviously disciplined, but so far outside of the law and society that he cannot be seen as remotely lawful.

All in all, I'm happy to see alignment restrictions go poof... Just like I enjoy the absence of BAB. It's just a way to restrict ideas unnecessarily to the point where you need special permission and a game system rewrite (however minor) to let a player play their idea. >_>

All those tvtropes links...you're a monster. :smalleek:

[Gnomes2169]

All those tvtropes links...you're a monster. :smalleek:

I shall waste all of your time! Buahahahahaaaaaa!

[Falka]

D&D alignment causes brain damage. Real people - and well-written fictional ones - do not fit into one of 9 distinct boxes, which is what leads directly to these debates.

But we're not writing novels, we're playing in a fantasy RP game that is usually black and white. Evil people are super evil, Good people are super good and righteous. That's why alignments are set: they give a quick sketch of the character's ideals. When I read a character that is CN, I quickly get an idea of which things I can expect of him. I do not need to read 3 pages of his shady and edgy past.

If I want to play in a world filled with shades of gray, I will pick another game. D&D has been never good with that.


This whole "snowflake" thing is just so much groggy nonsense.

First, it presupposes knowledge of earlier editions. There's nothing special about a chaotic monk in 5e, since there's no alignment restrictions. A Lawful barbarian is no kind of snowflake because - again - there's no alignment restrictions in 5e.

Second, the PCs are, by definition, unique and important individuals by virtue of being actively played by the players. Pretend they're just normal NPCs all you like, it'll never be true.

13th Age has the awesome "One Unique Thing" for all PCs. It encodes their uniqueness into the game's assumptions. And somehow the game doesn't break.

Again, that there are no mechanic restrictions doesn't mean that "every option is equally valid and easy to justify".

If alignments do not matter at all, why even write them down? If the PHB suggests alignments for races and classes, this probably means that characters that follow these classes and are part of these races must think of a good backstory to set themselves "apart from the flock". Usually people tend to follow the culture that they are part of and need exceptional circunstances to justify an exceptional mentality.

Regarding uniqueness: PCs are unique individuals because they get class levels, unlike most of the filthy peasants of the world. They are allowed to progress and achieve levels of mastery that isn't achievable for the vast majority. That's about it. It doesn't mean "PCs should be weird and fight the archetype." Playing an 'anti-class' doesn't necesarily give the character more depth if you don't balance it properly - if anything, it turns him/her into a running joke-. Yeah, I guess that a Lawful Bard who is played like Iñigo Montoya can be fun. Adding him dragon blood, fey blood, a devilish tattoo, a vice for drinkining, two laser katanas and kung-fun proficiency turns him into a joke.

Or for instance, if you want to play something that hits like a Monk, works like a Monk and uses Monk's mechanics... Don't tell me he's a tavern brawler, just pick the feat and suck on the limitations for not getting proper training. There is a minimum fluff that you should take in account when playing a class, since it has mechanics to match the fluff. Likewise, if you play a Barbarian, I expect a character to have some degree of emotion and at least, to some extent, be an outlander, someone more in tune with the bestial side of his nature rather than being a hoplite. Not a circus clown.

Another example: Tieflings, half-elves, Dragonborns and the like are supposed to be exotic (which means they are not common). You have a weirdness factor there. Okay, now you want to add also the Monk class to the Dragonborn (uuuh, okay). Oh, but he's also a worshipper of Bahamut that is CN (yeah... right). See where I'm going? This is fine if you're just writing a cheap shonen manga because these stories usually rely on pseudodepth backgrounds that just want to make up for cool-factor fights and action-filled plots. Doesn't mean it's not cheesy.

You can easily make complex characters without fighting the archetype they are supposed to fit. A LN Fighter with a Soldier background can be a samurai, a Classic Roman strategist, a knight, a duelist adept in fencing, an ex-infrantry soldier who is rigid and has some drinking problems, yet remains loyal to his country... etc.

Actually I find playing archetypes more fun, and I develop my characters more and more as I RP with them and fill the gaps with their experiences. What fun there is in starting at level 1 with a cheesy past about betrayal and blood stains in your hands?

[Dienekes]

Well, first of all you dismiss backgrounds that run counter to your idea of what a class should be by suddenly comparing them to min-maxing a bunch of half races that no one even once brought up. Your reducing the argument to the absurd to simply make your point easier to argue. Don't do that.

Secondly, we've given numerous examples of characters that fall outside your set up alignment/class restrictions and they are not at all from "cheap shonen manga." I've brought up A Song of Ice and Fire, and even the Iliad, along with examples from my own life. Others have brought up some great examples as well. I think the only manga that was brought up was DBZ, which was more a response that you didn't know the character that you were complaining about in the slightest.

We've also tried to show that your concept of disciplined = lawful is bogus (how the hell would a bard ever learn an instrument if not discipline? Even the most natural born musician in recorded history, Mozart, practiced his craft continuously)

And thirdly, we've never once said that you can't have great characters that fit your alignment restrictions. You can have great characters in whatever alignment in whatever class. One of my favorite characters I've ever played was a Lawful Good Cavalier. But that doesn't mean you can't also make a great character by going against the grain. As someone above me said. People are complex, we don't fit into neat little boxes of what we can and can't do. Many focus on one thing with supreme dedication while dealing with the rest of their life in a completely half-hazard manner. People are complex, and can make fantastic characters. It's a shame you're leaving out some of that potential complexity in your games as, as far as I've found, letting your players go create what they want can allow them to be creative in ways I could never imagine. Sure, they could potentially try to cheese a bunch of stats into the build, but taking them aside and telling them not to be an ass has always been enough for me to get them in line.

[Sartharina]

But we're not writing novels, we're playing in a fantasy RP game that is usually black and white. Evil people are super evil, Good people are super good and righteous. That's why alignments are set: they give a quick sketch of the character's ideals. When I read a character that is CN, I quickly get an idea of which things I can expect of him. I do not need to read 3 pages of his shady and edgy past.

If I want to play in a world filled with shades of gray, I will pick another game. D&D has been never good with that.Only for you, apparently. Millions of others have absolutely NO problem playing D&D as a game filled with shades of Grey, and alignment just says where the hell people fall on sides in a massive, eternal cosmic war for souls. And you have NO idea what you can expect from a CN character.




Again, that there are no mechanic restrictions doesn't mean that "every option is equally valid and easy to justify".Yeah it does


If alignments do not matter at all, why even write them down? If the PHB suggests alignments for races and classes, this probably means that characters that follow these classes and are part of these races must think of a good backstory to set themselves "apart from the flock". Usually people tend to follow the culture that they are part of and need exceptional circunstances to justify an exceptional mentality.I'm sorry, but I do not need to have exceptional circumstances to justify myself as a Female Black Catholic Republican Stripper-turned-Machinist from New England.


Regarding uniqueness: PCs are unique individuals because they get class levels, unlike most of the filthy peasants of the world. They are allowed to progress and achieve levels of mastery that isn't achievable for the vast majority. That's about it. It doesn't mean "PCs should be weird and fight the archetype." Playing an 'anti-class' doesn't necesarily give the character more depth if you don't balance it properly - if anything, it turns him/her into a running joke-. Yeah, I guess that a Lawful Bard who is played like Iñigo Montoya can be fun. Adding him dragon blood, fey blood, a devilish tattoo, a vice for drinkining, two laser katanas and kung-fun proficiency turns him into a joke.Except we're not fighting any archetypes here. We're going along with archetypes that were arbitrarily banned in previous editions, even though they shouldn't have been.


Another example: Tieflings, half-elves, Dragonborns and the like are supposed to be exotic (which means they are not common). You have a weirdness factor there. Okay, now you want to add also the Monk class to the Dragonborn (uuuh, okay). Oh, but he's also a worshipper of Bahamut that is CN (yeah... right). See where I'm going? This is fine if you're just writing a cheap shonen manga because these stories usually rely on pseudodepth backgrounds that just want to make up for cool-factor fights and action-filled plots. Doesn't mean it's not cheesy.There's nothing absurd about Dragonborn Monks, at least not in 4e. Ancient cultures have ancient traditions. There's nothing wrong with him being a worshipper of Bahamut - it's either him or Tiamat, and Tiamat's more Evil than Chaotic. And for him being CN - He's a Dragon Warrior, who seeks/has attained enlightenment through recognition that individual perfection can only be achieved by exploring, understanding, and perfecting the individual, not trying to conform to someone else's standards and beliefs. (Think the Master Builders from The Lego Movie - particularly Vitruvius - or Po from Kung Fu Panda). Or, maybe he's Rocky Balboa. (And don't say Rocky's not a Monk. Boxing is a martial art just as sophisticated as any Eastern tradition)

[Falka]

Well, first of all you dismiss backgrounds that run counter to your idea of what a class should be by suddenly comparing them to min-maxing a bunch of half races that no one even once brought up. Your reducing the argument to the absurd to simply make your point easier to argue. Don't do that.

I have never dismissed backgrounds. Don't read my post as you want. I said, quoting myself, that some backgrounds are harder to explain than others. If you play anti-class characters, or even anti-race (good aligned Drow), I expect a stronger backstory than average. And if you keep adding singularities to the character to make it even more special (hey, he's not just a good aligned Drow, he's a good aligned ninja Drow!), it just makes harder for me to think about the character seriously. I'm not even adressing min-maxing issues, but how some things taken to an extreme ruin suspension of disbelief.


Secondly, we've given numerous examples of characters that fall outside your set up alignment/class restrictions and they are not at all from "cheap shonen manga." I've brought up A Song of Ice and Fire, and even the Iliad, along with examples from my own life. Others have brought up some great examples as well. I think the only manga that was brought up was DBZ, which was more a response that you didn't know the character that you were complaining about in the slightest.

I've read quotes from Naruto, Ninja Turtles, DBZ... Also from cheesy kung-fu movies that are fun for what they are, imo, but they do not depict what I would actually think of an accurate description for monks. You are allowed to digress from my point of view. After, all, I'm just giving my opinion.

I know little of Song of Fire, and I do not think your Illiad examples are far-fetched. That doesn't mean, however, they are likely to happen (which is again my point, you are trying to sell normality out of Greek heroes).


We've also tried to show that your concept of disciplined = lawful is bogus (how the hell would a bard ever learn an instrument if not discipline? Even the most natural born musician in recorded history, Mozart, practiced his craft continuously)

Why is it bogus? Is it so far-fetched to consider that maybe a character that values tradition and order be more disciplined that some other who thinks otherwise? Again, you try to counter-argument normality with exceptions. How many musicians were as good as Mozart? Not everyone is born with an outstanding talent. Actually, even talent many times needs to be perfected and honed through an orderly life.

Can you be a genius music composer who has written 200 scripts while being Chaotic? Yes, you can. Which are the odds, and how much fiat do you need to justify it, though?


And thirdly, we've never once said that you can't have great characters that fit your alignment restrictions. You can have great characters in whatever alignment in whatever class. One of my favorite characters I've ever played was a Lawful Good Cavalier. But that doesn't mean you can't also make a great character by going against the grain. As someone above me said. People are complex, we don't fit into neat little boxes of what we can and can't do. Many focus on one thing with supreme dedication while dealing with the rest of their life in a completely half-hazard manner. People are complex, and can make fantastic characters. It's a shame you're leaving out some of that potential complexity in your games as, as far as I've found, letting your players go create what they want can allow them to be creative in ways I could never imagine. Sure, they could potentially try to cheese a bunch of stats into the build, but taking them aside and telling them not to be an ass has always been enough for me to get them in line.

You can. It's just way harder and much easier to screw up. Usually players, especially when newbies, come with really cheesy characters and don't put much effort in RPing because they think in "being special" or just adding a little layer of fluff to justify stupid builds instead of trying to work on reasonable, simple backgrounds and "boring limits".

But again, it's just my opinion.

[Falka]

Only for you, apparently. Millions of others have absolutely NO problem playing D&D as a game filled with shades of Grey, and alignment just says where the hell people fall on sides in a massive, eternal cosmic war for souls. And you have NO idea what you can expect from a CN character.

I do. It's just that we have different opinions.

Also, what millions of people think doesn't mean they are right (I find curious that you're allowed to speak in behalf of 'millions' of people, though :smalltongue:). That's a fallacy called "argumentum ad populum", or commonly said, "herd mentality". In the world of opinions, no one is exactly right. You can digress with my statements: I digress from your democracy of options point of view.


I'm sorry, but I do not need to have exceptional circumstances to justify myself as a Female Black Catholic Republican Stripper-turned-Machinist from New England.

Then you are either playing a joke game or your DM is just not demanding at all. Which is fine, by the way.


Except we're not fighting any archetypes here. We're going along with archetypes that were arbitrarily banned in previous editions, even though they shouldn't have been.

They weren't arbitrary. There was a very clear explanation for it. Only that 'limits are boring', especially for post 4e players and WotC didn't want to bother with that. So they just said, "hey, whoever likes limits, put them in your games". I think that's wise from a marketing point of view. Doesn't mean I agree it and suddenly Paladins in my games will be able to be CN.


There's nothing absurd about Dragonborn Monks, at least not in 4e. Ancient cultures have ancient traditions. There's nothing wrong with him being a worshipper of Bahamut - it's either him or Tiamat, and Tiamat's more Evil than Chaotic. And for him being CN - He's a Dragon Warrior, who seeks/has attained enlightenment through recognition that individual perfection can only be achieved by exploring, understanding, and perfecting the individual, not trying to conform to someone else's standards and beliefs. (Think the Master Builders from The Lego Movie - particularly Vitruvius - or Po from Kung Fu Panda). Or, maybe he's Rocky Balboa. (And don't say Rocky's not a Monk. Boxing is a martial art just as sophisticated as any Eastern tradition)

... No, Rocky Balboa is not a Monk. Come on. Just read the class description. :smallconfused:

Yeah, of course, Dragonborns can have Monks. Why not? You can just make up an order. Actually I would buy more a Dragonborn Monk than an Elf Monk. But CN AND worshipper of Bahamut? No, I don't really think that really fits. You're just reading the alignment the way you want to later say "Hey, I'm Chaotic Neutral, so I get a free moral pass to do anything I want" (if I had a penny for every time I saw that in a game...)

But yeah, what I said above. Opinion. Feel free to digress.

[Sartharina]

Then you are either playing a joke game or your DM is just not demanding at all. Which is fine, by the way. Well, we already knew real life's a great big joke. I wasn't talking about a game. I was talking about who I really am!




They weren't arbitrary. There was a very clear explanation for it. Only that 'limits are boring', especially for post 4e players and WotC didn't want to bother with that. So they just said, "hey, whoever likes limits, put them in your games". I think that's wise from a marketing point of view. Doesn't mean I agree it and suddenly Paladins in my games will be able to be CN.The limits were arbitrary, and narrow-minded.


... No, Rocky Balboa is not a Monk. Come on. Just read the class description. :smallconfused:

Yeah, of course, Dragonborns can have Monks. Why not? You can just make up an order. Actually I would buy more a Dragonborn Monk than an Elf Monk. But CN AND worshipper of Bahamut? No, I don't really think that really fits. You're just reading the alignment the way you want to later say "Hey, I'm Chaotic Neutral, so I get a free moral pass to do anything I want" (if I had a penny for every time I saw that in a game...)There's nothing saying a person must be of the same alignment of their deity. For a Dragonborn, there are only two churches in town: Big Friendly Daddy Bahamut, and Terrifying Tiamat. The CN guy might prefer Bahamut because he's not as terrifying as Tiamat.

[obryn]

But we're not writing novels, we're playing in a fantasy RP game that is usually black and white. Evil people are super evil, Good people are super good and righteous. That's why alignments are set: they give a quick sketch of the character's ideals. When I read a character that is CN, I quickly get an idea of which things I can expect of him. I do not need to read 3 pages of his shady and edgy past.

If I want to play in a world filled with shades of gray, I will pick another game. D&D has been never good with that.

---------

Again, that there are no mechanic restrictions doesn't mean that "every option is equally valid and easy to justify".

If alignments do not matter at all, why even write them down? If the PHB suggests alignments for races and classes, this probably means that characters that follow these classes and are part of these races must think of a good backstory to set themselves "apart from the flock". Usually people tend to follow the culture that they are part of and need exceptional circunstances to justify an exceptional mentality.

Regarding uniqueness: PCs are unique individuals because they get class levels, unlike most of the filthy peasants of the world. They are allowed to progress and achieve levels of mastery that isn't achievable for the vast majority. That's about it. It doesn't mean "PCs should be weird and fight the archetype." Playing an 'anti-class' doesn't necesarily give the character more depth if you don't balance it properly - if anything, it turns him/her into a running joke-. Yeah, I guess that a Lawful Bard who is played like Iñigo Montoya can be fun. Adding him dragon blood, fey blood, a devilish tattoo, a vice for drinkining, two laser katanas and kung-fun proficiency turns him into a joke.

Or for instance, if you want to play something that hits like a Monk, works like a Monk and uses Monk's mechanics... Don't tell me he's a tavern brawler, just pick the feat and suck on the limitations for not getting proper training. There is a minimum fluff that you should take in account when playing a class, since it has mechanics to match the fluff. Likewise, if you play a Barbarian, I expect a character to have some degree of emotion and at least, to some extent, be an outlander, someone more in tune with the bestial side of his nature rather than being a hoplite. Not a circus clown.

Another example: Tieflings, half-elves, Dragonborns and the like are supposed to be exotic (which means they are not common). You have a weirdness factor there. Okay, now you want to add also the Monk class to the Dragonborn (uuuh, okay). Oh, but he's also a worshipper of Bahamut that is CN (yeah... right). See where I'm going? This is fine if you're just writing a cheap shonen manga because these stories usually rely on pseudodepth backgrounds that just want to make up for cool-factor fights and action-filled plots. Doesn't mean it's not cheesy.

You can easily make complex characters without fighting the archetype they are supposed to fit. A LN Fighter with a Soldier background can be a samurai, a Classic Roman strategist, a knight, a duelist adept in fencing, an ex-infrantry soldier who is rigid and has some drinking problems, yet remains loyal to his country... etc.

Actually I find playing archetypes more fun, and I develop my characters more and more as I RP with them and fill the gaps with their experiences. What fun there is in starting at level 1 with a cheesy past about betrayal and blood stains in your hands?
For the first part... Nobody is asking for 3-page back stories. Give motives and goals and you're already doing better than alignment.

For the second, I would argue that you probably shouldn't write alignment down. Alignment is terrible. It's the antithesis of making an interesting character. 5e already has ideals, bonds, and flaws. Those not only suffice, they exceed the shallow silliness of the 3x3 grid.

The rest is that same groggy nonsense about unique characters. If your players want to be archetypes, they can. If they don't, they don't.

[Raimun]

Do remember: a player character can be as unique or non-unique as the player wants.

Assuming the rules of character creation are followed, of course.

... I'm always a bit astonished when people say stuff like:

"Your LG character can sneak? How is that possible?"

"What do you mean your Barbarian (or Wizard) should do the speaking? Surely, they can't be any good at Diplomacy?"

"Wait, your Cleric is not fighting with the favored weapon of his deity?"

"Chaotic knight? Whuh?"

"But someone must roll a rogue! We already have a fighter, wizard and cleric!"

"But most X are Y!" (X=Class/Race/Subjective, Y=Adjective)

Player characters are not most people. They are extraordinary. At least I wouldn't want to play "Hero #789".

[zephirum]

For the first part... Nobody is asking for 3-page back stories. Give motives and goals and you're already doing better than alignment.

For the second, I would argue that you probably shouldn't write alignment down. Alignment is terrible. It's the antithesis of making an interesting character. 5e already has ideals, bonds, and flaws. Those not only suffice, they exceed the shallow silliness of the 3x3 grid.

partially agree, but alignment is a useful tool to start a character off and communicate to the rest of the group a characters behavioral tendencies. I find it helpful in making decisions as characters that have behavior running counter to my own behavior. it just shouldn't be the end of the characters development. I've had a lot of characters that once they got more fleshed out and played a bit turned out to have the wrong alignment written down, so I changed what was written.

as a class restriction in 5e its clearly counter to design they spent a lot of effort making the paladin class abilities swing both ways so the oathbreaker/blackguard could use the same mechanics template called paladin. Story and character wise you're not a paladin but book keeping wise you are.

paladin class =/= paladin character. different things same name. under this design alignment restrictions don't make any friggin sense what so ever. the paladin class being required to be lawful/good would also mean that the oathbreaker template in the DMG would also be required to be L/G and that doesn't make sense.

an eagle totem barbarian could be deeply entrenched in his tribes culture and "rage" mechanics are a mystic trance. bam lawful good barbarian I'd probably take acolyte background on him. Barbarian class just means your a hardy and strong heavy weapons type. it doesn't have anything to do with alignment. the berzerker archtype is just the easiest way to go.
you could also have a noble background barbarian who gives into his anger but is from the city and enjoys court finery. Mechanically your just hardy strong and angry. Nothing about the mechanics says you have to be an outlander type. That's a prexisting assumption based on older material and the word chosen to represent the class.

barbarian class =/= barbarian character.

your not even playing against type or grain, That thing your talking about going against, it doesn't really exist in the first place.

standard issue =/= required.

[Soras Teva Gee]

For the second, I would argue that you probably shouldn't write alignment down. Alignment is terrible. It's the antithesis of making an interesting character. 5e already has ideals, bonds, and flaws. Those not only suffice, they exceed the shallow silliness of the 3x3 grid.


I'm always amused when someone that has presumably spent a considerable portion of time around Roy Greenhilt still says things like this.

Seems to be a refusal to properly understand alignment as a spectrum and foundation and/or thinking they've found some way to break it. Of course in reality interesting characters are with little exception rather easily analysed by the system.

Only big question for me is one of calibration. What one considers the proverbial normal average person in the LG/NG/LN/TN square thus where to draw the lines.

[obryn]

I'm always amused when someone that has presumably spent a considerable portion of time around Roy Greenhilt still says things like this.

Seems to be a refusal to properly understand alignment as a spectrum and foundation and/or thinking they've found some way to break it. Of course in reality interesting characters are with little exception rather easily analysed by the system.

Only big question for me is one of calibration. What one considers the proverbial normal average person in the LG/NG/LN/TN square thus where to draw the lines.
It's none of the above, though. It's a terrible foundation because people don't work like that. It's the sort of "tool" that only serves to generate dumb debates like this one.

[Sartharina]

Was Alignment originally a personality tool?

I've only ever used it for representing who's on what side of the cosmic war between Law+Chaos

[Soras Teva Gee]

It's none of the above, though. It's a terrible foundation because people don't work like that. It's the sort of "tool" that only serves to generate dumb debates like this one.

Of course people work like that that's how you can codify them at all.

It would never have arisen as a system if it wasn't effective. When everyone is a beautiful and unique snowflake... being unique is effectively meaningless and tells anyone else nothing nobody has time to appreciate something purely in its own right. It is thus commonly and rightfully discarded.

Fortunately for us all when it comes to people (and especially fictional characters who are essentially all Flanderized) common patterns of behavior emerge from the aggregate of a persons particular mix of traits. And alignment collects those as respective toward two spectra of ethical behavior. When you have enough of the proper triggers... *ding* alignment determined.

Pretending otherwise doesn't really make these patterns go away. Amusingly trying to avoid ethical questions like that is rather suggestive, albeit not conclusive, of TN behavior unless aggressive enough to push into CN territory. (You can't escape it!)

As for debates I find that they actually show how effective the system really is. Can't argue about whether X trait makes someone good, bad, both, or neither unless you are completely accepting those concepts.

Denying ethical consideration outright actually demands a state of absolute tolerance of all behavior (murder? a-okay! humiliating others? a-okay! XYZ? doesn't matter its a-okay! Nothing is right or wrong, no exceptions!) which few if any are actually willing to embrace thus tack on generalist ethics like the Golden Rule and some level of self-defense. Other may enforce other more quixotic ethical codes, but its essentially impossible to consider the question without some kind of paradigm shaping the question.

[Forum Explorer]

But we're not writing novels, we're playing in a fantasy RP game that is usually black and white. Evil people are super evil, Good people are super good and righteous. That's why alignments are set: they give a quick sketch of the character's ideals. When I read a character that is CN, I quickly get an idea of which things I can expect of him. I do not need to read 3 pages of his shady and edgy past.

If I want to play in a world filled with shades of gray, I will pick another game. D&D has been never good with that.

If alignments do not matter at all, why even write them down? If the PHB suggests alignments for races and classes, this probably means that characters that follow these classes and are part of these races must think of a good backstory to set themselves "apart from the flock". Usually people tend to follow the culture that they are part of and need exceptional circunstances to justify an exceptional mentality.


Regarding uniqueness: PCs are unique individuals because they get class levels, unlike most of the filthy peasants of the world. They are allowed to progress and achieve levels of mastery that isn't achievable for the vast majority. That's about it. It doesn't mean "PCs should be weird and fight the archetype." Playing an 'anti-class' doesn't necesarily give the character more depth if you don't balance it properly - if anything, it turns him/her into a running joke-. Yeah, I guess that a Lawful Bard who is played like Iñigo Montoya can be fun. Adding him dragon blood, fey blood, a devilish tattoo, a vice for drinkining, two laser katanas and kung-fun proficiency turns him into a joke.


Perhaps you play your games that way. I prefer to have the people act like people. Good and evil are both complex choices, not a label they slap on themselves. It's not necessarily a world of shades of grey, but at the same time it's a lot more complex then the grid.

To my understanding alignments have been more or less completely done away with. It's why it doesn't actually come up as part of character creation.

So you don't have any NPCs with class levels? Guess that might work for you, but when I was playing 3.5 basically every NPC had class levels because the NPC classes were just stupid.


partially agree, but alignment is a useful tool to start a character off and communicate to the rest of the group a characters behavioral tendencies. I find it helpful in making decisions as characters that have behavior running counter to my own behavior. it just shouldn't be the end of the characters development. I've had a lot of characters that once they got more fleshed out and played a bit turned out to have the wrong alignment written down, so I changed what was written.

Not really. For me at least alignment always seemed to be a label that I'd stick on at the end of the process, and then pretty much just ignore later.


Of course people work like that that's how you can codify them at all.

It would never have arisen as a system if it wasn't effective. When everyone is a beautiful and unique snowflake... being unique is effectively meaningless and tells anyone else nothing nobody has time to appreciate something purely in its own right. It is thus commonly and rightfully discarded.

Fortunately for us all when it comes to people (and especially fictional characters who are essentially all Flanderized) common patterns of behavior emerge from the aggregate of a persons particular mix of traits. And alignment collects those as respective toward two spectra of ethical behavior. When you have enough of the proper triggers... *ding* alignment determined.

Pretending otherwise doesn't really make these patterns go away. Amusingly trying to avoid ethical questions like that is rather suggestive, albeit not conclusive, of TN behavior unless aggressive enough to push into CN territory. (You can't escape it!)

As for debates I find that they actually show how effective the system really is. Can't argue about whether X trait makes someone good, bad, both, or neither unless you are completely accepting those concepts.

Denying ethical consideration outright actually demands a state of absolute tolerance of all behavior (murder? a-okay! humiliating others? a-okay! XYZ? doesn't matter its a-okay! Nothing is right or wrong, no exceptions!) which few if any are actually willing to embrace thus tack on generalist ethics like the Golden Rule and some level of self-defense. Other may enforce other more quixotic ethical codes, but its essentially impossible to consider the question without some kind of paradigm shaping the question.

Except it doesn't work, which is why disagreements are so common and the system has been pretty much abandoned.

In fact, my experience with other systems has shown me that having alignment at all is pretty rare to begin with. Most games just have you make your character and just start playing. They don't require you to stick a label on your character and instead focus on you making a more realistic character.

And just because I understand the system and can argue in it, doesn't mean that I accept the system or don't think it's retarded. And when it comes to actually arguing in the system, well usually we can't get an agreement because if the character is meaningfully complex then it breaks down as the character can't be easily fit into one of the 9 blocks an the general conclusion seems to say that a complex character fits multiple alignments.


People can still make morale judgments and still reject D&D's stupid alignment system. In fact what is 'good' and what is 'evil' makes for a complex philosophical question that many people have tried to tackle. They also worked on if a good man can do an evil act and still remain good and all sorts of scenarios. Funnily enough they didn't have any easy answers for us. Generally though people are still willing to call actions good or evil, but they still struggle with agreeing because there isn't an objective and clear right answer.

[Falka]

Perhaps you play your games that way. I prefer to have the people act like people. Good and evil are both complex choices, not a label they slap on themselves. It's not necessarily a world of shades of grey, but at the same time it's a lot more complex then the grid.

What's with all these people that constantly pull off a false dichotomy? You can RP people AND have them under an alignment. It's not mutually exclusive.

And good and evil are indeed more complex than to say "someone is good". Actually, funnily enough, I find that the same people who claim "alignments are overly simple" tend to simplify their concepts of good and evil, supporting them under the tenets of "moral relativism" making everything sound equal. Then they come with CE Paladins, for instance, justifying it in a relativistic approach to "good" (when in D&D there is a minimum concept of "good" to separate it from other choices).


To my understanding alignments have been more or less completely done away with. It's why it doesn't actually come up as part of character creation.

Actually it does. It actually restricts some of the possible Ideals, Bonds and other fluff stuff you can pick (no Good character should pick Power based ideals or Bonds).


So you don't have any NPCs with class levels? Guess that might work for you, but when I was playing 3.5 basically every NPC had class levels because the NPC classes were just stupid.

Well, NPC classes are supposed to be weaker because they are NPCs. If you give everybody class levels, you strip away the PCs the snowflakeness they are supposed to have - what makes them special and more relevant than the rest -. You only give PC classes to NPCs that are supposed to be really powerful antagonists. An NPC with PC levels is always going to be more powerful than a PC because he has unlimited fiat.

I'm not making this up, it's what is actually writtten in the DMG. That maybe you found those limits 'boring' is different. Doesn't mean the system didn't have a point and made sense.


Except it doesn't work, which is why disagreements are so common and the system has been pretty much abandoned.

It doesn't work because...? You know, a counter-argument usually has reasons to back up a certain claim. That's how debates work. That people argue about something doesn't make it bad.


In fact, my experience with other systems has shown me that having alignment at all is pretty rare to begin with. Most games just have you make your character and just start playing. They don't require you to stick a label on your character and instead focus on you making a more realistic character.

Well, most games don't need an alignment system because they are supposed to be set in worlds with shades of grey. WoD wouldn't make sense with alignments. D&D does.


And just because I understand the system and can argue in it, doesn't mean that I accept the system or don't think it's retarded. And when it comes to actually arguing in the system, well usually we can't get an agreement because if the character is meaningfully complex then it breaks down as the character can't be easily fit into one of the 9 blocks an the general conclusion seems to say that a complex character fits multiple alignments.

People can still make morale judgments and still reject D&D's stupid alignment system. In fact what is 'good' and what is 'evil' makes for a complex philosophical question that many people have tried to tackle. They also worked on if a good man can do an evil act and still remain good and all sorts of scenarios. Funnily enough they didn't have any easy answers for us. Generally though people are still willing to call actions good or evil, but they still struggle with agreeing because there isn't an objective and clear right answer.

See, I knew it would come to this. That's why you don't like alignments. Because you want evil to be relative, right? You're uncomfortable with a system that labels and makes it harder to play in a game with moral relativism because it's really easy to track when a PC can be problematic for a group (usually evil PCs). Guess what? You can. You can play D&D with moral relativism, as long as you just admit basic labels: Evil is usually selfish and seeks only its own gain at expense of others. Neutral doesn't usually help strangers but doesn't seek active harm to others. Good tries to make the world a better place.

Good people can do bad things and bad people can do good things. I think the alignment system hasn't questioned it ever. The difference is that usually, a Good character will try to do good things most of the time and avoid hurting others if he can. Evil characters will usually do bad stuff and probably only will do good things if it benefits them somehow, not because they believe they have a moral duty.

I could make hundreds of complex characters, even several with the same alignment and they could all be different. The difference is that I can show quickly the character sheet to a DM and he can get a quick idea of my character's ideals from browsing which label the PC has. That's the point of alignment. Quick reference.

[obryn]

Of course people work like that that's how you can codify them at all.

It would never have arisen as a system if it wasn't effective. When everyone is a beautiful and unique snowflake... being unique is effectively meaningless and tells anyone else nothing nobody has time to appreciate something purely in its own right. It is thus commonly and rightfully discarded.

Fortunately for us all when it comes to people (and especially fictional characters who are essentially all Flanderized) common patterns of behavior emerge from the aggregate of a persons particular mix of traits. And alignment collects those as respective toward two spectra of ethical behavior. When you have enough of the proper triggers... *ding* alignment determined.

Pretending otherwise doesn't really make these patterns go away. Amusingly trying to avoid ethical questions like that is rather suggestive, albeit not conclusive, of TN behavior unless aggressive enough to push into CN territory. (You can't escape it!)

As for debates I find that they actually show how effective the system really is. Can't argue about whether X trait makes someone good, bad, both, or neither unless you are completely accepting those concepts.

Denying ethical consideration outright actually demands a state of absolute tolerance of all behavior (murder? a-okay! humiliating others? a-okay! XYZ? doesn't matter its a-okay! Nothing is right or wrong, no exceptions!) which few if any are actually willing to embrace thus tack on generalist ethics like the Golden Rule and some level of self-defense. Other may enforce other more quixotic ethical codes, but its essentially impossible to consider the question without some kind of paradigm shaping the question.
Seriously, this displays a major lack of insight into the complexity of ethical life. I don't think it's rational to take some kind of "ethical mean score" and use that to put someone into a box.

You and Falka - As for relativism, give me a break. That's not the end point of this discussion. This is about acknowledging that morality and ethics are complex topics.

Just saying someone is one of 9 categories tells you nothing interesting.

[hawklost]

Seriously, this displays a major lack of insight into the complexity of ethical life. I don't think it's rational to take some kind of "ethical mean score" and use that to put someone into a box.

You and Falka - As for relativism, give me a break. That's not the end point of this discussion. This is about acknowledging that morality and ethics are complex topics.

Just saying someone is one of 9 categories tells you nothing interesting.

Not really, what the 9 categories do is to allow the broad complexity of morality and ethics but say "Hey, everything falls into one of these broad areas.

There could be a million, even a trillion shades of morality, but I am still able to cut down them into a broad groupings, in DnDs case, those groupings fit within the 9 categories.

The alignment system doesn't say "your character can only do Good OR Evil acts" it says more "Your character strives to do good or evil but still might stray sometimes from their alignment"

EDIT:
Thinking about how I wrote that, I feel Strive is not the correct way of saying alignment. More of 'internal thought process'. Someone who is Evil might spend an entire campeign doing good (selfless) acts because of some reason but he still might be doing it for selfish reasons. In that case, he would still be evil even though the world might see him as good.

[Forum Explorer]

What's with all these people that constantly pull off a false dichotomy? You can RP people AND have them under an alignment. It's not mutually exclusive.


Actually it does. It actually restricts some of the possible Ideals, Bonds and other fluff stuff you can pick (no Good character should pick Power based ideals or Bonds).



Well, NPC classes are supposed to be weaker because they are NPCs. If you give everybody class levels, you strip away the PCs the snowflakeness they are supposed to have - what makes them special and more relevant than the rest -. You only give PC classes to NPCs that are supposed to be really powerful antagonists. An NPC with PC levels is always going to be more powerful than a PC because he has unlimited fiat.

I'm not making this up, it's what is actually writtten in the DMG. That maybe you found those limits 'boring' is different. Doesn't mean the system didn't have a point and made sense.



It doesn't work because...? You know, a counter-argument usually has reasons to back up a certain claim. That's how debates work. That people argue about something doesn't make it bad.



Well, most games don't need an alignment system because they are supposed to be set in worlds with shades of grey. WoD wouldn't make sense with alignments. D&D does.



See, I knew it would come to this. That's why you don't like alignments. Because you want evil to be relative, right? You're uncomfortable with a system that labels and makes it harder to play in a game with moral relativism because it's really easy to track when a PC can be problematic for a group (usually evil PCs). Guess what? You can. You can play D&D with moral relativism, as long as you just admit basic labels: Evil is usually selfish and seeks only its own gain at expense of others. Neutral doesn't usually help strangers but doesn't seek active harm to others. Good tries to make the world a better place.

Good people can do bad things and bad people can do good things. I think the alignment system hasn't questioned it ever. The difference is that usually, a Good character will try to do good things most of the time and avoid hurting others if he can. Evil characters will usually do bad stuff and probably only will do good things if it benefits them somehow, not because they believe they have a moral duty.

I could make hundreds of complex characters, even several with the same alignment and they could all be different. The difference is that I can show quickly the character sheet to a DM and he can get a quick idea of my character's ideals from browsing which label the PC has. That's the point of alignment. Quick reference.

Except in those cases alignment doesn't matter. If you are RPing your character anyways, then the label is pretty useless as everyone will just make their own conclusion on what they want.


Well that's disappointing to hear.


I assume you are talking about the 3.5 DMG, though I don't remember that coming up. And that book also included quick stats for NPC's with character levels. Anyways, letting the NPCs having access to PC levels has never diminished the importance the PCs have felt in the game. In my experience anyways. What matters more is that the NPCs don't act like the PCs.


I could have sworn I addressed that earlier in my post, but I'll lay it out in one spot. The alignment system has several problems with it, as I see it.

1. It's pointless. You talk about people looking at the label and getting an idea of how the player is going to play. I've never seen or heard of that happening before now. In fact I usually hear the opposite which brings me to

2. It isn't well defined. People have vastly different ideas on what is Lawful behavior vs Chaotic behavior, or even what is Good behavior vs Evil. I've even seen claims that Neutral shouldn't exist at all, or that every complex character is basically true neutral. It's why you get alignment debates that go on for page and pages. And that's not good to happen in a game so

3. It's harmful to play. I have heard so many horror stories about DM's having a different opinion about what it means to be an alignment then the player who has a character of that alignment. Or of players using alignment to justify bad and disruptive behavior. And while I admit that this is likely a case of people complaining about the bad and just not hearing about the good, I've personally done without alignment in my games and things have been perfectly fine.

4. It's needlessly restrictive. Alignment doesn't seem to enable any options, but it sure as **** restricted them. I want to play a paladin who follows the law strictly, even if that means commiting evil. Nope! LG or nothing. I want to play an assassin who uses the techniques to defeat opponents quickly, using death attacking non-lethally against good and neutral characters, and assassinating evil characters to prevent their plans. Nope! Evil or nothing. I want to use poisons to take down characters non-lethally cause my character is a pacifist. You can, but using poisons is evil behavior. So you should be a neutral character at best. :smallyuk:


IIRC the game Mutants and Masterminds also does not have alignment and it's designed to play superhero games, which can have all the shades of a zebra. You can have a morally complex superhero game, and it manages that too because it doesn't a restrictive system trying to force you into the former (see point 4).


Not at all. I'd be perfectly happy if the game assumed we were running it using Utilitarianism morality. I don't like alignment because it seems to create nothing but problems because of the list above. I also don't like it because it seems to be a tool to think less. Either the DM taking a glance and assuming things about the player, or the player using detect evil, and then killing all evil people Miko style. I don't think either is good for the players or the game.


A 4-5 line background is enough to get a much better idea of how a character will play out. It doesn't take long to do or to read. If that's too much then just playing the game will do the same. You don't need a quick reference. Which is only useful if everyone agrees on what that quick reference means anyways (see point 2). If they do then it rapidly becomes pointless. (see point 1).

[Soras Teva Gee]

Anyone wants to deny the alignment answer me on dealing with the following situation were you the DM:

"I am Velvar the Rapeknight, I murder gold dragons for their hoards and rape their hatchlings because I dislike wenches. When I cannot find gold dragons I hunt the hypocrital elven trash infesting this world and punish their sinful immortality and beauty by amputating their hands and feet while flaying their faces and eating their ears fried with garlic. Thus do I prove my unrivaled virtue to my god Bahamat!"

How do you the DM respond to this concept? Does Bahamut agree or disagree? No copping out about not-a-dragon btw. Should Velvar go find another deity entirely? Suppose his build is Cleric, do you let the lack of RAW requirements hog-tie you the DM into letting this fly and that Velvar is a respected member of the church?

You cannot reject ethical consideration as shades of grey without first considering repulsive trash like the BoVD character above.

[Lord Raziere]

Anyone wants to deny the alignment answer me on dealing with the following situation were you the DM:

"I am Velvar the Rapeknight, I murder gold dragons for their hoards and rape their hatchlings because I dislike wenches. When I cannot find gold dragons I hunt the hypocrital elven trash infesting this world and punish their sinful immortality and beauty by amputating their hands and feet while flaying their faces and eating their ears fried with garlic. Thus do I prove my unrivaled virtue to my god Bahamat!"

How do you the DM respond to this concept? Does Bahamut agree or disagree? No copping out about not-a-dragon btw. Should Velvar go find another deity entirely? Suppose his build is Cleric, do you let the lack of RAW requirements hog-tie you the DM into letting this fly and that Velvar is a respected member of the church?

You cannot reject ethical consideration as shades of grey without first considering repulsive trash like the BoVD character above.

I know I'm not the person who your talking to, but what I'd personally do is:

"Bahamut gives you the middle finger and thus influences the cosmos for the nearest band of an elven adventurers to come and kill you mercilessly for your chaotic evil ways. roll up a new character that doesn't make me sick please."

of course thats assuming I'm a stupid DM who doesn't discuss in this advance to keep it from happening in the first place and am just being fantasy-DM who can do that kind of thing and get away with it.

[Forum Explorer]

Anyone wants to deny the alignment answer me on dealing with the following situation were you the DM:

"I am Velvar the Rapeknight, I murder gold dragons for their hoards and rape their hatchlings because I dislike wenches. When I cannot find gold dragons I hunt the hypocrital elven trash infesting this world and punish their sinful immortality and beauty by amputating their hands and feet while flaying their faces and eating their ears fried with garlic. Thus do I prove my unrivaled virtue to my god Bahamat!"

How do you the DM respond to this concept? Does Bahamut agree or disagree? No copping out about not-a-dragon btw. Should Velvar go find another deity entirely? Suppose his build is Cleric, do you let the lack of RAW requirements hog-tie you the DM into letting this fly and that Velvar is a respected member of the church?

You cannot reject ethical consideration as shades of grey without first considering repulsive trash like the BoVD character above.

If I was the DM I'd flat out tell him that he is rejected by Bahamat, and that his followers consider him a heretic and would seek to hunt him down and kill him. However unless he was directly drawing power from Bahamat in some way (IE was a cleric or paladin) then I'd let him have those delusions.

Because Bahamat is an NPC and under my control as a DM. If was insisting on being a cleric, then I'd tell him to choose a different god, or I'd offer him the concept that while he thinks he's worshiping Bahamat he's actually drawing power from Cyric, or some other evil god.

I'd also tell him he was on a zero tolerance policy and that he'd have to get the concept approved by every other player. If he failed to do that, then he would be rejected from the group entirely. (Unless I was running an over the top evil for the sake of evil campaign).

[Soras Teva Gee]

If I was the DM I'd flat out tell him that he is rejected by Bahamat, and that his followers consider him a heretic and would seek to hunt him down and kill him. However unless he was directly drawing power from Bahamat in some way (IE was a cleric or paladin) then I'd let him have those delusions.

Because Bahamat is an NPC and under my control as a DM. If was insisting on being a cleric, then I'd tell him to choose a different god, or I'd offer him the concept that while he thinks he's worshiping Bahamat he's actually drawing power from Cyric, or some other evil god.

I'd also tell him he was on a zero tolerance policy and that he'd have to get the concept approved by every other player. If he failed to do that, then he would be rejected from the group entirely. (Unless I was running an over the top evil for the sake of evil campaign).

Boom.... Alignment.

You recognized that sick fiend as well a sick fiend and kicked him across the G-E spectrum with attached ways for him to interact with the multiverse he's in.

I make an example like this because I feel that forgetting that Evil is both real and possible is a bit of (mangling a meme a bit here) a First World Problem.

We have the luxury of moral relativism because most of us here very likely live in generally nice safe places where destructive tools like Velvar are swiftly carted off to not trouble anyone else should they act upon such things. Its ultimately an illusion coming from that we have nothing more pressing then rather more slight to non-existent depravity and nobody really questions the actual big moral questions so much they become invisible and sub-conscious.

But you recognized when those limits were exceeded as you had to be sure everybody at the table was comfortable with the character happening.

While its thankfully rare in reality things like Velvar are somewhat less rare in the sort of fiction D&D seeks to emulate... I was probably channeling Ser Gregor there with Velvar. I'll be the first to say that everyone except that Septon with the Dog in ASoFaI might be hard to label good, but they demonstrate evil aptly. Other works do Good though reaching the heights of it tends to be rare lest you get called a Mary Sue. You can never preach a word yet be too Good and you make people feel sort of inadequate just by example. Yet if anyone is ever looking for advice on how to do a truly righteous Paladin right, I'll tell them to go read the Dresden Files and get to know Michael Carpenter.

[obryn]

Anyone wants to deny the alignment answer me on dealing with the following situation were you the DM:

"I am Velvar the Rapeknight, I murder gold dragons for their hoards and rape their hatchlings because I dislike wenches. When I cannot find gold dragons I hunt the hypocrital elven trash infesting this world and punish their sinful immortality and beauty by amputating their hands and feet while flaying their faces and eating their ears fried with garlic. Thus do I prove my unrivaled virtue to my god Bahamat!"

How do you the DM respond to this concept? Does Bahamut agree or disagree? No copping out about not-a-dragon btw. Should Velvar go find another deity entirely? Suppose his build is Cleric, do you let the lack of RAW requirements hog-tie you the DM into letting this fly and that Velvar is a respected member of the church?

You cannot reject ethical consideration as shades of grey without first considering repulsive trash like the BoVD character above.


Boom.... Alignment.

You recognized that sick fiend as well a sick fiend and kicked him across the G-E spectrum with attached ways for him to interact with the multiverse he's in.
Er... No.

You're ignoring a few facts... 1. He would also get kicked out of a church like Bahamut's in a game without alignment. This is because it's possible to have restrictions on behavior and moral codes anyway. 2. You can likewise have in-game discussions about good and evil without the alignment boxes. In fact, it's more interesting that way, when you can't just spell your way to an answer.

It's a terrible example that only seems confusing if you think D&D alignment has real moral analogues. It doesn't.


Not really, what the 9 categories do is to allow the broad complexity of morality and ethics but say "Hey, everything falls into one of these broad areas.

There could be a million, even a trillion shades of morality, but I am still able to cut down them into a broad groupings, in DnDs case, those groupings fit within the 9 categories
No you can't. You only do this by filling the interesting parts off. By ignoring the nuances, motivations, goals, and drives. Sorting them into boxes gives you no additional information. In fact, it obscures it by ignoring the important stuff.

[Ettina]

Monks are "almost always" lawful, but it is not a requirement. For paladins, it isn't strictly required that you're a particular alignment, but if you're following e.g. the Tenets of Devotion, they look pretty LG to me.

Doesn't a paladin's alignment depend on their patron god? If you were a paladin of Lolth, for example, you'd probably be Chaotic Evil.

[Soras Teva Gee]

Er... No.

You're ignoring a few facts... 1. He would also get kicked out of a church like Bahamut's in a game without alignment. This is because it's possible to have restrictions on behavior and moral codes anyway. 2. You can likewise have in-game discussions about good and evil without the alignment boxes. In fact, it's more interesting that way, when you can't just spell your way to an answer.

It's a terrible example that only seems confusing if you think D&D alignment has real moral analogues. It doesn't.


You didn't answer the questions!

Of course you must avoid it because you have to justify your cowardice.

Yes cowardice. You're avoiding answering whether Velvar the Rapeknight is evil. Its not hard to say that someone that rapes babies after killing their parents for money and mutilates people is evil I set him deep in that territory for a reason.

Of course if you say "yes of course he is" you no longer have a philosophical leg to stand on to deny the virtue of the designation "evil" thus alignment on a spectrum of good and evil.

And you'll never answer moral dilemmas when you refuse to laid down any principles to deal with all possibilities so you won't have interesting discussions. You'll maybe ruminate futilely on the matter but since you refuse to set down you can't ever reach a conclusion. The only codified position you can have is that indeed Velvar the Rapeknight is a-okay, should save the courts a lot of trouble because they don't have any moral authority.

Or your simply lying by considering things evil but sticking your head in the sand and acting as if only less important questions then considering total depravity exist. Like a wader never daring to go into the moral sea above their knees or boat that never sails out of sight of land.

And learning to swim ain't hard.

[Naanomi]

For 'Velvar' up there, it largely depends on campaign settings. There are definitely settings where Gods are so hands-off or mysterious that a cult of Bahamaut advocating that viewpoint could arise and still be granted spells. Forgotten Realms, the current default setting, is not one of them; but they do exist.

I will also note that the '9 alignments' can be nuanced with tendencies from neutrality to another alignment, hence the 17 Outer Planes (and numerous sub-planes of said Outer Planes); even at their most 'crunchy' aspects, the alignments cover a whole lot of ground of different perspectives

[obryn]

You didn't answer the questions!

Of course you must avoid it because you have to justify your cowardice.

Yes cowardice. You're avoiding answering whether Velvar the Rapeknight is evil. Its not hard to say that someone that rapes babies after killing their parents for money and mutilates people is evil I set him deep in that territory for a reason.

Of course if you say "yes of course he is" you no longer have a philosophical leg to stand on to deny the virtue of the designation "evil" thus alignment on a spectrum of good and evil.

And you'll never answer moral dilemmas when you refuse to laid down any principles to deal with all possibilities so you won't have interesting discussions. You'll maybe ruminate futilely on the matter but since you refuse to set down you can't ever reach a conclusion. The only codified position you can have is that indeed Velvar the Rapeknight is a-okay, should save the courts a lot of trouble because they don't have any moral authority.

Or your simply lying by considering things evil but sticking your head in the sand and acting as if only less important questions then considering total depravity exist. Like a wader never daring to go into the moral sea above their knees or boat that never sails out of sight of land.

And learning to swim ain't hard.
Dude what. I said right there in that post that you can have conversations about good and evil without alignment. You can call the guy evil or his actions evil in Fate Core, Savage Worlds, GURPS, etc. In any rpg, actually, and even (whoa) in real life which has no such thing.

And again you are getting seriously wacky angry over an Internet argument. This time it's about alignment, which is basically D&D's appendix. The game functions totally fine without it. (IMO, even better.)

[Forum Explorer]

Boom.... Alignment.

You recognized that sick fiend as well a sick fiend and kicked him across the G-E spectrum with attached ways for him to interact with the multiverse he's in.

I make an example like this because I feel that forgetting that Evil is both real and possible is a bit of (mangling a meme a bit here) a First World Problem.

We have the luxury of moral relativism because most of us here very likely live in generally nice safe places where destructive tools like Velvar are swiftly carted off to not trouble anyone else should they act upon such things. Its ultimately an illusion coming from that we have nothing more pressing then rather more slight to non-existent depravity and nobody really questions the actual big moral questions so much they become invisible and sub-conscious.

But you recognized when those limits were exceeded as you had to be sure everybody at the table was comfortable with the character happening.

While its thankfully rare in reality things like Velvar are somewhat less rare in the sort of fiction D&D seeks to emulate... I was probably channeling Ser Gregor there with Velvar. I'll be the first to say that everyone except that Septon with the Dog in ASoFaI might be hard to label good, but they demonstrate evil aptly. Other works do Good though reaching the heights of it tends to be rare lest you get called a Mary Sue. You can never preach a word yet be too Good and you make people feel sort of inadequate just by example. Yet if anyone is ever looking for advice on how to do a truly righteous Paladin right, I'll tell them to go read the Dresden Files and get to know Michael Carpenter.

Not really. I don't need the label of CE to know Velvar's character, and if all I had was the CE label, then I wouldn't have enough information.


Look I'm not trying to support moral relativism, but rather moral complexity. Yeah, sometimes the answers are incredibly simple and obvious. Velvar is a bad person and should be stopped. Michael Carpenter is a good person who deserves admiration. I have no problem with that. Other times the questions are a little harder and less clear. Such as Blackstaff Mccoy, or even just the White Council's policies on a whole. And an alignment system, particularly the 9 boxes seen in D&D 3.5, doesn't help tackle the complex situations. And for the simple ones it isn't particularly useful.

[rollingForInit]

You don't need a mechanical alignment system to determine whether or not Velvar the Rapeknight is evil or not.

Bahamut is a God that represent "Good" as the concept is understood in the world. He represents justice and treating others kindly, etc. You don't need an alignment system to know that, just a list of values and creeds that his followers must adhere to.

Velvar the Rapeknight obviously does not share moral values with Bahamut. Therefore, Bahamut would reject him completely. Likely his followers would hunt Velvar down.

There would be no need to mechanically lable Velvar Chaotic Evil.

Most RPG's work just fine without an alignment system, after all. Actions and consequences.

[Falka]

You don't need a mechanical alignment system to determine whether or not Velvar the Rapeknight is evil or not.

Bahamut is a God that represent "Good" as the concept is understood in the world. He represents justice and treating others kindly, etc. You don't need an alignment system to know that, just a list of values and creeds that his followers must adhere to.

Velvar the Rapeknight obviously does not share moral values with Bahamut. Therefore, Bahamut would reject him completely. Likely his followers would hunt Velvar down.

There would be no need to mechanically lable Velvar Chaotic Evil.

Most RPG's work just fine without an alignment system, after all. Actions and consequences.

So we agree that in many worlds of D&D there are objective concepts of good an evil and a threshold that can be labelled.

We don't even need character sheets, we could just freeform RP in half of our games. Yet we accept to write down some bounds so some people like Velvar the Rapeknight cannot justify his cheese interpretation of what is "good" to just do whatever the hell he wants.

Soras made his point far better than I. As long as we can prove objective examples of Good and Evil, or Chaos and Law, we can use alignments to define certain objective moral concepts.

And this is done for the sake of systemization and simplification, pretty much like we don't have separate checks for attack and 'block' rolls like other systems. Is AC realistic? No, it's a fiction that tries to make combat simpler. Yet I don't see nobody pointing out that AC is 'restrictive' because it doesn't truly reflect the 'agility' of some characters.

[rollingForInit]

I don't really mind Alignments, personally, but then my group doesn't adhere to it strictly, we just use it as a guide. A simple, abstract way to spark an idea about how the character is. That is to say, I don't mind it as it is in 5e, where it really doesn't matter. I would've hated it in 3.5 if, say I had an idea about a Chaotic Monk but couldn't because of a restriction on the class. Or if I weren't allowed to play a Lawful Neutral Paladin, or a True Neutral Paladin.

I don't think the "we must have this system to prevent people from being able to argue for a character like Velvar the Rapeknight" argument is a good one, though. If you've got a player who wants to do stuff like that and cannot accept it when you say "No, Bahamut would not accept it", then the player is at fault, not the system. Hell, if you've a player like that, I wager problems like these pop up all over the place, and maybe you're better off ditching the troll.

D&D would work perfectly without the Alignment. Any "alignment" would just be the subjective point of views of the characters that inhabit the world. Most heroes would likely be "good" even without having to mechanically label them as such. Demons would be bad because they're opposed to the players.

I'm not saying it should be removed, just that it certainly isn't necessary.

[Sartharina]

Anyone wants to deny the alignment answer me on dealing with the following situation were you the DM:

"I am Velvar the Rapeknight, I murder gold dragons for their hoards and rape their hatchlings because I dislike wenches. When I cannot find gold dragons I hunt the hypocrital elven trash infesting this world and punish their sinful immortality and beauty by amputating their hands and feet while flaying their faces and eating their ears fried with garlic. Thus do I prove my unrivaled virtue to my god Bahamat!"

How do you the DM respond to this concept? Does Bahamut agree or disagree? No copping out about not-a-dragon btw. Should Velvar go find another deity entirely? Suppose his build is Cleric, do you let the lack of RAW requirements hog-tie you the DM into letting this fly and that Velvar is a respected member of the church?

You cannot reject ethical consideration as shades of grey without first considering repulsive trash like the BoVD character above.
Here's different question: What are the alignments of wannabe-superheroes like Fanboy and McCrow?

[Talakeal]

Doesn't a paladin's alignment depend on their patron god? If you were a paladin of Lolth, for example, you'd probably be Chaotic Evil.

Maybe in 4E.

In 1-3.5 paladins don't actually get their powers from a god, rather they are imbued by the power of the upper planes as a whole.

Unless of course you are playing Forgotten Realms, where everyone needs a god, but even there paladins are LG and simply cannot worship gods whose ethos conflict with that. AFAIKS paladins in FR can only follow LG, LN, NG deities and the CG Sune.

[obryn]

So we agree that in many worlds of D&D there are objective concepts of good an evil and a threshold that can be labelled.

We don't even need character sheets, we could just freeform RP in half of our games. Yet we accept to write down some bounds so some people like Velvar the Rapeknight cannot justify his cheese interpretation of what is "good" to just do whatever the hell he wants.

Soras made his point far better than I. As long as we can prove objective examples of Good and Evil, or Chaos and Law, we can use alignments to define certain objective moral concepts.

And this is done for the sake of systemization and simplification, pretty much like we don't have separate checks for attack and 'block' rolls like other systems. Is AC realistic? No, it's a fiction that tries to make combat simpler. Yet I don't see nobody pointing out that AC is 'restrictive' because it doesn't truly reflect the 'agility' of some characters.
The only "objective" example so far is some cartoonishly evil dude. Add on a black top hat and some mustache-twirling, why don't we? The problem is, slapping on a label like "CHAOTIC EEVIL" adds nothing to our understanding of the character, what he's doing that's evil, in what ways he's misguided, etc. We know what the Church of Bahamut expects from its parishoners, we know what the dude is doing. That's more than enough, even if we were running the game in Savage Worlds or GURPS.

Why do we need some kind of systemization and simplification of characters' motivations, drives, goals, and ideals, filed so far down that you can fit into a 3x3 grid and share one of 9 labels with the entirety of the cosmos? This isn't some kind of mechanical necessity like a degree of abstraction for task resolution.

[Logosloki]

D&D alignment causes brain damage. Real people - and well-written fictional ones - do not fit into one of 9 distinct boxes, which is what leads directly to these debates.

Use it for extraplanar beings, sure, but people aren't tidy like that.

Well they do, almost all humans in real life are neutral good or true neutral, with a tendency to chaotic in certain circumstances. I think the problem is with alignments is the evil category, both in how it is explained by source material and how we perceive evil. As a species we allow little slip ups in real life but from the screeds of threads and literature I have read over the years we become very judgemental when there are not real people on the line. We also couch our terms in absolutes when debating, tending to make strawmen for the opposing view even when there are moderate options present.

So instead of say talking about chaotic evil as say dexter, a psychopath who keeps his personal views mostly in check while out in society at large so he doesn't get noticed and therefore jailed/killed we talk about some hypothetical moustache twirler who kicks puppies and other small category living beings while shooting necrotic beams of pure negative energy from his palanquin carried by zombie orcs, all the while laughing maniacally.

[Falka]

The only "objective" example so far is some cartoonishly evil dude. Add on a black top hat and some mustache-twirling, why don't we? The problem is, slapping on a label like "CHAOTIC EEVIL" adds nothing to our understanding of the character, what he's doing that's evil, in what ways he's misguided, etc. We know what the Church of Bahamut expects from its parishoners, we know what the dude is doing. That's more than enough, even if we were running the game in Savage Worlds or GURPS.

Why do we need some kind of systemization and simplification of characters' motivations, drives, goals, and ideals, filed so far down that you can fit into a 3x3 grid and share one of 9 labels with the entirety of the cosmos? This isn't some kind of mechanical necessity like a degree of abstraction for task resolution.

For reference purposes. For the same reason we have AC, and a character sheet for all I can tell. It's just a reference to make things easier for the DM, for some spell and magic item mechanics that have been always present in D&D (planes, intelligent weapons, hallowed/desecrated areas, cosmology...)

Why you want references? So that you can actually make comparisons. Why is it taboo to have moral labelling? WoD games has Sins and Virtues, it used to have Conduct and Nature labels as well. Nearly any game that doesn't rely too much in freeform has some kind of reference system to keep track of the character's morals (unless the game itself doesn't really care about them or is too gray-themed).

Though we both agree that people do not have alignments in real life (well, dragons don't exist either amirite?) that doesn't mean that any kind of labelling is a pointless exercise as it does serve some purposes. That you don't like how D&D deals with it is another issue.

[Knaight]

Geez... I'm not saying you can't do that stuff in 5e. I'm just giving reasons to why it makes little sense, and why you shouldn't. But of course, you can snowflake your character all you want. You want to pretend that you are a knight as a Barbarian? Be my guest.

Still, do not try to sell what's an oddity as a normality. Anything can happen, in theory, if you give it a cheesy backstory. My Sorceress could be the daughter of a dragon. Doesn't mean that I should come up with that background just because she's got dragon bloodline.

It's obvious why they removed the mechanic restriction. It's because restrictions don't sell. They asked the crowd, and there were more people who found alignment restrictions 'boring' than those who prefered them. I'm certainly going to keep it in my games.
I don't buy any of those making fairly little sense. You want a knight that's basically a Barbarian? Take Lancelot. The guy has discipline, but even when he fights you see a sort of rage come out in most depictions, and the rest of his life involves being a free spirit who casually breaks the rules of his society. You want a character who leads a very ordered life, but who fights in a turbulent, rage filled way, also fitting the knight-Barbarian? There's plenty of historical accounts; just look at the reports of duels between aristocrats. You want an eastern style martial artist who would fit within D&D chaotic? The bulk of the major characters in Outlaws of the Marsh, one of the most major classic Chinese novels (which is several hundred years old) fit. A few are even literal monks.

The alignment restrictions drastically cut down on even the existing archetypes in fantasy. A martial artist who leads a generally free life is not some new, special snowflake conceit. It's arguably the predominant archetype in wuxia, a literary genre hundreds of years old. I deliberately didn't use any works from after 1700 in my example, just to point out how restrictive D&D is being.


Why is it taboo to have moral labelling? WoD games has Sins and Virtues, it used to have Conduct and Nature labels as well. Nearly any game that doesn't rely too much in freeform has some kind of reference system to keep track of the character's morals (unless the game itself doesn't really care about them or is too gray-themed).

Though we both agree that people do not have alignments in real life (well, dragons don't exist either amirite?) that doesn't mean that any kind of labelling is a pointless exercise as it does serve some purposes. That you don't like how D&D deals with it is another issue.
The issue is not having moral labeling. The issue is the quality of the particular labels applied. I am all for having some sort of model, but I'd consider alignment near useless. There's the constant contesting of what law and chaos even mean, then there's the near uselessness of alignment as a label - it tells you basically nothing, and once you expand to the point where there is a decent amount of information it's completely pointless as that information (still compacted from the whole) takes care of itself.

It's a model that is so oversimplified as to be basically useless. To make a comparison here - consider linear modeling over actual data, where you've got some sort of relation, you have a point, and you have the slope at that point. It's potentially useful in the incredibly narrow task of finding other points that are way up close, or in modeling certain curves. But if you're trying to look at a complex curve in any real depth over any real length? It's oversimplified to the point of being completely useless. Alignment is basically that linear model, applied over the complexity of moral thinking.

D&D 5e has also pretty much stripped it of mechanical relevance, which means it can be purged easily. Good riddance.

[Falka]

A martial artist who leads a generally free life is not some new, special snowflake conceit. It's arguably the predominant archetype in wuxia, a literary genre hundreds of years old. I deliberately didn't use any works from after 1700 in my example, just to point out how restrictive D&D is being.


Living a free life doesn't mean you are Chaotic.

And are you comparing Wuxia movies to classic wuxia literature? Wuxia as a movie gender has a vast different meaning compared to classic Chinese epic adventures.


You want a knight that's basically a Barbarian? Take Lancelot. The guy has discipline, but even when he fights you see a sort of rage come out in most depictions, and the rest of his life involves being a free spirit who casually breaks the rules of his society.

... Lancelot, a Barbarian? You know that 'rage' as described in the class doesn't just mean 'being angry', right?

If you interpret class lore this loosely I can perfectly see why you despise the alignment system. But I don't think any system would fit such broad spectrum. That's not a problem of the system per se, mind you.

[Morty]

If I want to play in a world filled with shades of gray, I will pick another game. D&D has been never good with that.

The only reason it hasn't is, guess it, the alignment system. Once you take it out, wonder of wonders - suddenly D&D is every bit as capable of producing shades of grey as any other system out there, if that's what you want. If you don't, well, those conveniently evil humanoids and insane necromancers don't become less evil just because there's no tag on them.

Which is the crux of this discussion, really. All the arguments in favour of the alignment system are, essentially, justifications and rationalizations - they don't provide a good reason for it to exist. Yes, if you do some mental gymnastics and hoop jumping, and dismiss every concept alignment restrictions disallow as absurd, you can make it make a smattering of sense. But what's the point? You don't gain anything by it. The alignment system offers meaningless restrictions and countless arguments in exchange for nothing. The only good side it has is, maybe, letting new players conceptualize their character better. But given the alignment grid's propensity for producing walking stereotypes, I think there are better ways to do it.

[Falka]

The only reason it hasn't is, guess it, the alignment system. Once you take it out, wonder of wonders - suddenly D&D is every bit as capable of producing shades of grey as any other system out there, if that's what you want. If you don't, well, those conveniently evil humanoids and insane necromancers don't become less evil just because there's no tag on them.

Which is the crux of this discussion, really. All the arguments in favour of the alignment system are, essentially, justifications and rationalizations - they don't provide a good reason for it to exist. Yes, if you do some mental gymnastics and hoop jumping, and dismiss every concept alignment restrictions disallow as absurd, you can make it make a smattering of sense. But what's the point? You don't gain anything by it. The alignment system offers meaningless restrictions and countless arguments in exchange for nothing. The only good side it has is, maybe, letting new players conceptualize their character better. But given the alignment grid's propensity for producing walking stereotypes, I think there are better ways to do it.

That's making a different theme out of the game (and possibly you'd need to change the lore and mechanics of several classes altogether).

There are D&D settings that don't use alignments, and they are usually gritty/dark with no clear sides (everything is kind of evil, even PCs and their 'allies'). But that's not the typical D&D game - D&D isn't Game of Thrones, or at least it's not based on that kind of scenario.

Doesn't mean you can't play it, of course.

[Morty]

That's making a different theme out of the game (and possibly you'd need to change the lore and mechanics of several classes altogether).

Apart from the Paladin class in 3e and older editions... no. Not really. 5e and 4e make it even easier, although I haven't seen the 5e Paladin class yet. The 'lore' in D&D tends be a placeholder, anyway, so in reality it's what you make of it.


There are D&D settings that don't use alignments, and they are usually gritty/dark with no clear sides (everything is kind of evil, even PCs and their 'allies'). But that's not the typical D&D game - D&D isn't Game of Thrones, or at least it's not based on that kind of scenario.

Eberron is the closest thing to what you're describing, and I wouldn't use the word 'gritty' to characterize it.

Besides, you're still missing the whole point - alignment rules have nothing to do with how clear-cut your morality is, because even if you're running a campaign as a black-and-white struggle of pure-hearted heroes against blackest villains, they do nothing but get in the way. They just do it more rarely than if you do something less clear-cut. And if they don't get in the way, you don't even notice them, which raises the question of why even have them. Again - if you run a game where morality is unambiguous, with obvious good guys and bad guys, you don't need labels. If morality in your game isn't as simple as that, labels just get in the way. Lawful and Chaotic are just plain superfluous. It makes sense, once you stop taking for granted certain assumptions D&D has hammered home for 20 years.

[Soras Teva Gee]

Dude what. I said right there in that post that you can have conversations about good and evil without alignment. You can call the guy evil or his actions evil in Fate Core, Savage Worlds, GURPS, etc. In any rpg, actually, and even (whoa) in real life which has no such thing.

And again you are getting seriously wacky angry over an Internet argument. This time it's about alignment, which is basically D&D's appendix. The game functions totally fine without it. (IMO, even better.)

I simply despise repulsive 13 yr old shallow whining being presented as depth. Which fandom (a singular thing plural is an illusion) does incessantly in a cycle of preacher to choir thus into ever more empty small minded directions. I'm not being hyperbolic there, viewpoints like yours stir actual nausea. So I do not let them go unchallenged so that one day your ideas will perish from the Earth. I'm out to execute your entire pattern of thought.

And when you enter a debate you void any immunity for your ideas to go unchallenged.

Refusing to answer moral questions contains not a speck of virtue. So unless you are going to commit to that there is no good and evil in a rigorous way (ie: Velvar is not) then you have no grounds for bashing the alignment system, because all it does is write down the short version of those considerations.

The world needs more labels. Fortunately morality labels are just about the easiest.


Not really. I don't need the label of CE to know Velvar's character, and if all I had was the CE label, then I wouldn't have enough information.

Which has little to do with the label being a valid shorthand and you should have an idea yeah Velvar has probably done some thing to earn it by the CE label.

Or the character isn't properly designed because it lack distinction enough to be labeled as other then a shallow, inconsistent, or just plain a mess. Which is in all but some fairly radical veins of thought a rubbish character. Which certainly there are plenty of on tabletop but the first clue is when they don't like labels because it probably means that they know none apply because there isn't coherence, not because the labels themselves have a problem.


Look I'm not trying to support moral relativism, but rather moral complexity. Yeah, sometimes the answers are incredibly simple and obvious. Velvar is a bad person and should be stopped. Michael Carpenter is a good person who deserves admiration. I have no problem with that. Other times the questions are a little harder and less clear. Such as Blackstaff Mccoy, or even just the White Council's policies on a whole. And an alignment system, particularly the 9 boxes seen in D&D 3.5, doesn't help tackle the complex situations. And for the simple ones it isn't particularly useful.

Easy:
-White Council is LN. Their absolutism makes them highly lawful, their striving to deny moral character make them neutral. Their justifications are ones of practicality, neutral because they are afraid to take a stronger stance.
- McCoy is NG. Fights for his ethical beliefs, responsible for Harry thinking of magic as a force for good, rides between respect for authority and disdain.

Jim Butcher is easy, given we know he's played it I suspect its no coincidence (if not necessarily intentional) he has lots of pretty textbook alignment examples.


You don't need a mechanical alignment system to determine whether or not Velvar the Rapeknight is evil or not.

Confusing cause for effect.



Velvar the Rapeknight obviously does not share moral values with Bahamut. Therefore, Bahamut would reject him completely. Likely his followers would hunt Velvar down.

There would be no need to mechanically lable Velvar Chaotic Evil.

Most RPG's work just fine without an alignment system, after all. Actions and consequences.

Which has nothing to do with if the labeling is accurate or not.

And of course there are other ways to codify and label traits. However I might dispute that "most" label. By system that might be true, but what about by weight? AKA the number of people playing? How about general media representation, I don't think I'm making a radical assessment to say that most is pretty clear on good and evil. I mean are protagonists heroes or villains most of the time or not? While less obvious I don't think law and chaos are all that less prevalent though probably a bit more evenly represented.

Oh every once and awhile something with moral ambiguity/complexity/etc is a big thing and everybody loves it. And yet by weight? Well clear ideas are what people prefer by default for their escapism. Nothing wrong with D&D doing the same.

I'll say again, if you can't come up with a character and determine their alignment from their traits, well either you aren't trying or don't have a well defined character.



Why you want references? So that you can actually make comparisons. Why is it taboo to have moral labelling? WoD games has Sins and Virtues, it used to have Conduct and Nature labels as well. Nearly any game that doesn't rely too much in freeform has some kind of reference system to keep track of the character's morals (unless the game itself doesn't really care about them or is too gray-themed).


Its taboo to label because its nerds as comparative outsiders have a collective persecution/victimization complex. Also some relation many (petty) real world debates that aren't forbidden on this site.

Attacking morality is a very self-comforting methodology because after all if there is not a right and wrong... you yourself cannot ever be in the wrong. Therefore those who don't 'get' you much less think you are wrong should just shut up. Of course the hypocrisy of it is that this only works from the paradigm of good/evil right/wrong and is itself selling a just a different definition of it while trying to eke out a win by default by saying no one should even play the game. Its a very easy pseudo-intellectual rhetorical system since it requires minimal aggression and not having to counterattack the opposition except superficially.

It tends to come up short when forcing the actually limits because of course at its core it is still pushing a moral label despite claiming otherwise.

[Lord Raziere]

I agree with Soras.

moral subjectivism is a useless, often shallow mode of thought, not fit for deciding anything for any good reason. just because people disagree does not mean everyone is correct. it means at least one person is wrong- with potentially everyone being wrong. I'm glad I outgrew it.

the only thing its theoretically good for is tolerance, which is achievable without it.

any good moral philosophy needs to eventually allow you to make a decision- and for the right reasons. because it is right, because it upholds a virtue that people should have, because it will improve the world- those are good reasons. moral subjectivism however says that we should make decisions based on selfish moral judgements- that the only morality that matters is what you decide. and that is a bad reason, as it does not allow you to recognize when others have made a better moral judgement than you.

alignment is simply a simplification of morality. I use it for DnD.....and pretty much nothing else. I discard it in other settings because morality is more complex than you can possibly imagine and therefore requires more thought to make the right judgements, not to get rid of morality entirely. sure the answers to what is moral are not clear to anyone. that does not mean they aren't there though, or that you should stop making an effort to find them. it might be that while its objective, morality itself is an evolving organic thing, growing with society as we discover new rights and wrongs, as we discover new ways to be moral, new things to be moral about.

[obryn]

I simply despise repulsive 13 yr old shallow whining being presented as depth. Which fandom (a singular thing plural is an illusion) does incessantly in a cycle of preacher to choir thus into ever more empty small minded directions. I'm not being hyperbolic there, viewpoints like yours stir actual nausea. So I do not let them go unchallenged so that one day your ideas will perish from the Earth. I'm out to execute your entire pattern of thought.

And when you enter a debate you void any immunity for your ideas to go unchallenged.

Refusing to answer moral questions contains not a speck of virtue. So unless you are going to commit to that there is no good and evil in a rigorous way (ie: Velvar is not) then you have no grounds for bashing the alignment system, because all it does is write down the short version of those considerations.
Wow. Actual nausea. Execute entire patterns of thought for thinking that D&D alignment is a terrible representation of morality. :smallcool: I think you haven't processed anything I've written, here. I'm not championing any kind of moral relativism, moral absentism, or saying that your cartoonish mustache-swirler isn't committing evil acts in a very obvious sense. I've said so several times, and you've ignored it.

I'm saying that morality is complex, and that D&D 3x3 grids are a terrible representation of it. I'm saying that you can have ethical and moral considerations in any RPG without D&D's alignments, just as you can in real life. You've glossed over all of that because you've somehow convinced yourself that the statement, "D&D alignments are dumb and obstruct roleplaying" is a claim about moral thought in general.

Yeah, between this and the incessant edition warring in another thread you're not worth talking to, I'd say.


I agree with Soras.

moral subjectivism is a useless, often shallow mode of thought, not fit for deciding anything for any good reason. just because people disagree does not mean everyone is correct. it means at least one person is wrong- with potentially everyone being wrong. I'm glad I outgrew it.

the only thing its theoretically good for is tolerance, which is achievable without it.

any good moral philosophy needs to eventually allow you to make a decision- and for the right reasons. because it is right, because it upholds a virtue that people should have, because it will improve the world- those are good reasons. moral subjectivism however says that we should make decisions based on selfish moral judgements- that the only morality that matters is what you decide. and that is a bad reason, as it does not allow you to recognize when others have made a better moral judgement than you.

alignment is simply a simplification of morality. I use it for DnD.....and pretty much nothing else. I discard it in other settings because morality is more complex than you can possibly imagine and therefore requires more thought to make the right judgements, not to get rid of morality entirely. sure the answers to what is moral are not clear to anyone. that does not mean they aren't there though, or that you should stop making an effort to find them. it might be that while its objective, morality itself is an evolving organic thing, growing with society as we discover new rights and wrongs, as we discover new ways to be moral, new things to be moral about.
Well, here's the thing. You need some absolutes, absolutely. :smallsmile: But different systems of moral thought rely on different absolutes.

You won't find many ethical philosophers who adhere to any kind of full relativism or cultural relativism. The basic thought was, back when I minored in it in the 90's sometime, "If your ethical system doesn't allow you to say, 'the Holocaust was wrong,' you should probably re-think your principles." So you'll find vanishingly few serious cultural relativists.

The thing is, different systems of ethics can get you to the conclusion, "the Holocaust was wrong" in different ways. John Stuart Mill, Hegel, William James, and Immanuel Kant would all tell you that it was wrong, but they'd get there in different ways.

Now if you're a Kantian, telling your wife she looks great today when you don't actually think so would be an evil act. (Whereas a utilitarian would tend to think it's fine, depending on the finer points of the system in question.) Liars, for Kant, get thrown onto the Evil side of the spectrum right along with murderers, which seems kinda weird. Likewise, depending on the system in question, killing orcs could never be a Good act - and in fact, might actually be Evil.

[hawklost]

Wow. Actual nausea. Execute entire patterns of thought for thinking that D&D alignment is a terrible representation of morality. :smallcool: I think you haven't processed anything I've written, here. I'm not championing any kind of moral relativism, moral absentism, or saying that your cartoonish mustache-swirler isn't committing evil acts in a very obvious sense. I've said so several times, and you've ignored it.

I'm saying that morality is complex, and that D&D 3x3 grids are a terrible representation of it. I'm saying that you can have ethical and moral considerations in any RPG without D&D's alignments, just as you can in real life. You've glossed over all of that because you've somehow convinced yourself that the statement, "D&D alignments are dumb and obstruct roleplaying" is a claim about moral thought in general.

Yeah, between this and the incessant edition warring in another thread you're not worth talking to, I'd say.


Well, here's the thing. You need some absolutes, absolutely. :smallsmile: But different systems of moral thought rely on different absolutes.

You won't find many ethical philosophers who adhere to any kind of full relativism or cultural relativism. The basic thought was, back when I minored in it in the 90's sometime, "If your ethical system doesn't allow you to say, 'the Holocaust was wrong,' you should probably re-think your principles." So you'll find vanishingly few serious cultural relativists.

The thing is, different systems of ethics can get you to the conclusion, "the Holocaust was wrong" in different ways. John Stuart Mill, Hegel, William James, and Immanuel Kant would all tell you that it was wrong, but they'd get there in different ways.

Now if you're a Kantian, telling your wife she looks great today when you don't actually think so would be an evil act. (Whereas a utilitarian would tend to think it's fine, depending on the finer points of the system in question.) Liars, for Kant, get thrown onto the Evil side of the spectrum right along with murderers, which seems kinda weird. Likewise, depending on the system in question, killing orcs could never be a Good act - and in fact, might actually be Evil.

You seem to be trying to argue that since there are different systems of morality it means that DnDs system is wrong (because it is too simple). DnD very much specifies its style of Morality. It gives examples of people of each spectrum as it sees them. You can try to claim that since systems in the real world can argue differently that the Moral system that DnD uses is wrong or incomplete but in reality, it just doesn't fit your ideal of morality.

In DnD, Killing an Orc can be good or evil depending on the reasoning behind it. In DnD, it is much simpler morality system then trying to ask "am I using Kantian or utilitarian". Its, "I am using DnD style which says this", if you don't want to use the DnD alignment system, it does not force you too, but it gives a great deal of help for those who want to play a style of character in DnD worlds.

[Sartharina]

Living a free life doesn't mean you are Chaotic.Yes it does.


... Lancelot, a Barbarian? You know that 'rage' as described in the class doesn't just mean 'being angry', right?

If you interpret class lore this loosely I can perfectly see why you despise the alignment system. But I don't think any system would fit such broad spectrum. That's not a problem of the system per se, mind you."Rage" is a supernaturally empowering combat - and Lancelot was a Barbarian anyway, because he didn't speak Greek.


Refusing to answer moral questions contains not a speck of virtue. So unless you are going to commit to that there is no good and evil in a rigorous way (ie: Velvar is not) then you have no grounds for bashing the alignment system, because all it does is write down the short version of those considerations.
Stop whining about Obryn not answering YOUR moral questions when you still haven't answered mine - What alignments are Fanboy, Mann, Stockton and McCrow from kidjake's M&M campaign journal?

[obryn]

You seem to be trying to argue that since there are different systems of morality it means that DnDs system is wrong (because it is too simple). DnD very much specifies its style of Morality. It gives examples of people of each spectrum as it sees them. You can try to claim that since systems in the real world can argue differently that the Moral system that DnD uses is wrong or incomplete but in reality, it just doesn't fit your ideal of morality.

In DnD, Killing an Orc can be good or evil depending on the reasoning behind it. In DnD, it is much simpler morality system then trying to ask "am I using Kantian or utilitarian". Its, "I am using DnD style which says this", if you don't want to use the DnD alignment system, it does not force you too, but it gives a great deal of help for those who want to play a style of character in DnD worlds.
No, I agree, neither 4e nor 5e really use the alignment system in a mechanical sense. If I felt like it, in either edition, I could write down "Communist" for alignment, and the game would run just fine. I find this a major perk for both systems. (In contrast, I remember trying to remove alignment for 3.5. Couldn't really be done, with how it's mechanically referenced in numerous spells, magic items, and even damage resistance.)

Also I agree that D&D alignment is simplified. I'm saying that's not really a perk, and I'd argue it's worse than having nothing systemized at all.

Finally, for the record, I think that D&D alignment is fine within a certain context. If you look at Greyhawk, the Alignments are actual factions, complete with languages, artifacts, and alliances with extraplanar beings. That's fun, within that setting, but it's not because it's a system of morality. It's fun because it's a neat little setting detail.

[hawklost]

No, I agree, neither 4e nor 5e really use the alignment system in a mechanical sense. If I felt like it, in either edition, I could write down "Communist" for alignment, and the game would run just fine. I find this a major perk for both systems. (In contrast, I remember trying to remove alignment for 3.5. Couldn't really be done, with how it's mechanically referenced in numerous spells, magic items, and even damage resistance.)

Also I agree that D&D alignment is simplified. I'm saying that's not really a perk, and I'd argue it's worse than having nothing systemized at all.

Finally, for the record, I think that D&D alignment is fine within a certain context. If you look at Greyhawk, the Alignments are actual factions, complete with languages, artifacts, and alliances with extraplanar beings. That's fun, within that setting, but it's not because it's a system of morality. It's fun because it's a neat little setting detail.

Alright, I can see where you are getting at. I see a broad spectrum of simplified alignments as useful to give me a general sense of what people internalize (Not do, but how they think about doing something). You see it as not really worth while. Both can be correct depending on the play style.

And yes, I can see if someone write down communist as their alignment as how that would be a perfectly valid way to give me the same internalization. In fact, as a DM, I would approve of them using that as their description. For other people though, the 9 choices are better for them because it does not hold real world connotations to it.

[Falka]

Yes it does.

No, it doesn't. A hermit that lives in the mountains and is seeking spiritual enlightment, isn't he living a free live? Everyone that isn't a slave or someone bound by a legal system is Chaotic?

You can believe order in life is important and live by it. And you can also live freely, following this tradition firmly and no other. Still Lawful. There's intent.


"Rage" is a supernaturally empowering combat - and Lancelot was a Barbarian anyway, because he didn't speak Greek.

What?

You're making that stuff up. Barbarians as an archetype of fantasy games (which are closer to Vikings, Lusitanians, William Wallace perhaps, or Conan) adress a specific type of warrior, that is usually a heathen, is somehow attuned with tribal ways and fights in a beastial way. You know, big axe, swings around recklessly. They are usually in the more "primitive" side from a civilization point of view.

Barbarian is meant to play a 'primal warrior' archetype, not a knight or a disciplined warrior.

However, I see what you're trying to do. You're trying to use a broad interpretation from the origin of the word, which meant 'foreigner', referred to the tribes that were apart from the Roman Empire and were mostly heathens.

Most merged with romans anyway and adopted both their religion and customs, so they ceased to be 'barbarians'.

Of course Lancelot didn't knew Greek. I don't think any knight of that time even knew Latin - or how to read, anyway. Most medieval knights didn't know how to read. That doesn't make them barbarians since most had been influenced by Roman culture and were Christian.

[Sartharina]

Law is about order and conformity. You can't have order and conformity if everyone's doing something different.

William Wallace was himself a knight. The Visigoths (The barbarians that sacked Rome) were practically Medieval Knights before Medieval Knights were popular - Heavy armor, swords, shields, and lances, horses, and stirrups. Conan's was a Warrior-king. The Vikings had an elaborate feudal system.

[Morty]

If we want to be accurate, the D&D barbarian class describes a rather specific sort of warrior, due to its focus on berserker rage - not just any warrior from a tribal, barbaric culture. Which still doesn't imply a non-lawful alignment, as has been explained several times.

[Falka]

Yes it does.

"Rage" is a supernaturally empowering combat - and Lancelot was a Barbarian anyway, because he didn't speak Greek.


Stop whining about Obryn not answering YOUR moral questions when you still haven't answered mine - What alignments are Fanboy, Mann, Stockton and McCrow from kidjake's M&M campaign journal?


Law is about order and conformity. You can't have order and conformity if everyone's doing something different.

William Wallace was himself a knight. The Visigoths (The barbarians that sacked Rome) were practically Medieval Knights before Medieval Knights were popular - Heavy armor, swords, shields, and lances, horses, and stirrups. Conan's was a Warrior-king. The Vikings had an elaborate feudal system.

Visigoths were Romanised and they were part of the Roman Empire. They become christians long before they sacked Rome, so to speak.

Vikings and for the record, most slavic / germanic cultures that were considered 'barbarian' at the time were grouped through 'gens' or clan-based societies, which were mostly based through informal ruling, not feuds. Feudalism as a form of social organisation started after the collapse of the Roman Empire. Comparing them to Romans and saying "they're lawful because they also organise their societies": heck, following that interpretation, every hint of organization will lead to a Lawful society (that's a fallacious reasoning).

Conan THE BARBARIAN was a Barbarian themed character, not the highly discipled trained warrior that the Fighter emulates as an archetype. Both are warriors, but they don't understand fighting in the same way.

Anyways, we're down in this circular argument where anything that can be half-assed fluffed is completely valid (not really, but fine - it's your cake, you eat it however you want).

[Sartharina]

Visigoths were Romanised and they were part of the Roman Empire. They become christians long before they sacked Rome, so to speak.But the knightlyness of them was stuff they brought themselves, not stuff Rome gave them.


Vikings and for the record, most slavic / germanic cultures that were considered 'barbarian' at the time were grouped through 'gens' or clan-based societies, which were mostly based through informal ruling, not feuds. Feudalism as a form of social organisation started after the collapse of the Roman Empire. Comparing them to Romans and saying "they're lawful because they also organise their societies": heck, following that interpretation, every hint of organization will lead to a Lawful society (that's a fallacious reasoning).I am aware of how clans work. They can be extremely formal in their rule, and extremely sophisticated on all levels of society. Romans just liked to trash-talk them (As the Victorians trash-talked the middle ages)


Conan THE BARBARIAN was a Barbarian themed character, not the highly discipled trained warrior that the Fighter emulates as an archetype. Both are warriors, but they don't understand fighting in the same way.
Maybe you should read the Conan books?

[obryn]

Comparing them to Romans and saying "they're lawful because they also organise their societies": heck, following that interpretation, every hint of organization will lead to a Lawful society (that's a fallacious reasoning).
Reason #16 why alignment in D&D is meaningless.


Anyways, we're down in this circular argument where anything that can be half-assed fluffed is completely valid (not really, but fine - it's your cake, you eat it however you want).
Why is this circular?

[Morty]

This argument feels a bit academic to me, since a person's alignment isn't determined by the society's - influenced, sure, but a Chaotic person can some from a highly Lawful environment and vice versa.

[Forum Explorer]

For reference purposes. For the same reason we have AC, and a character sheet for all I can tell. It's just a reference to make things easier for the DM, for some spell and magic item mechanics that have been always present in D&D (planes, intelligent weapons, hallowed/desecrated areas, cosmology...)

Why you want references? So that you can actually make comparisons. Why is it taboo to have moral labelling? WoD games has Sins and Virtues, it used to have Conduct and Nature labels as well. Nearly any game that doesn't rely too much in freeform has some kind of reference system to keep track of the character's morals (unless the game itself doesn't really care about them or is too gray-themed).

Though we both agree that people do not have alignments in real life (well, dragons don't exist either amirite?) that doesn't mean that any kind of labelling is a pointless exercise as it does serve some purposes. That you don't like how D&D deals with it is another issue.

That's a horrible comparison. AC is highly involved on the mechanical level, and is more or less ignored on the roleplaying level, while alignment is the exact opposite. We have AC so by a dice roll we can determine if an attack hit or not. I've seen systems go without AC (success being the same roll no matter what, but the number of dice you roll changes, or even everything hits and you just roll damage) but those systems are very different on a mechanical level. However the characters in those systems could be converted over to D&D and get AC without changing their fluff. Not having those mechanics at all dramatically changes how the game is played. Not having alignment changes nothing at all.

Vices and Virtues are different, for one they reflect a much tinier part of the character (One specific Virtue, and one specific Vice. You can have more Virtue's and/or Vices as you see fit) and have a very strong mechanical effect. And they aren't labels, but traits. They won't tell me everything about a character (like saying your character is an elf) but they do tell me something.

What purpose do they serve? In 3.5 they were annoying, but you couldn't just get rid of them because they were used all over the place. (In what felt like a very tacked on manner IMO). But now they do nearly nothing. And don't say they provide a reference. Because they really don't. If the player is providing backstory, then I'm going to read it and just use that. If they aren't (And I do consider even a small backstory mandatory) then I might use it to try and predict which players will have a problem, but as soon as the game starts I'll be just going by the character's actions.

So I guess the question is how are you using them as a reference?



Which has little to do with the label being a valid shorthand and you should have an idea yeah Velvar has probably done some thing to earn it by the CE label.

Or the character isn't properly designed because it lack distinction enough to be labeled as other then a shallow, inconsistent, or just plain a mess. Which is in all but some fairly radical veins of thought a rubbish character. Which certainly there are plenty of on tabletop but the first clue is when they don't like labels because it probably means that they know none apply because there isn't coherence, not because the labels themselves have a problem.



Easy:
-White Council is LN. Their absolutism makes them highly lawful, their striving to deny moral character make them neutral. Their justifications are ones of practicality, neutral because they are afraid to take a stronger stance.
- McCoy is NG. Fights for his ethical beliefs, responsible for Harry thinking of magic as a force for good, rides between respect for authority and disdain.

Jim Butcher is easy, given we know he's played it I suspect its no coincidence (if not necessarily intentional) he has lots of pretty textbook alignment examples.



And of course there are other ways to codify and label traits. However I might dispute that "most" label. By system that might be true, but what about by weight? AKA the number of people playing? How about general media representation, I don't think I'm making a radical assessment to say that most is pretty clear on good and evil. I mean are protagonists heroes or villains most of the time or not? While less obvious I don't think law and chaos are all that less prevalent though probably a bit more evenly represented.

Oh every once and awhile something with moral ambiguity/complexity/etc is a big thing and everybody loves it. And yet by weight? Well clear ideas are what people prefer by default for their escapism. Nothing wrong with D&D doing the same.

I'll say again, if you can't come up with a character and determine their alignment from their traits, well either you aren't trying or don't have a well defined character.



Its taboo to label because its nerds as comparative outsiders have a collective persecution/victimization complex. Also some relation many (petty) real world debates that aren't forbidden on this site.

Attacking morality is a very self-comforting methodology because after all if there is not a right and wrong... you yourself cannot ever be in the wrong. Therefore those who don't 'get' you much less think you are wrong should just shut up. Of course the hypocrisy of it is that this only works from the paradigm of good/evil right/wrong and is itself selling a just a different definition of it while trying to eke out a win by default by saying no one should even play the game. Its a very easy pseudo-intellectual rhetorical system since it requires minimal aggression and not having to counterattack the opposition except superficially.

It tends to come up short when forcing the actually limits because of course at its core it is still pushing a moral label despite claiming otherwise.

I literally do not understand the first sentence. I think you are saying that CE is a valid label for Velvar (true) and that it's sufficient (false). If someone wanted to play a druid terrorist who was infiltrating society to figure out where to strike to cause the most harm, then I'd also feel they fit the CE label, but I wouldn't have any issues with them playing that character.

Or perhaps you are saying the CE label is valid (true) and that's all. But it's also useless from my perspective. I don't need to label my door as being wooden, or my carpet as brown. Those are valid labels in that they are true, but it's information easily acquired at a glance. Those labels are useless for me because they tell me less information then I get at a glance, and they are useless to you because they don't tell you other important details about the objects (such as quality or type of door, or size or softness of the carpet). Similar thing with alignment. By itself it's useless because it doesn't give enough info. With other info it's useless because it's not telling me anything that the other info isn't.

Well I'll just call that last paragraph as false. I reject labels like alignment but I don't find my characters to be incoherent. Or that the players who give me characters in their game have incoherent messy characters.

Well I disagree:

The White Council is LG: They are highly lawful I agree. But they are all about reducing the damage from supernatural sources. They are dedicated to hunting down warlocks who kill and ruin lives with impunity, and ensure that their own members don't fall along the same path. They also risk their lives in order to stop evil individuals such as necromancers, and strive to eliminate rituals. Yes, they don't try and wipe out the Red Court (til they are pushed into it) or exterminate the White Court. But it's because they know they aren't strong enough to succeed, and that failure means they would be wiped out. As they see it they are humanities strongest ally and best protector. If they are eliminated then humanity would be on it's own, and things would get much worse. They are focused on the greater good, and that does occasionally mean they let a minor evil survive, or even commit one themselves, but they never claimed to be paladins. It's also worth noting that they are correct. Fighting the Red Court (and eventually wiping them out) drained their resources to the point that they are still vulnerable, and pretty much unable to protect humanity from the Fomor who have arisen in the wake of the Red Court's defeat. And they were nearly wiped out several times in the war (and would have been without Dresden's intervention)

Mccoy is CN: He is completely disrespectful of authority, ignoring it as he sees fit. He also has a license to kill and he uses it to a massive amount. He kills hundreds of people to get to Ortanga, and did he really have to do so? We've seen his power, he could have used another method to get similar results. Same with the fight where he casually murders hundreds of mercs. He could have used a different spell to just drive them away. Now I'm not saying he's evil, but he certainly won't hesitate to use evil methods to achieve good goals. Or evil methods to achieve personal and political vengeance. He may be troubled by this, but he still does it without hesitation. Yes, he taught Dresden to be good and treat magic as a force for good. But he doesn't practice what he preaches.

Would you say that my labels are incorrect? Why are they incorrect? And prove it if they are incorrect. If you cannot, then I'll take that as proof of the failings of the 9 box alignment grid.


Again I don't think anyone here is arguing against having morality itself in their games. Just against the very specific 3.5 9 box alignment grid. They are (or at least I am) saying that they find it inadequate, restrictive, and/or useless. Simply using real life morality (because the players and GM can adequately roleplay it) is easier and better.

[Falka]

Reason #16 why alignment in D&D is meaningless.

No, that's just a fallacious conclusion produced by a fallacious assumption. Having a weird concept of what's Lawful to justify "that alignment is meaningless" just speaks about how you despise the alignment itself, not that its devoid of purpose.

The argument is circular because if people refuse to take a common reference, every comparison will be flawed. There's a definition of Lawful, for instance, as D&D considers. You can say that X or Y is not Lawful according to the label, but not that the label itself is different depending on who looks at it.

Alignments were created fo the sake of cataloguing large groups through a minimum setting of common beliefs. So there is a "basic definition" for Lawful - there is a basic for Evil, etc. It's a common denominator.

This is useful in D&D because it's a game used to deal with macro play, lots of cultures and races and in the end, for comparing the individual between common groups (which aren't cosmic forces, they just share a series of philosophic minimum values but they can vary between them).

As long as you can make a minimum common denominator for Chaos, Evil, etc. you can justify alignments, especially when you have large groups and macro-play. And D&D does a lot. Actually, D&D tells you that not everyone has free will (humans are the snowflakes) and some races have a tendency for X alignment. All these races have "creator gods" that pull them towards a certain alignment. Hence why we can explain more easily why it's hard to put moral relativism in a world where the gods 'force' you to feel and act in some ways (an orc will be usually CE and he will need extraordinary circunstances to justify not being CE and follower of Gruumsh).

If we agree to set some common grounds, as they're written in lore (which is the basic reference to justify the point of alignment), then we can have a discussion. If you think lore is irrelevant, then yes, alignments can be irrelevant. But actually, you do not answer the question as Soras said: "Is alignment useful for what it was made?" Saying "I don't like alignments, they're dumb" isn't an apropriate answer.

[Morty]

Obryn, and other people, have answered the question of "Is alignment useful for what it was made?", repeatedly. The answer is: no, it is not, because it helps with nothing and gets in the way.

[Knaight]

And are you comparing Wuxia movies to classic wuxia literature? Wuxia as a movie gender has a vast different meaning compared to classic Chinese epic adventures.

I'm talking about the literature - you may have noticed that the one thing I cited was written about the same time as Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and is hundreds of years older than even static pictures.

[hawklost]

Obryn, and other people, have answered the question of "Is alignment useful for what it was made?", repeatedly. The answer is: no, it is not, because it helps with nothing and gets in the way.

Helps with Nothing? In two words or less can you give me an idea of the major personality traits of (The race as a whole, not individuals) These are based on DnD races/gods so use them.

A Red Dragon
A Silver Dragon
A Drow
An Elf
Humans
Orcs
The God Gromish
The God Bahamet
The Goddess Tiamet
Celestials
Demons
Fiends

[Morty]

Helps with Nothing? In two words or less can you give me an idea of the major personality traits of (The race as a whole, not individuals) These are based on DnD races/gods so use them.


I can't give you any idea - at least none that's worth anything. That's the whole point. You'd get a pithy label, nothing more, just like with alignment.

[hawklost]

I can't give you any idea - at least none that's worth anything. That's the whole point. You'd get a pithy label, nothing more.

So Alignments don't help, so how do you know that a Red Dragon is Evil? How do you know Orcs are Evil? What about a Cultist? Does it write a whole long detailed list of everything they are commonly doing to give you that idea?

Why are your characters going around stopping 'evil' if alignments are ambiguous. You seem to be implying that your characters are morally ambiguous and therefore just kill creatures that might be perfectly good because well you don't know or care.

[obryn]

Helps with Nothing? In two words or less can you give me an idea of the major personality traits of (The race as a whole, not individuals) These are based on DnD races/gods so use them.

A Red Dragon
A Silver Dragon
A Drow
An Elf
Humans
Orcs
The God Gromish
The God Bahamet
The Goddess Tiamet
Celestials
Demons
Fiends
First off, "the race as a whole" is kinda ... against the point of the whole exercise? Part of the reason D&D alignment is terrible is because it leads to the deindividualization of (particularly non-human) societies. But I'll play because I have a turn-around challenge for you.

Avaricious, Ravenous
Benevolent, Crusading
Sly, Fanatical
Nature-loving, free-spirited
Resourceful, Clannish
Rampaging, Disorganized
...do I actually need to go on?

But okay, let's reverse this. Here are the alignments of four Forgotten Realms deities.

Chaotic Evil
Chaotic Evil
Chaotic Evil
Chaotic Evil

Tell me about their priesthoods and their domains of worship from these descriptions alone.

[Morty]

So Alignments don't help, so how do you know that a Red Dragon is Evil? How do you know Orcs are Evil? What about a Cultist?

Well golly, maybe the fact that they're currently burning down a countryside, raiding civilized lands or sacrificing virgins for their demon lord is kind of a give-away. Or is it not enough if they have no big, red "EVIL" label on them?


Does it write a whole long detailed list of everything they are commonly doing to give you that idea?

I don't give an old OD&D rulebook what they 'commonly' do. I care what they do when my character is nearby and in a position to do something about it.


Why are your characters going around stopping 'evil' if alignments are ambiguous. You seem to be implying that your characters are morally ambiguous and therefore just kill creatures that might be perfectly good because well you don't know.

You know, if you're going to reduce my arguments to strawmen, could you at least put more effort into it?

[Forum Explorer]

Helps with Nothing? In two words or less can you give me an idea of the major personality traits of (The race as a whole, not individuals) These are based on DnD races/gods so use them.

A Red Dragon
A Silver Dragon
A Drow
An Elf
Humans
Orcs
The God Gromish
The God Bahamet
The Goddess Tiamet
Celestials
Demons
Fiends

A Red Dragon - Destructive Greedy
A Silver Dragon - Who knows?
A Drow - Mary Sue :smalltongue:
An Elf - Pointy Eared
Humans - Look around
Orcs - Knife Fodder
The God Gromish - Who?
The God Bahamet - Dragon God
The Goddess Tiamet - Bahamet Nemesis
Celestials - Angels
Demons - Treacherous Demons
Fiends - Lawyer Demons

I hope you found that as useful as I do alignments.

[Dienekes]

Visigoths were Romanised and they were part of the Roman Empire. They become christians long before they sacked Rome, so to speak.

They were within the Roman empire. Do not confuse within the borders with being a full part of the empire. The Romans certainly didn't see them as such.


Vikings and for the record, most slavic / germanic cultures that were considered 'barbarian' at the time were grouped through 'gens' or clan-based societies, which were mostly based through informal ruling, not feuds. Feudalism as a form of social organisation started after the collapse of the Roman Empire. Comparing them to Romans and saying "they're lawful because they also organise their societies": heck, following that interpretation, every hint of organization will lead to a Lawful society (that's a fallacious reasoning).

Note to everyone, don't use the term feudal to describe anything. The closest you'll get to a definition of it is Marc Blonch's and he took a book or two to try and nail it down. And scholars still argue about it continuously. Currently, I believe only early medieval France and post-invasion Britain are considered a true feudal system. And even that is up for a fun debate. Feudalism itself is actually an economic, not political model. Now what most people mean with feudalism is instead a vassal system, in which client rulers, serving under political overlords, run territory and people in exchange for military service and support. And as far as that goes, the Late Antiquity "barbarians" definitely had that.

Now as to the vikings, and visigoths political structures. I will admit I am more knowledgeable on the late antiquity Germans than the vikings. However, my understanding is that the society itself was no more or less organized than England or "Germany" during that time period.

As to the Late Antiquities, the term Barbarian was used to describe everyone who didn't speak Greek or Latin (and the Romans had to argue a bit to make Latin acceptable) as their mother tongue. This included the Persians who were about as civilized as any Roman, the Jews, and of course the Germani. Now this is where things get interesting. The Germani seem to have a growing level of organization through the 2nd century until the fall of Rome. Cities, non-Roman cities appear to have started to spring up. Nowhere near the size that the Romans or other Mediterranean societies could produce, but cities nonetheless. Kings were declared and lineages were followed. And this was all despite the best efforts of the Romans who appear to have, with some regularity, gone in and slaughtered them, and tried to break up the potential for a strong centralized barbarian force on their borders. This was actually affective for awhile, it's harder to create a stable government when you constantly have to restart it. However, when one does come up (under a guy like Alaric), it shouldn't be surprising that they head toward Rome a bit ticked off.

It would probably be best to come up with what makes a lawful society? If it's law codes then, the vikings definitely had that. If it's strict social structures then they all did, except maybe the Picts for awhile up in Scotland, and (in goal at least if not in practice) America. The Picts are weird. But even then, I am curious why a knight could somehow be lawful when a berserkyr could not. A knight is just a man trained since an early age to fight for a king and is given a role of an elite in society. The berserkyrs were men, trained since an early age to fight for a king and were given a role of an elite in their society. Hell, they were even both given similar idealizations that stated they were supposed to be some kind of warrior philosopher (though very few seem to meet this mark) and members of the royal court. They even both dedicated themselves to gods. The difference are that knights were mounted, knights lasted a bit closer to modern times, and knights have more idealized fiction placed upon them.


Conan THE BARBARIAN was a Barbarian themed character, not the highly discipled trained warrior that the Fighter emulates as an archetype. Both are warriors, but they don't understand fighting in the same way.

No. Conan is the most skilled warrior of his time, who goes through quite a bit of training. Though the Barbarian itself is a bit of a misleading name to give him as he was also Conan the Theif, Conan the Pirate, and of course Conan the King. There was a 3.5 thread awhile back that tried to stat out Conan and ended up with a strange e6 style multiclass/gestalt (or was it tristalt?) Fighter, Barbarian, Rogue, Ranger (though ranger was some weird subclass that gave up the animal companion). He also changed his alignment throughout his career getting more lawful in his kinging days.



There was more I wanted to post about but I've been leaving and coming back to this for awhile now and have quite lost my train of thought. But to briefly sum up. Barbarian cultures are nowhere near as un-lawful as is commonly perceived outside of maybe Julius Caesar's time. The idea that we still think of them as backwards tribe folk despite hundreds of years of development and being next to the most "civilized" territory in Europe should give you a heads up something is amiss. I do not know what qualifies a lawful vs a chaotic society and looking at the basic legal codes of the time certainly seems like the Germani had a very similar social and political structure to what is perceived as medieval (not surprisingly, since you know, the former kinda became the latter).

[obryn]

Well golly, maybe the fact that they're currently burning down a countryside, raiding civilized lands or sacrificing virgins for their demon lord is kind of a give-away. Or is it not enough if they have no big, red "EVIL" label on them?
I just wanted to hop in and say "hell yeah" to this.

It's one of the big problems about alignment, IMO, and I'm glad Morty brought it up because it's fallen by the wayside in all this. With alignment in a stat block, all of a sudden focus is placed on what something is rather than on what it is doing.

With stuff like demons and angels, I think that's perfectly fair. For other stuff, including mortal humanoids? Not so much.

[hawklost]

Well golly, maybe the fact that they're currently burning down a countryside, raiding civilized lands or sacrificing virgins for their demon lord is kind of a give-away. Or is it not enough if they have no big, red "EVIL" label on them?



I don't give an old OD&D rulebook what they 'commonly' do. I care what they do when my character is nearby and in a position to do something about it.



You know, if you're going to reduce my arguments to strawmen, could you at least put more effort into it?

So your logic is "If they aren't doing anything I can see and give a definition too, they aren't doing anything"

So if there are some people who warship demons and have not done anything to harm you or anyone around, do you kill them? Do you leave them alone even though what they are doing could summon something? (or maybe they worship them but don't have the ability to summon them). If they aren't doing something..... Evil (hello mister label there).... then are you just killing them because they might?

Why does someone have to do majorly bad things to be labelled evil?

And as for not caring what they 'commonly' do. that must mean that if your character walks into a band of ****, even if the **** are fully armed with lots of weapons, they just continue on their way without a care as long as those **** haven't attacked anyone or you haven't heard rumors of them doing that? Does your character get suspicious of that large group and wonder what it is doing? Do you follow it? Do you question it? Do you do anything since by your statement, if you don't see them doing evil they must not be evil.





Insert Knights, Orcs, Goblins, Elves, Dwarves, Humans, Peasants, Ogres in for the **** since to you, they are all of an unknown alignment and can't possibly be up to evil without you having seen or heard of it.

EDIT: And Again, Alignments are the general way the creatures Think and Act, not the specific way they always do. Could you see a large band of orcs who are peaceful even if they are armed to the teeth travelling on the road? Sure, they could be a peace envoy, they good be travelling merchants, they could even be an entourage for a boy band..... but based upon how the 'good' civilizations see them, they are probably up to no good and will be treated with suspicion. Now, the same group of Elves would probably not be assumed to be up to no good. (Note, all these are specific to the Campaign Setting and how the DM decides the races interact!)

[obryn]

No. Conan is the most skilled warrior of his time, who goes through quite a bit of training. Though the Barbarian itself is a bit of a misleading name to give him as he was also Conan the Theif, Conan the Pirate, and of course Conan the King. There was a 3.5 thread awhile back that tried to stat out Conan and ended up with a strange e6 style multiclass/gestalt (or was it tristalt?) Fighter, Barbarian, Rogue, Ranger (though ranger was some weird subclass that gave up the animal companion). He also changed his alignment throughout his career getting more lawful in his kinging days.
http://i.imgur.com/em5bwBj.gif
(this illustrates a bunch of stuff about D&D itself, too, but that's not totally germane to the point - like how Conan is given psionics.)

e:

Why does someone have to do majorly bad things to be labelled evil?
Uhm. really?

[hawklost]

Uhm. really?

Yes Really. If someone kills kittens in the forest or steals things for their own gain they have done nothing majorly evil. they have done lots of petty evil but nothing that is major.

[Morty]

So your logic is "If they aren't doing anything I can see and give a definition too, they aren't doing anything"

That's not even on the same continent as my logic. Try again.


So if there are some people who warship demons and have not done anything to harm you or anyone around, do you kill them? Do you leave them alone even though what they are doing could summon something? (or maybe they worship them but don't have the ability to summon them). If they aren't doing something..... Evil (hello mister label there).... then are you just killing them because they might?

Please explain why I need a clear label that says "Evil" to be concerned about people who are doing something potentially dangerous, but haven't hurt anyone yet. I mean, lack of such a label prevents me from just killing them on sight, but that's the exact opposite of a problem.


Why does someone have to do majorly bad things to be labelled evil?

Because otherwise using the word at all is pointless. If 'evil' applies both to people who must be stopped for everyone's good, and to a person who is generally selfish and mean to their peers, then what's the point? I mean, you do need to apply it to both kinds if the alignment system is to make sense - but that's precisely why it's so useless.


And as for not caring what they 'commonly' do. that must mean that if your character walks into a band of ****, even if the **** are fully armed with lots of weapons, they just continue on their way without a care as long as those **** haven't attacked anyone or you haven't heard rumors of them doing that? Does your character get suspicious of that large group and wonder what it is doing? Do you follow it? Do you question it? Do you do anything since by your statement, if you don't see them doing evil they must not be evil.

Insert Knights, Orcs, Goblins, Elves, Dwarves, Humans, Peasants, Ogres in for the **** since to you, they are all of an unknown alignment and can't possibly be up to evil without you having seen or heard of it.

That leap of logic must have taken quite a Jump check to achieve. Ever heard of rumour, reputation and the mystic technique called common sense? Also known as the tools with which people make assumptions and expectations about others without having a set of labels to describe them with?


EDIT: And Again, Alignments are the general way the creatures Think and Act, not the specific way they always do. Could you see a large band of orcs who are peaceful even if they are armed to the teeth travelling on the road? Sure, they could be a peace envoy, they good be travelling merchants, they could even be an entourage for a boy band..... but based upon how the 'good' civilizations see them, they are probably up to no good and will be treated with suspicion. Now, the same group of Elves would probably not be assumed to be up to no good. (Note, all these are specific to the Campaign Setting and how the DM decides the races interact!)

And you need alignment for that why, exactly?

[Snails]

Drow actually tend to found very strict heriarchies. Their societies are very lawful. However, Lolth's influence, who is constantly promoting strife and chaos among them, makes them become NE.

If left alone, I'm sure they would tend to form LE societies. Actually, those that aren't rulled by Lolth's priesthood (magocratic societies, there are a couple in the Underdark) are mostly LE.



Yet you probably don't think anarchy is the best way of ruling your life, and you're promoting strife to seize power/raise station in your society. In the end, it's not a goal but a means to the end. LE are very methodic and everything they do has a purpose (Chaotic characters act more based on whim).

The problem is there is a startling lack of imagination, on the part of authors and others, with respect to Chaotic Evil.

The "reasoning" seems to be:
"Chaotic Evil" = "Super Evil" = "super effective" = "super efficient" = "super organized" = "Lawful Evil"

As if every little CE Demon has a methodical and efficient LE Devil wanting to come out.

No. Both Chaotics and Lawfuls can be astute and focused. Both Chaotics and Lawfuls are prone to errors and inefficiencies. They just choose certain kinds of inefficiencies over others.

Because we all know the only super smart people are Lawful Good. ;)

[Talakeal]

It seems some people are missing the joke.

The literal definition of barbarian is someone who doesn't speak greek. This is because to a greek speaker germanic languages sound like you are just saying "bar" over and over again.

[Dienekes]

It seems some people are missing the joke.

The literal definition of barbarian is someone who doesn't speak greek. This is because to a greek speaker germanic languages sound like you are just saying "bar" over and over again.

Well yeah, though it was originally Persian I think not the Germanic languages (though in all honesty I have no idea what the linguistic root of the ancient Persian language is). But despite it's origins the term barbarian has developed additional meanings.

[Lord Raziere]

Well, here's the thing. You need some absolutes, absolutely. :smallsmile: But different systems of moral thought rely on different absolutes.

You won't find many ethical philosophers who adhere to any kind of full relativism or cultural relativism. The basic thought was, back when I minored in it in the 90's sometime, "If your ethical system doesn't allow you to say, 'the Holocaust was wrong,' you should probably re-think your principles." So you'll find vanishingly few serious cultural relativists.

The thing is, different systems of ethics can get you to the conclusion, "the Holocaust was wrong" in different ways. John Stuart Mill, Hegel, William James, and Immanuel Kant would all tell you that it was wrong, but they'd get there in different ways.

Now if you're a Kantian, telling your wife she looks great today when you don't actually think so would be an evil act. (Whereas a utilitarian would tend to think it's fine, depending on the finer points of the system in question.) Liars, for Kant, get thrown onto the Evil side of the spectrum right along with murderers, which seems kinda weird. Likewise, depending on the system in question, killing orcs could never be a Good act - and in fact, might actually be Evil.

well we know that there are absolutes to morality where it always applies that philosophies agree upon, and we know there seem to be grey areas where various philosophies differ......what about situations where morality does not apply at all? basically: what is the point when we should stop applying morality? when it useless to do so, because it has no bearing on the situation?

because this is a theory I'm just making up but there seems to be three zones of morality:

the moral absolute zone- moral things everyone agrees on
the moral ambiguous zone- moral things people disagree upon
the moral void zone- things where morality does not apply and does not need any kind of moral judgement.

thing is, where does the ambiguous zone end and the void zone begin? at what point does applying morality to something become silly? I think if we can better define this void zone we can better look at the ambiguous zone better and thus figure out how to solve the problems in the ambiguous zone. that sound reasonable?

this of course all ties back to alignment in that we can use that to better figure out where to sort such ambiguity alignment wise.

[Logosloki]

Yes Really. If someone kills kittens in the forest or steals things for their own gain they have done nothing majorly evil. they have done lots of petty evil but nothing that is major.

If you are talking about Moustatio von Kittenripper who steals people's kittens and takes them to the forest and kills them on some dark altar (or plain murdernates) then Chaotic Evil, Lawful Evil would be if he was taking strays or abandoned ones or ferals. If you are talking about some grove druid who is looking after an endemic species that is vulnerable to kittens and other pests coming from the town and into the stand and is killing them to protect the species, probably neutral. Joe Kittentrapper who is tasked by his lord to lay traps to stop the damned things from entering the estate but secretly enjoys his job as he likes the way they look while they lay there all bloodied in the trap is probably neutral or lawful neutral with evil tendencies.

Theft depends on what we are talking about here. The hustler who takes a few bucks off a mark is probably chaotic neutral, unless he presses the mark for all he has which is a neutral/evil act. That office worker who steals a couple of pens, sometimes by accident, sometimes by not telling the person they have given them a pen is probably just neutral, taking money from petty cash and dressing it up as a phoney expense is chaotic while going into someone's house to nick their stuff is evil or tendency evil depending on what you are nicking, how often you are nicking and why you are nicking. Heck it could be from illegal gains and you are returning property to its rightful owner (chaotic not evil).

[obryn]

Yes Really. If someone kills kittens in the forest or steals things for their own gain they have done nothing majorly evil. they have done lots of petty evil but nothing that is major.
And you don't see this as a major problem with having alignment in a stat block?

[Sartharina]

No, that's just a fallacious conclusion produced by a fallacious assumption. Having a weird concept of what's Lawful to justify "that alignment is meaningless" just speaks about how you despise the alignment itself, not that its devoid of purpose.

The argument is circular because if people refuse to take a common reference, every comparison will be flawed. There's a definition of Lawful, for instance, as D&D considers. You can say that X or Y is not Lawful according to the label, but not that the label itself is different depending on who looks at it.

Alignments were created fo the sake of cataloguing large groups through a minimum setting of common beliefs. So there is a "basic definition" for Lawful - there is a basic for Evil, etc. It's a common denominator.

This is useful in D&D because it's a game used to deal with macro play, lots of cultures and races and in the end, for comparing the individual between common groups (which aren't cosmic forces, they just share a series of philosophic minimum values but they can vary between them).

As long as you can make a minimum common denominator for Chaos, Evil, etc. you can justify alignments, especially when you have large groups and macro-play. And D&D does a lot. Actually, D&D tells you that not everyone has free will (humans are the snowflakes) and some races have a tendency for X alignment. All these races have "creator gods" that pull them towards a certain alignment. Hence why we can explain more easily why it's hard to put moral relativism in a world where the gods 'force' you to feel and act in some ways (an orc will be usually CE and he will need extraordinary circunstances to justify not being CE and follower of Gruumsh).

If we agree to set some common grounds, as they're written in lore (which is the basic reference to justify the point of alignment), then we can have a discussion. If you think lore is irrelevant, then yes, alignments can be irrelevant. But actually, you do not answer the question as Soras said: "Is alignment useful for what it was made?" Saying "I don't like alignments, they're dumb" isn't an apropriate answer.
The alignments in D&D are NOT definitively defined as you seem to think they are. They are massive, overarching, and contradictory.

Also - I have never found an 'absolute' morality I can universally apply to everything that aren't A.)Impossible. B.)Requires ignoring all but a small handful of people, C.) Reinforcing static and harmful power structures, D.) Self-undermining, E.) Irrationally putting specific creature's lives above all others based on subjective and irrational moral postulates, and promoting those creature's propagation to the expense of absolutely everything else in the world - a "Grey-Goo" scenario.

[EvilAnagram]

Alignment has only ever been useful for helping players to think about what their characters would do and roleplay with those motivations in mind. If you take it as too concrete a thing, then it falls apart.

[hawklost]

Alignment has only ever been useful for helping players to think about what their characters would do and roleplay with those motivations in mind. If you take it as too concrete a thing, then it falls apart.

exactly the point. It is a helpful tool to allow you to know approximately how your character or any character is thinking/acting in a general way. It has no other definitive point to it but a guidline. I cannot understand why people don't get that and deny its usefulness in the guidance department.

[Sartharina]

It's like a baby-walker thing. Maybe useful for a small part of the population, but thrusting it on everyone's a problem.

Frankly... making Alignment mean anything close to Personality was a mistake. It should have stayed "Alignment" - as in what faction you support.
Alignment works in Greyhawk. It doesn't work in any other setting (it devalues the Gods of the Forgotten Realms, screws up the intrigue in Eberron, and gives useless results in Dark Sun and Ravenloft)

[Malifice]

Reason #16 why alignment in D&D is meaningless.

That depends on your philisophical underpinnings of the DnD universe.

Personally, my tuling is that good and evil (and law and chaos) are (in the DnD universe) objective things.

Once you die, you go to an outer plane that corresponds with your alignment. Certain spells and effects target and effect you differently depending on your alignment (and so forth).

What exactly constitutes 'good and evil' or 'law and chaos' are determined by the GM.

In my campaigns I define evil as 'lack of empathy for other living things'. Actions such as torture, killing when not in self defence or the defence of others, rape and so forth are evil actions. I define 'good' as going out of your way to help others and demonstrating altruism (such as charity, going out of your way to help others with no thought of personal etc).

Law indicates a respect for authority and an adherance to a personal (or social) code that upholds to similar values. Chaos indicates a preference for individualism and even whimsy.

N on either axis sits in the middle of the two, either demonstrating some elements of both without fully committing to either, or lacking in either element.

I often cite the following (broad examples) of alignments as guides my players:

LG: Hector from Troy, Superman.
NG: Your average Joe who works at the soup kitchen on weekends and helps little old ladies across the street, Walter White at the start of Breaking Bad
CG: Robin Hood, V (V for Vendetta)
LN: A judge, a police officer
N: Your average joe, Jessie Pinkman
CN: Achillies from the movie Troy, Captain Jack Sparrow
LE: The Nazi regime, the Punisher (in many of his incarnations)
NE: Tony Soprano, Walter White at the end of Breaking Bad
CE: The Joker, Tuco Salamanca from Breaking Bad

That said, alignment should never be a tool to limit roleplaying. Quite the opposite. There is a great deal of fun roleplaying a character who thinks he is good but in reality is evil and so forth, and agreat deal of fun in playing a characters fall to darkness (or redemption). See Star Wars, or Breaking Bad for prime examples.

[Morty]

That depends on your philisophical underpinnings of the DnD universe.

Personally, my tuling is that good and evil (and law and chaos) are (in the DnD universe) objective things.

Once you die, you go to an outer plane that corresponds with your alignment. Certain spells and effects target and effect you differently depending on your alignment (and so forth).

What exactly constitutes 'good and evil' or 'law and chaos' are determined by the GM.

In my campaigns I define evil as 'lack of empathy for other living things'. Actions such as torture, killing when not in self defence or the defence of others, rape and so forth are evil actions. I define 'good' as going out of your way to help others and demonstrating altruism (such as charity, going out of your way to help others with no thought of personal etc).

Law indicates a respect for authority and an adherance to a personal (or social) code that upholds to similar values. Chaos indicates a preference for individualism and even whimsy.

N on either axis sits in the middle of the two, either demonstrating some elements of both without fully committing to either, or lacking in either element.

I often cite the following (broad examples) of alignments as guides my players:

LG: Hector from Troy, Superman.
NG: Your average Joe who works at the soup kitchen on weekends and helps little old ladies across the street, Walter White at the start of Breaking Bad
CG: Robin Hood, V (V for Vendetta)
LN: A judge, a police officer
N: Your average joe, Jessie Pinkman
CN: Achillies from the movie Troy, Captain Jack Sparrow
LE: The Nazi regime, the Punisher (in many of his incarnations)
NE: Tony Soprano, Walter White at the end of Breaking Bad
CE: The Joker, Tuco Salamanca from Breaking Bad

That said, alignment should never be a tool to limit roleplaying. Quite the opposite. There is a great deal of fun roleplaying a character who thinks he is good but in reality is evil and so forth, and agreat deal of fun in playing a characters fall to darkness (or redemption). See Star Wars, or Breaking Bad for prime examples.

And what do you get in exchange for having to define all that?

To me, the alignment system is, among other things, a major part of D&D's tradition of teaching its players that restrictions are a sign of quality, and trying to make a character outside the system-defined boxes means that the player is either a min-maxer or wants the character to be a special snowflake. 5e is, to give credit where it's due, slowly and ponderously moving away from it - in terms of roleplaying, if not mechanics.

[Dienekes]

That depends on your philisophical underpinnings of the DnD universe.

Personally, my tuling is that good and evil (and law and chaos) are (in the DnD universe) objective things.

Once you die, you go to an outer plane that corresponds with your alignment. Certain spells and effects target and effect you differently depending on your alignment (and so forth).

What exactly constitutes 'good and evil' or 'law and chaos' are determined by the GM.

In my campaigns I define evil as 'lack of empathy for other living things'. Actions such as torture, killing when not in self defence or the defence of others, rape and so forth are evil actions. I define 'good' as going out of your way to help others and demonstrating altruism (such as charity, going out of your way to help others with no thought of personal etc).

Law indicates a respect for authority and an adherance to a personal (or social) code that upholds to similar values. Chaos indicates a preference for individualism and even whimsy.

N on either axis sits in the middle of the two, either demonstrating some elements of both without fully committing to either, or lacking in either element.

I often cite the following (broad examples) of alignments as guides my players:

LG: Hector from Troy, Superman.
NG: Your average Joe who works at the soup kitchen on weekends and helps little old ladies across the street, Walter White at the start of Breaking Bad
CG: Robin Hood, V (V for Vendetta)
LN: A judge, a police officer
N: Your average joe, Jessie Pinkman
CN: Achillies from the movie Troy, Captain Jack Sparrow
LE: The Nazi regime, the Punisher (in many of his incarnations)
NE: Tony Soprano, Walter White at the end of Breaking Bad
CE: The Joker, Tuco Salamanca from Breaking Bad

That said, alignment should never be a tool to limit roleplaying. Quite the opposite. There is a great deal of fun roleplaying a character who thinks he is good but in reality is evil and so forth, and agreat deal of fun in playing a characters fall to darkness (or redemption). See Star Wars, or Breaking Bad for prime examples.

You see here is where the muddle gets in. I agree with your definitions, but disagree quite a bit with your application. Walter White was never NG, as he doesn't actually do anything good. He's an average dad and provider before the show starts, and we peel back the layers to reveal he's pretty much a piece of **** willing to cross any line when pushed. Jessie Pinkman as well butts heads against any and all authority and does not have any real personal code except in opposition to the truly grotesque versions of evil he eventually encounters. Seems pretty CN to me. And that's not even getting into the moral ramifications of selling addictive poisons which many would say places both of them straight into the Evil category in the first episode.

Likewise V can be seen as CG, or if you've read the comicbook, CE who indulges in torture, kills numerous innocents on his crusade, and potentially ends up destroying society completely.

And then we get into the big one, Robin Hood. The poster child for Chaotic Good, who nevertheless dedicated his life to upholding his oath to the rightful king and used every means available to him to take down and mitigate the damage of a usurper government. That seems pretty lawful to me, who used chaotic means to achieve his ends (and even that is pretty debatable. If you go by the logic that John is a usurper then he did not have the legal authority to impose the unjust taxes, meaning Robin's thefts were reacquiring already stolen goods and giving them back to the owners. So is that Chaotic? Lawful? Hell if I know). So to me LG or NG seems to fit him more than the standard CG he's always given.

There's a reason why alignment debates pop up about fictional characters and even real people. Because people are complex and often can't be pigeonholed into one specific slot, there's wiggle room (try and start an alignment thread about Watchmen characters, it gets hilarious). Now, I personally don't think this means that the 9x9 system needs to be abandoned completely, as I do think it helps new players try and make a consistent character. But, putting mechanical benefits to it, to me, simply limits potential creativity or worse make players game the alignment system to try and come up with the "best" alignment for their build to gain the most benefits instead of making their own character.

[Sir_Leorik]

D&D alignment causes brain damage. Real people - and well-written fictional ones - do not fit into one of 9 distinct boxes, which is what leads directly to these debates.

Use it for extraplanar beings, sure, but people aren't tidy like that.

Are you saying that Elric was not well-written? :smallwink:

[Sir_Leorik]

No, I agree, neither 4e nor 5e really use the alignment system in a mechanical sense. If I felt like it, in either edition, I could write down "Communist" for alignment, and the game would run just fine.

Not if I were your DM. I'd require more detail: are you a Stalinist, Maoist, Trotskyite, Social Democrat, Gorbachev-style Reformer or a kid with a Che Gueverra T-Shirt. :smallbiggrin:

EDIT: On a more serious note, Obryn, even if you dumped Alignment for PC races, Humanoids and Giants, what about Fiends, Celestials, Fey, Aberrations and Elementals? Because all of those creature types can be detected by the spell Detect Evil and Good. How would you handle these creature types? What about the Outer Planes? What about the Dark Powers of Ravenloft? Do they still punish Evil deeds? Is Count Strahd von Zarovich still Chaotic Evil? Is Bahamut still Lawful Good? Are Tucker's Kobolds still the meanest Kobolds in the multiverse, Pun-Pun be damned?

[obryn]

Are you saying that Elric was not well-written? :smallwink:
Naaah, but that's a law/chaos thing rather than a good/evil thing, and while D&D's alignments owe their Law/Chaos origins to Moorcock, they handle it ... er ... differently.


EDIT: On a more serious note, Obryn, even if you dumped Alignment for PC races, Humanoids and Giants, what about Fiends, Celestials, Fey, Aberrations and Elementals? Because all of those creature types can be detected by the spell Detect Evil and Good. How would you handle these creature types? What about the Outer Planes? What about the Dark Powers of Ravenloft? Do they still punish Evil deeds? Is Count Strahd von Zarovich still Chaotic Evil? Is Bahamut still Lawful Good? Are Tucker's Kobolds still the meanest Kobolds in the multiverse, Pun-Pun be damned?
I mentioned a few times this threat that I am totally cool with Alignment as Faction - like it is in Greyhawk. And for explicitly supernatural aligned beings like demons and the like. (You probably didn't get to those posts yet; it's cool!)

However, even for demons and the like, I don't think alignment is a necessary or sufficient description of their behavior, personality, or characteristics. A Balor, a Glabrezu, a Succubus, and a Nalfeshnee may all be part of the "Chaotic Evil" faction, along with Graz'zt, Demogorgon, Jubilex, and Orcus ... but they've got extremely different approaches.

[Sir_Leorik]

Naaah, but that's a law/chaos thing rather than a good/evil thing, and while D&D's alignments owe their Law/Chaos origins to Moorcock, they handle it ... er ... differently.


I mentioned a few times this threat that I am totally cool with Alignment as Faction - like it is in Greyhawk. And for explicitly supernatural aligned beings like demons and the like. (You probably didn't get to those posts yet; it's cool!)

However, even for demons and the like, I don't think alignment is a necessary or sufficient description of their behavior, personality, or characteristics. A Balor, a Glabrezu, a Succubus, and a Nalfeshnee may all be part of the "Chaotic Evil" faction, along with Graz'zt, Demogorgon, Jubilex, and Orcus ... but they've got extremely different approaches.

Isn't that proof that Alignment represents a broad spectrum of behaviors and Factions? To use a few examples from the AD&D 2E Planescape Campaign, the Fraternity of Order, Harmonium and Mercykillers were all Lawful in Alignment.

The Fraternity of Order tended toward Lawful Neutral, with a few Lawful Good or Lawful Evil outliers, but the only way to advance politically in the Faction was to be Lawful Neutral. The reason is that the Guvners seek the loopholes in the laws of the cosmos, and only by abstaining from Good and Evil could you get closer to true Order.

The Mercykillers were split between the Lawful Good part, led by a Paladin, and the Lawful Evil part, led by a Tiefling Wizard. Both halves sought Justice, but for the Lawful Evil part of the Faction, Justice meant punishment, while the Paladin's part wanted to encourage rehabilitation for those who committed minor infractions.

Finally, the Harmonium were a band seeking conformity at all costs as the means to achieve peace and harmony. They allowed anyone Lawful in their Faction, from Dwarves to Gold Dragons, to Beholders. So long as you were Lawful Good, Lawful Neutral or Lawful Evil and believed in conformity (with the Harmonium version of course) you were welcome to join and patrol the streets of Sigil.

Three different groups, each taking part in Sigil's court system, each with different philosophies.

I think that's as good an argument as any that the Alignment system can work very well.

[Morty]

Look at those faction descriptions and remove the alignment tags from them. Describe their ideals without the dual-axis labels. Do they lose anything?

[hawklost]

Look at those faction descriptions and remove the alignment tags from them. Describe their ideals without the dual-axis labels. Do they lose anything?

So how long will your description of their ideals be? How many more words are you adding into each creature of that faction to give them the ideals? Because you lose something if you have to use more than 2 simple words to give the base idea. You are losing the quick reference for a more robust description (which you can have in addition to a quick reference)

You could say the same thing with spells, is it really necesary for each spell to say what school it is in in the quick stats? Why not just place it in the description of the text to describe it, spells don't make sense being purely one kind or another (heck, Healing being Evocation makes less sense than being Necromancy, Conjuration or Transmutation, but it is that because the Label says it is). How about removing the Spells action statement, do you really need those? Or the Fluff about spell compenents that do not cost anything? There are a huge amount of random things people could say are extra and useless in the game and yet, they provide some decent information for Other people, just not in your mind.

[obryn]

Look at those faction descriptions and remove the alignment tags from them. Describe their ideals without the dual-axis labels. Do they lose anything?
Yep, this.

And I think you're (Sir_Leorik) talking about factions rather differently than I was.

[obryn]

So how long will your description of their ideals be? How many more words are you adding into each creature of that faction to give them the ideals? Because you lose something if you have to use more than 2 simple words to give the base idea. You are losing the quick reference for a more robust description (which you can have in addition to a quick reference)
For an answer, I'll just repeat my question from earlier.

Here are the alignments of four Forgotten Realms deities.

Chaotic Evil
Chaotic Evil
Chaotic Evil
Chaotic Evil

Tell me about their priesthoods and their domains of worship from these descriptions alone.



You could say the same thing with spells, is it really necesary for each spell to say what school it is in in the quick stats? Why not just place it in the description of the text to describe it, spells don't make sense being purely one kind or another (heck, Healing being Evocation makes less sense than being Necromancy, Conjuration or Transmutation, but it is that because the Label says it is). How about removing the Spells action statement, do you really need those? Or the Fluff about spell compenents that do not cost anything? There are a huge amount of random things people could say are extra and useless in the game and yet, they provide some decent information for Other people, just not in your mind.
These things are in no sense equivalent.

[Morty]

So how long will your description of their ideals be? How many more words are you adding into each creature of that faction to give them the ideals? Because you lose something if you have to use more than 2 simple words to give the base idea. You are losing the quick reference for a more robust description (which you can have in addition to a quick reference)


If you can describe a philosophy in two short words, it's not worth describing. They already have labels - their names, which refer to their ideologies and goals.

[hawklost]

For an answer, I'll just repeat my question from earlier.

Here are the alignments of four Forgotten Realms deities.

Chaotic Evil
Chaotic Evil
Chaotic Evil
Chaotic Evil

Tell me about their priesthoods and their domains of worship from these descriptions alone.



These things are in no sense equivalent.

I give you a Name, Malar, tell me about their priesthood and their domains..... wait.... you can't because a name alone is worthless. When you add in more details though, like the CE god Malar, I get more details about him without having to have a long exposition about his life or all his domains and everything. Sometimes a quick detail is more important (especially if no player has knowledge of the Deity but the basics)

What I can tell you about those deities is this

As a Good player, I am against their goals
I know that they do not support Lawfulness
I know they do not keep their word unless it benefits them and even then, they might change their whim

Now lets look at someone different, here is a Diety who is.... Lawful Evil

I know this:
I can trust him to keep his agreement with me (within the bounds of the actual Letter of the Agreement)
As a good player I can be sure his ideals are not my ideals

[Sartharina]

I can trust him to keep his agreement with me (within the bounds of the actual Letter of the Agreement)
No you can't. Betrayal is possible even by Lawful Evil, if they have other, more orderly goals.

[hawklost]

No you can't. Betrayal is possible even by Lawful Evil, if they have other, more orderly goals.

I did specify that he would keep the Letter of his agreement. I didn't specify that he would keep it in the way I interpreted it.

If a LE person promises me "I will not kill you if you give me the item" and I give him the item, I can promise you, HE will not kill me.

He might maim me, he might harm me, he might even let his trusted lieutenant kill me, but he will not because that would be breaking his word and he won't do that.

Bound by his exact word is an extremely normal Trope for LE.

Its the same logic of finding a LE Genie, he will give me whatever wish I ask for, but he will find a way to screw the wish up even though he gave me everything I asked for.

[Sartharina]

If a LE person promises me "I will not kill you if you give me the item" and I give him the item, I can promise you, HE will not kill me.Does it matter if he kills you personally, or absorbs your soul to live in perpetual torment, or pragmatically decides that keeping his word is less important than the Greater Wrong - He's Lawful Evil, after all. It's more of a 75%-90% chance of him not deciding to kill you.


Bound by his exact word is an extremely normal Trope for LE.But it's not universal. Roy Greenhilt is Lawful Good.


Its the same logic of finding a LE Genie, he will give me whatever wish I ask for, but he will find a way to screw the wish up even though he gave me everything I asked for.But they're not universal, and you might not be dealing with a Genie or other Outsider bound by Law.

[Knaight]

exactly the point. It is a helpful tool to allow you to know approximately how your character or any character is thinking/acting in a general way. It has no other definitive point to it but a guidline. I cannot understand why people don't get that and deny its usefulness in the guidance department.

People "deny its usefulness" because we don't find it useful. For one thing, the two word limit is pretty arbitrary - it's way shorter than a paragraph, but the difference between a two word phrase and a five word phrase doesn't amount to much. I'd also consider alignment a pretty sloppy characterization system even in comparison to other really short ones. Take Pendragon - it's a more narrowly focused game and that makes things easier, but you could easily form a two word code for a character listing their most adhered to knightly virtue, and the vice they have the biggest problem with.

Heck, a simple list of descriptive traits, in which two are picked for a character? That's substantially more useful than alignment. It's more useful for players making PCs, it's definitely more useful for GMs referencing particular NPCs. "This character is lawful good" conveys a lot less than "This character is just and generous". "This character is chaotic evil" conveys a lot less than "This character is bloodthirsty and cruel" or "This character is greedy and ambitious".

I'd consider it a generally pretty lousy, unhelpful tool. I suppose it's better than not having anything at all, in the same way that making planks with a chisel is easier than making them with one's bare hands, but there are better tools out there. For RPGs, it's basically any other model I've seen, from trait lists to disadvantages to aspects. For the analogous plank making, it would be saws.

[obryn]

I give you a Name, Malar, tell me about their priesthood and their domains..... wait.... you can't because a name alone is worthless. When you add in more details though, like the CE god Malar, I get more details about him without having to have a long exposition about his life or all his domains and everything. Sometimes a quick detail is more important (especially if no player has knowledge of the Deity but the basics)
So in other words you can't determine which four gods I'm talking about from that two-word phrase, "Chaotic Evil"? It gave you basically no information which Forgotten Realms gods I'm talking about.

Well, what if I picked two other words for them?

Murder, Lies
Spiders, Darkness
Oceans, Waves
Savagery, Lycanthropes

Can you identify them now? I'll bet it's a whole lot easier.

[Sartharina]

So in other words you can't determine which four gods I'm talking about from that two-word phrase, "Chaotic Evil"? It gave you basically no information which Forgotten Realms gods I'm talking about.

Well, what if I picked two other words for them?

Murder, Lies
Spiders, Darkness
Oceans, Waves
Savagery, Lycanthropes

Can you identify them now? I'll bet it's a whole lot easier.

Oceans/Waves doesn't convey the God's malevolence. ... and now I'm on the pro-Alignment for non-mortals clauses (That said, I loved 4e's alignment grid and "Unaligned", and think it dramatically helped the game. When it doubt, I could toss a creature into the 'unaligned' bin and not have people worrying about whether it's too evil or too good to fit 'neutral')

[hawklost]

Oceans/Waves doesn't convey the God's malevolence. ... and now I'm on the pro-Alignment for non-mortals clauses (That said, I loved 4e's alignment grid and "Unaligned", and think it dramatically helped the game. When it doubt, I could toss a creature into the 'unaligned' bin and not have people worrying about whether it's too evil or too good to fit 'neutral')

Ummm, creatures have unaligned in 5e. If you look through the back of the PHB, the creatures have unaligned as their alignment.

[Knaight]

Oceans/Waves doesn't convey the God's malevolence. ... and now I'm on the pro-Alignment for non-mortals clauses (That said, I loved 4e's alignment grid and "Unaligned", and think it dramatically helped the game. When it doubt, I could toss a creature into the 'unaligned' bin and not have people worrying about whether it's too evil or too good to fit 'neutral')

Sure, and Chaotic Evil tells you absolutely nothing about the Oceans/Waves part. Oceans/Waves is significantly more informative, and thus a better label. Neither is all that thorough, but there's a balance between thorough and succinct - I think the default could stand to move a few words past two, but if it has to be two one might as well be more informative.

[hawklost]

Sure, and Chaotic Evil tells you absolutely nothing about the Oceans/Waves part. Oceans/Waves is significantly more informative, and thus a better label. Neither is all that thorough, but there's a balance between thorough and succinct - I think the default could stand to move a few words past two, but if it has to be two one might as well be more informative.

Except with Oceans/Waves label you now have an infinite number of labels to apply which makes it more useless. Oceans/Waves gives me abilities of the God, but nothing about how he interacts with the world. He could be a Wonderful friendly god who always tries to help those or he could be vengeful and I have absolutely no idea. All I know is that some of his domains are Oceans and Waves.

Now, you tell me he is a CE God of Oceans and Waves and I am very sure I don't want to mess with him, I don't even want to be on his Radar if I can help it
You tell me he is a CN God of Oceans and Waves and I am not really worried about him because he probably isn't out to get me but he probably won't go out of his way to help either
You tell me he is a CG God of Oceans and Waves and I will probably ask for his blessing before going out to see since I hope he will watch over me.

[Sartharina]

Ummm, creatures have unaligned in 5e. If you look through the back of the PHB, the creatures have unaligned as their alignment.But anything with 3+ INT cannot be Unaligned. It's like once your smart enough, you have to throw yourself behind a cosmic force for some reason.


Sure, and Chaotic Evil tells you absolutely nothing about the Oceans/Waves part. Oceans/Waves is significantly more informative, and thus a better label. Neither is all that thorough, but there's a balance between thorough and succinct - I think the default could stand to move a few words past two, but if it has to be two one might as well be more informative.That's why you have Alignment AND portfolio/domains for a deity.

[Morty]

Are we really so strapped on space in setting books that describing one sea god as "Wrathful and spiteful; sends storms to sink ships if not properly appeased" and another as "Gentle and benevolent; keeps the seas in balance so all life may flourish" is too much?

[obryn]

Oceans/Waves doesn't convey the God's malevolence. ... and now I'm on the pro-Alignment for non-mortals clauses (That said, I loved 4e's alignment grid and "Unaligned", and think it dramatically helped the game. When it doubt, I could toss a creature into the 'unaligned' bin and not have people worrying about whether it's too evil or too good to fit 'neutral')
Well, an arbitrary 2-word limit heavily restricts it, but I could do better if I weren't just picking random words off the gods' descriptions in wikipedia. Let's go with "Maelstroms, Shipwrecks" and we get it closer than either.

You could do even better with a sentence or so, of course. And again, both Knaight and Morty made more good points.

I'd have to say, though, if one alignment category includes all of Cyric, Lolth, and Umberlee, I think your categorization is incredibly flawed.

[Envyus]

I'd have to say, though, if one alignment category includes all of Cyric, Lolth, and Umberlee, I think your categorization is incredibly flawed.

Why they are all Chaotic Evil. Just different.

[archaeo]

Why they are all Chaotic Evil. Just different.

And we get to the crux of the matter here, wherein it's totally super obvious that having 9 alignments to represent all moral/ethical points of view is just never going to really work. It's iconic, it's D&D. But removing it from the system's mechanics means that players and DMs are free to pay it zero attention if they don't want to, while players who do like that system can use it to their hearts content. They just can't use it with as much mechanical gusto.

[Falka]

Are we really so strapped on space in setting books that describing one sea god as "Wrathful and spiteful; sends storms to sink ships if not properly appeased" and another as "Gentle and benevolent; keeps the seas in balance so all life may flourish" is too much?

Why can't we have BOTH?

Alignment clearly helps with systemization. You just seem to hate it because 'its alignment, a vodoo label'. Yet people just showed that it has useful purposes (such as helping to define the nature of a god).

You just want to avoid the alignment label even if it can help you with the moral description?

Dunno, sounds like being plain stubborn for no particular reason. If you hate alignments so much, don't ever use them.



I'd have to say, though, if one alignment category includes all of Cyric, Lolth, and Umberlee, I think your categorization is incredibly flawed.

It would be flawed if they had nothing in common.

Two of those gods share domains and have similar portfolios. That's also a coincidence? Gods that value common things are bound to have the same alignment.


Umberlee is whimsical and unpredictable (Chaotic).

Lolth and Cyric are both treacherous, they like to weave lies and betrayal among their followers. They have a trickster nature, which is quite a Chaotic trait.



Now, try to make another comparison: Bane and Cyric. Does Bane share more things in common with Cyric than Lolth or Umberlee?

[Morty]

Why they are all Chaotic Evil. Just different.

Like Archaeo pointed out, this argument comes full circle at this point - in explaining just how those gods are Chaotic Evil, you provide a description that makes that label unnecessary. Once we describe Cyric as a megalomaniac deity of treason, lies and murder, it conveys all the information "Chaotic Evil" does.


Why can't we have BOTH?

Because one of them is pointless and restrictive?


Alignment clearly helps with systemization. You just seem to hate it because 'its alignment, a vodoo label'. Yet people just showed that it has useful purposes (such as helping to define the nature of a god).

No such thing was shown. Labelling a god as this alignment or that doesn't really help with defining them, and you still need to describe that god's portfolio, domains, followers and commandments... at which point a two-word label is redundant.


You just want to avoid the alignment label even if it can help you with the moral description?

See above for why it doesn't actually help with anything. Alignments provoke arguments and encourage pigeon-holing characters and groups. In exchange, they give us nothing.


Now, try to make another comparison: Bane and Cyric. Does Bane share more things in common with Cyric than Lolth or Umberlee?

Honestly? Yes.

[rollingForInit]

Even though I'm not a big fan of the alignment system, I think it works as long as you only see it as a very abstract way to summarise a character or entity with two words, and that it's never used to say "well you can't do this because alignment". Any actual in-game usage of it where it has an impact should use better explanations instead.

[pwykersotz]

I like alignment. I think it adds a wonderful spectrum to the game.

Obryn, for your rebuttal question, that's like asking you to define a race by saying: Mortal, Mortal, Mortal, Mortal. They are intentionally broad categories. Yet from the word mortal we can glean much. They need to eat, sleep, and breathe. They have a soul. Their home (or the home of their ancestors) is the Prime Material Plane.

It's a useful descriptor. Say, for example, you have an NPC in a module. Or perhaps one that you as the DM created without much thought. They had one role, then they were undoubtedly going to be killed by the PC's. But they surprised you. They kept him alive, and are trying to rehabilitate him. They saw something in how you played him that piqued their interest, and now you're out of material because you didn't draw up a super-complex backstory. Now it's time for spontaneous roleplay! To define where the character will and will not go, give them a bond, a trait, an ideal, a flaw, and an alignment. Do they need an ideal? Nope, just a useful generalization to aid in RP. Do they need a trait? Nope, see above. Same for alignment. It's a guidepost, nothing more, but it's yet another marker you can draw upon.

I like complexity and grey areas in my characters, but occasionally I hit areas where it becomes abundantly clear I am not my character, I'm simply playing them. I need a guideline, just to keep myself on track a bit. The fact that I killed my father who was bleeding my family dry by boozing and refusing to feed us is highly situational. Was that my emotional state at the time, or does it imply a greater creed that shaped me in my formative years and that I strive to apply. It is then that I look at this:

Chaotic good (CG) creatures act as their conscience directs, with little regard for what others expect.

I ponder this. Am I really good after all the things I've done? Do I even want to be? In this situation, what does my conscience direct me to do? How does it match what external forces want me to do? Alignment hasn't restrained me in this case, it has given me another way of looking at the situation that can help me decide who my character is.

Not to mention, I would argue that the very fact that people get so passionate about alignment arguments is proof that something is there that matters. Something that cuts to the heart of so many people that it's one of the most hotly debated topics in D&D. The discussion that results from that alone makes it worthwhile. :smallwink:

[Broken Twin]

I like how alignment is handled in 5E. I stripped it out of my Pathfinder games a while back, because while I don't mind the framework itself, it doesn't lend well to the shades of grey that my games frequently involve themselves in. The concept of an universal in-world measurement for how "Good" you are just seems wrong to me. Especially because people tend to define what is 'good' through different lenses. Do I believe there are moral absolutes? Hell yes. But even then, they are incredibly complex to define, much more so then two words can give.

Very few people consider themselves to be 'evil'. They're all working for their own personal 'Greater Good'. Saying a villain exists to "further the cause if Evil!' is childish. Everyone (besides the mentally disturbed) has reasons for what they do. Those reasons may be disgusting and self centered, but they exist. Fanatical black and white views of what is Good and Evil is part of what causes things like the Crusades. That's one of the many reasons I dislike Alignment being mechanically enforced on a system-wide basis.

Plus, it's easier to add a subsystem to a game then it is to remove it. For a system that they're trying to make semi-modular, keeping the mechanics of alignment out of the core rules is the way to go.


And for what it's worth, my personal view of the axises is as follows.

Good/Evil: Why you do it.
Law/Chaos: How you do it.

Good: Believes primarily in altruism, desires to improve the lives of people without harming others.
Evil: Believes primarily in helping themselves, and is perfectly willing to hurt others in the process.

Law: Prefers to follow a plan, and lives a structured life.
Chaos: Prefers to go with the flow, lives in the moment.

Neutral occupies the center point of these spectrums.


The fact that there are other people have different interpretations of the alignment grid is what makes it less useful as a rigid tool. Heck, the shear amount of arguments that have arise over the alignment system is in and of itself a fairly good indication that it doesn't work well as a mechanically enforced moral framework.

[Forum Explorer]

Why can't we have BOTH?

Alignment clearly helps with systemization. You just seem to hate it because 'its alignment, a vodoo label'. Yet people just showed that it has useful purposes (such as helping to define the nature of a god).

You just want to avoid the alignment label even if it can help you with the moral description?



Sure we can have both, but once we have the description the alignment part is basically useless.

I think you mean taboo, and no we don't think it's taboo. We think it's stupid and useless, there is a huge difference. Taboo is something like cannibalism, we (society) think it's wrong, but it's certainly not useless (it does provide a source of nutrients and calories, particularly when there are no other resources to be had). Similarly, I (myself) think ties are useless (They are uncomfortable to wear, an extra piece of clothing to buy, don't provide anything warmth or comfort wise, are an active hazard to get caught in things, and look like you are either in a noose or on a leash) but I don't think they are taboo (society approves the crap of ties).


It doesn't really help though. We still need a description and once we have that we no longer need alignment. Telling me CE does tell me something, but not enough. I still need to know how they act, their public persona, their rituals, their followers, and once I know that I don't need to know CE.




Obryn, for your rebuttal question, that's like asking you to define a race by saying: Mortal, Mortal, Mortal, Mortal. They are intentionally broad categories. Yet from the word mortal we can glean much. They need to eat, sleep, and breathe. They have a soul. Their home (or the home of their ancestors) is the Prime Material Plane.


Sure you do get some very basic stuff. But that basic stuff isn't sufficient. You need more information before you can actually use that character. Like which race is he? What sub-type of that race? What role did he play in that race's society? And once you have that, the label 'mortal' is pretty much useless because everything else is telling you that already.

[pwykersotz]

Sure you do get some very basic stuff. But that basic stuff isn't sufficient. You need more information before you can actually use that character. Like which race is he? What sub-type of that race? What role did he play in that race's society? And once you have that, the label 'mortal' is pretty much useless because everything else is telling you that already.

Why is race needed? What I was born as doesn't define me!
What does my societal role matter? It's not who I am inside!
:smalltongue:

You're using progressively smaller boxes to narrow down details regarding character concept. That's great! Alignment is a pretty big and sometimes vague box. But it's a fantastic starting point. And sometimes, when you run into something that you didn't account for you need to take a step back and look at your character and who they are. Sometimes that means going back to basics.

Maybe you never need to do this. That's great too! But you should never see alignment as a limiting factor, always as a springboard to more characterization and opportunity.

[Forum Explorer]

You're using progressively smaller boxes to narrow down details regarding character concept. That's great! Alignment is a pretty big and sometimes vague box. But it's a fantastic starting point. And sometimes, when you run into something that you didn't account for you need to take a step back and look at your character and who they are. Sometimes that means going back to basics.

Maybe you never need to do this. That's great too! But you should never see alignment as a limiting factor, always as a springboard to more characterization and opportunity.

Honestly I really like where alignment is for this edition. Mechanically it's not really there at all. As far as I could see none of your choices are limited by alignment and it isn't even required to put that on your character sheet.

They also gave you recommended backgrounds and the like to use as a springboard. Don't like them? Well then don't use them. Much like alignment is right now. If you want to use alignment to help make your characters, go for it. But if you are playing with me, don't expect me to do the same. And if I'm the DM, I'm going to require more backstory then just 'my character is LG'. (If you're the DM and insist, then I'll just say I'm TN and just ignore that from then on)

Anyways, the whole thing started with someone insisting that monks had to be Lawful, even though the edition states Usually Lawful. That lead some people (including me) to say, alignments are BS anyways, and now we're here.

[pwykersotz]

Honestly I really like where alignment is for this edition. Mechanically it's not really there at all. As far as I could see none of your choices are limited by alignment and it isn't even required to put that on your character sheet.

They also gave you recommended backgrounds and the like to use as a springboard. Don't like them? Well then don't use them. Much like alignment is right now. If you want to use alignment to help make your characters, go for it. But if you are playing with me, don't expect me to do the same. And if I'm the DM, I'm going to require more backstory then just 'my character is LG'. (If you're the DM and insist, then I'll just say I'm TN and just ignore that from then on)

Anyways, the whole thing started with someone insisting that monks had to be Lawful, even though the edition states Usually Lawful. That lead some people (including me) to say, alignments are BS anyways, and now we're here.

Yeah, it was the railing against alignment that inspired me to post, mostly because I think alignment is useful and interesting. If certain groups want to drop it entirely, that's cool, but I took a bit of issue with people calling the system bunk entirely. But I don't think the two of us have enough contention here to fuel more discussion.

[Sir_Leorik]

Look at those faction descriptions and remove the alignment tags from them. Describe their ideals without the dual-axis labels. Do they lose anything?


Yep, this.

And I think you're (Sir_Leorik) talking about factions rather differently than I was.

Yes they do. A major theme of the Planescape campaign setting was that certain Factions would work together to battle other Factions. One of the Faction groupings were Lawful vs. Chaotic Factions. The Fraternity of Order is a Lawful Faction, allowing Lawful Good Aasimar, Lawful Neutral Arcane, and Lawful Evil Mind Flayers to join up. The Xoasitects Chaotic Faction a are; Chaotic Evil Succubi allow, Chaotic Good Bariaur, Neutral Chaotic Red Slaadi and. Alignment provides a short hand for these two Factions, one devoted to learning the rules of the Multiverse, the other purple-monkey-dishwasher. (Sorry about the Chaos-speech.)

For more about these Factions, I present you with The Mimir (http://mimir.net/factions/index.html)


So in other words you can't determine which four gods I'm talking about from that two-word phrase, "Chaotic Evil"? It gave you basically no information which Forgotten Realms gods I'm talking about.

Well, what if I picked two other words for them?

Murder, Lies
Spiders, Darkness
Oceans, Waves
Savagery, Lycanthropes

Can you identify them now? I'll bet it's a whole lot easier.


Oceans/Waves doesn't convey the God's malevolence. ... and now I'm on the pro-Alignment for non-mortals clauses (That said, I loved 4e's alignment grid and "Unaligned", and think it dramatically helped the game. When it doubt, I could toss a creature into the 'unaligned' bin and not have people worrying about whether it's too evil or too good to fit 'neutral')

As Sartharina said, how are we supposed to identify Umberlee notoriously bad attitude (they call her the "rhyme's with stitch" goddess) from just "Oceans, Waves"? Saying Chaotic Evil goddess of Oceans, Waves paints a clearer picture of who Umberlee is.


Why they are all Chaotic Evil. Just different.


And we get to the crux of the matter here, wherein it's totally super obvious that having 9 alignments to represent all moral/ethical points of view is just never going to really work. It's iconic, it's D&D. But removing it from the system's mechanics means that players and DMs are free to pay it zero attention if they don't want to, while players who do like that system can use it to their hearts content. They just can't use it with as much mechanical gusto.

I agree that there are no mechanical consequences to Alignment in 5E. But there weren't any in 4E either. :smallwink:


Like Archaeo pointed out, this argument comes full circle at this point - in explaining just how those gods are Chaotic Evil, you provide a description that makes that label unnecessary. Once we describe Cyric as a megalomaniac deity of treason, lies and murder, it conveys all the information "Chaotic Evil" does.

How is it less descriptive than including all of that information for Cyric? Let's call Cyric "the Chaotic Evil, megalomaniacal deity of treason, lies, murder and making Loki look rational and trustworthy". How does that sound.


Because one of them is pointless and restrictive? Those are two different objections. Something can be restrictive and still serve a point.


Even though I'm not a big fan of the alignment system, I think it works as long as you only see it as a very abstract way to summarise a character or entity with two words, and that it's never used to say "well you can't do this because alignment". Any actual in-game usage of it where it has an impact should use better explanations instead.

What about as an explanation for why NPCs behave the way they do, or a guide (not a straight-jacket) for players? Also, when it comes to the various extra planar factions that fight each other (like the Devils and Demons do in the Blood War) I think Alignment is a very helpful shorthand.

[Falka]

Leorik, don't bother. He'll still go with the circular reply saying "well, you explained me the label, so labels are meaningless". The point's already made - for some people, these labels are useful. Just the same reason why we have Initiative written in the character sheet. Why do we have a separate section for it, when it's clearly a Dexterity check? Because it's simpler that way and clearer.

Just avoid the red herring.

[Sir_Leorik]

Leorik, don't bother. He'll still go with the circular reply saying "well, you explained me the label, so labels are meaningless". The point's already made - for some people, these labels are useful. Just the same reason why we have Initiative written in the character sheet. Why do we have a separate section for it, when it's clearly a Dexterity check? Because it's simpler that way and clearer.

Just avoid the red herring.

I get it Falka, it's Chinatown. :smallsigh:

[Morty]

I was going to reply to your posts in good faith, but now I see it would have been a wasted effort, given your dismissal of my entire position. So, yes, there's indeed no reason to bother, it seems.

[obryn]

I was going to reply to your posts in good faith, but now I see it would have been a wasted effort, given your dismissal of my entire position. So, yes, there's indeed no reason to bother, it seems.
Yep, screw it.

[Tectorman]

It's an alignment thread, so likely words to this sentiment have already been expressed, but they're worth saying, even if it's just a repeat.

Every single person sitting at the table (except for the DM) is there to do the same thing. Be a hero (or more accurately, a protagonist) that goes on adventures and prevails with their Bigg Kewl Powerz. Every single player. Some might want to do that with sneaksy, tricksy, backstabsy Bigg Kewl Powerz. Others with Hulk rage smashy Bigg Kewl Powerz. Others with magic, or singing, or kung fu Bigg Kewl Powerz, but they're all just variations on that theme.

And just because someone wants their adventurer to have kung fu Bigg Kewl Powerz instead of Fightery Bigg Kewl Powerz does not, either explicitly or implicitly, mean they're looking for the extra roleplaying headache or "challenge" of being stuck with a certain alignment. Nor does it mean they're a special snowflake, at least, no more than anyone else sitting at the table. Which is to say no less than anyone else sitting at the table, even if everyone else by pure coincidence or by virtue of their own preferences plays a character that was considered the norm thirty years ago.

Because there's one fact about the game that the "alignment must be mandatory for all" crowd doesn't seem to get. It's supposed to be a game. It is your Saturday afternoon break from the stresses of the week. It's where you unwind and relax. It's most assuredly not supposed to be the place where you cringe at the thought of once again leaping into the fray.

BECAUSE A KNOCKDOWN, DRAG-OUT, PHILOSOPHICAL WAR HAS NO PLACE IN A PASSTIME DIVERSION.

NO PLACE AT ALL.

No one wanting to play this sort of a game needs to have to put up with that sort of browbeating. No one has that coming to them.

Optional on an individual basis? Sure. You do what you want, let me do what I want, and I'll thank you to exhibit as much respect and tolerance as I'm extending to you. But mandatory? Never.

[Sir_Leorik]

BECAUSE A KNOCKDOWN, DRAG-OUT, PHILOSOPHICAL WAR HAS NO PLACE IN A PASSTIME DIVERSION.

NO PLACE AT ALL.

I take it you'd be equally averse to playing a Vampire game, where your character is tormented by the need to feed on humans? Because not all tabletop RPGs (including D&D campaigns) are beer-&-pretzels, beat-up-the-Goblins, take-their-loot style games.

[Forum Explorer]

BECAUSE A KNOCKDOWN, DRAG-OUT, PHILOSOPHICAL WAR HAS NO PLACE IN A PASSTIME DIVERSION.

NO PLACE AT ALL.

No one wanting to play this sort of a game needs to have to put up with that sort of browbeating. No one has that coming to them.

Optional on an individual basis? Sure. You do what you want, let me do what I want, and I'll thank you to exhibit as much respect and tolerance as I'm extending to you. But mandatory? Never.

That is my pasttime, hence me in this thread. :smalltongue::smallwink:

Overall though I heartily concur.


I take it you'd be equally averse to playing a Vampire game, where your character is tormented by the need to feed on humans? Because not all tabletop RPGs (including D&D campaigns) are beer-&-pretzels, beat-up-the-Goblins, take-their-loot style games.

From what I know about the game though (I've only played Changling: The Lost) you can play your character any way you want.

[Falka]

Precisely because it's my passtime, I do with my elfgames what I please. Or are we going to start to talk about 'badwrongfun'?

What's bad about playing a game and put some thought to it at the same time?


From what I know about the game though (I've only played Changling: The Lost) you can play your character any way you want.

Of course you can. We're just talking about preferences here. No matter what you do, usually there isn't a 'bad' way of playing the game.

[Sir_Leorik]

From what I know about the game though (I've only played Changling: The Lost) you can play your character any way you want.

That's true. You could play a complete monster, ala Count Dracula (in the novel and the Universal and Hammer movies), a tortured monster, ala Lestat or Louis, a tortured Vampire who's tired of being a monster, ala Angel, or a whiny emo brat like Shiny Boy from Twilight. You could even play a Malkavian with the traditional vampiric compulsion to count loose objects, who goes "Ah, ha, ha, ha!" when he finishes counting sesame seeds. :smallwink: The game encourages the player to make his choices, but there are ramifications for those choices.

[ArtlessMammet]

Leorik, don't bother. He'll still go with the circular reply saying "well, you explained me the label, so labels are meaningless". The point's already made - for some people, these labels are useful. Just the same reason why we have Initiative written in the character sheet. Why do we have a separate section for it, when it's clearly a Dexterity check? Because it's simpler that way and clearer.

Just avoid the red herring.
My understanding of their argument was more along the lines of 'you have explained the label in an irrelevantly larger space (i.e. Several more words) and consequently the label is obsolete'.

If the label didn't have mechanical benefits it would be purposeless - anything gained by providing and subsequently explaining the alignments and what comprises them would likely be more efficiently expressed with a list of traits.
Instead of 3+ pages dedicated to explaining (inadequately, if seven pages in this thread alone are evidence of anything), a single page saying something along the lines of 'pick a set of personality traits for your character'.
Maybe they could even be spaced into generally positive (generous, law-abiding) and generally negative (petty, cruel) traits!

The only reason 3.5 needs alignments, as opposed to 4e and 5e, is because 3.5 has alignments.
How circular.
Take out the mechanics of alignments and lo' and behold! You're not missing anything!

[RedMage125]

The only reason 3.5 needs alignments, as opposed to 4e and 5e, is because 3.5 has alignments.
How circular.
Take out the mechanics of alignments and lo' and behold! You're not missing anything!

Not necessarily true. Alignment Mechanics in 3.5 served a very helpful purpose. It allowed for classic tropes of fantasy to have mechanical weight. Holy weapon that is an aneathma to evildoers? Without alignment assignations behind "this creature is evil", how does one fairly determine which creatures would take extra damage from such a weapon or gain negative levels from holding it? Leaving it up to DM fiat may appease some people, but from a completely objective standpoint it's not fair to the players. Players deserve consistent rulings and adjudications from their DMs. One of the things that made 3.x so player friendly was that fact the rules were so pervasive and encompassing that players had an idea of what the rules SHOULD be for something.

Abolishing the mechanical impact of alignment from 3.5 was a long and lengthy process that involved adjusting or even removing some spells and magic items from the game entirely. I know people who have done it because they hated alignments and alignment mechanics that much.

Something funny that I've seen on this thread (and this is not directed at you, ArtlessMammet, but is a general statement):
A lot of people claim that 4e had no alignment mechanics other than for divine classes. This is not true. Some of the later material, such as Essentials classes, had alignment restrictions (most notably the Essentials-style Paladin, which includes the Blackguard from Heroes of Shadow). But even as early as the PHB1, there was a Holy Weapon. The weapon did more damage on a crit to an Evil or Chaotic Evil creature that it did to any other one. That, right there, is a mechanic that affects EVERY creature in the game, one way or the other. 4e didn't have AS MANY alignment mechanics, but that doesn't mean that they weren't there.

The bottom line of this whole discussion is this: There is no objective way to judge alignment or alignment mechanics as "bad", because it's based off opinions and perceptions. Furthermore, a lot of alignment detractors sometimes cite "bad things" about alignment that are not in the RAW, and it is NOT a valid indictment of a ruleset to judge it based off an example that is a deviation from those rules, whether that ruleset is alignment or some other game element. We all have opinions on the matter. No one's opinion is so Vital and Universal that it should be accepted as Fact. Most of the posters on this thread have been stating their OPINIONS about alignment, which hold zero weight when discussing facts about game elements. Neither do houserules or homebrew. Since houserules can literally be anything, and not all houserules can be accounted for, only RAW is valid for purposes of discussions of facts about game elements.

I think there's some points that everyone on both sides can/should agree with:
1) Alignments in D&D are not NECESSARY to play D&D and have fun.
2) Some people can/do find enjoyment in using said mechanics. Others do not.
3) The only "wrong" way to play D&D is a way in which the people at the table are not having fun. To that end, both groups in point #2 are equally valid.
4) Alignment mechanics CAN have valuable/useful contributions to the game for those people who use them. This does not diminish the gameplay of those who do not use them.
5) Some DMs and players can/do misuse and abuse rules. This can include, but is not limited to, alignment.
6) The misuse/abuse of those rules reflects ONLY on the people involved and NOT on the rules in question.

[Forum Explorer]

That's true. You could play a complete monster, ala Count Dracula (in the novel and the Universal and Hammer movies), a tortured monster, ala Lestat or Louis, a tortured Vampire who's tired of being a monster, ala Angel, or a whiny emo brat like Shiny Boy from Twilight. You could even play a Malkavian with the traditional vampiric compulsion to count loose objects, who goes "Ah, ha, ha, ha!" when he finishes counting sesame seeds. :smallwink: The game encourages the player to make his choices, but there are ramifications for those choices.

Right, and ramifications are fair enough. But there isn't anything saying that you must play a whiny emo if you want the abilities of a particular vampire type, correct?

[Tectorman]

Optional on an individual basis? Sure. You do what you want, let me do what I want, and I'll thank you to exhibit as much respect and tolerance as I'm extending to you. But mandatory? Never.

TLDR: People ought to respect and tolerate each other.


Precisely because it's my passtime, I do with my elfgames what I please. Or are we going to start to talk about 'badwrongfun'?

What's bad about playing a game and put some thought to it at the same time?

TLDR: I refuse.


Of course you can. We're just talking about preferences here. No matter what you do, usually there isn't a 'bad' way of playing the game.

Allow me to explain the "goodrightfun" way.

Player 1: Okay, I'm playing a lawful neutral druid. What's your character's alignment?
Player 2: I'm not even filling in that part of the character sheet; I don't care for alignment.
Player 1: Ah, okay.

Player 2 shows respect and tolerance for his fellow gamer by not expressing doubt in Player 1's ability to roleplay without a crutch or by suggesting that Player 1 forget that alignment crap and try playing a real character.

Because these things are not necessarily true.

Player 1 shows respect and tolerance by not suggesting that Player 2 is playing the game but not putting any thought into it at the same time (Hint, Hint) or by decrying Player 2's character concept (as in, not Player 1's character concept) as silly or a special snowflake.

Because these things are not necessarily true.

The "badwrongfun" way:

Player 1: I want to play a (Insert Blank Here) sort of character.
Player 2: I want to play a character who exists in a universe where (Insert Blank Here) sorts of characters don't exist.

See the difference?

This isn't about the game, it's about people showing basic decency to each other by virtue of them both being people worthy of respect.

[Sir_Leorik]

Right, and ramifications are fair enough. But there isn't anything saying that you must play a whiny emo if you want the abilities of a particular vampire type, correct?

Well, Malkavians are all insane, Nosferatu are all deformed or disfigured, and Ventrue are pompous jerks, but there's plenty of range. One Malkavian could have an anti-social personality disorder, while another has a compulsion to count backwards from 100 when scared. One Nosferatu has a fish-like appearance, while another looks like a shaved bat. One Ventrue is a Yuppie with a drug addiction, who only drinks the blood of someone under the influence, while another is an 18th century nobleman who prefers to feed on blonde virgins.

No one has to be emo or whiny. No one has to play a total monster, either.

[Falka]

Allow me to explain the "goodrightfun" way.

Player 1: Okay, I'm playing a lawful neutral druid. What's your character's alignment?
Player 2: I'm not even filling in that part of the character sheet; I don't care for alignment.
Player 1: Ah, okay.

Player 2 shows respect and tolerance for his fellow gamer by not expressing doubt in Player 1's ability to roleplay without a crutch or by suggesting that Player 1 forget that alignment crap and try playing a real character.

Because these things are not necessarily true.

Player 1 shows respect and tolerance by not suggesting that Player 2 is playing the game but not putting any thought into it at the same time (Hint, Hint) or by decrying Player 2's character concept (as in, not Player 1's character concept) as silly or a special snowflake.

Because these things are not necessarily true.

The "badwrongfun" way:

Player 1: I want to play a (Insert Blank Here) sort of character.
Player 2: I want to play a character who exists in a universe where (Insert Blank Here) sorts of characters don't exist.

See the difference?

This isn't about the game, it's about people showing basic decency to each other by virtue of them both being people worthy of respect.

And those things aren't mutually exclusive. Actually I think that respect comes from respecting the DM's preference. If the DM wants to play with alignment, you shouldn't be the snowflake or the lazybum that says "**** alignments, because I'm special".

A person who refuses to write down basic stuff (usually alignment is a basic trait you should write down in a D&D game) shows low interest for a game and laziness. I think that's rude. Had players like that, usually they like that. A newbie may not know for a game or two, but they end up learning and cooperating.

I happen to agree with the corollary of your point: that people should try to respect each other and have fun. Just fun: there is no bad fun, no good fun. Because what can be 'good fun' for you, can be 'bad fun' for other person.

You're free to refuse putting thought into a game. Doesn't mean I need to play the game your way. :smalltongue:

[Forum Explorer]

And those things aren't mutually exclusive. Actually I think that respect comes from respecting the DM's preference. If the DM wants to play with alignment, you shouldn't be the snowflake or the lazybum that says "**** alignments, because I'm special".

A person who refuses to write down basic stuff (usually alignment is a basic trait you should write down in a D&D game) shows low interest for a game and laziness. I think that's rude. Had players like that, usually they like that. A newbie may not know for a game or two, but they end up learning and cooperating.

I happen to agree with the corollary of your point: that people should try to respect each other and have fun. Just fun: there is no bad fun, no good fun. Because what can be 'good fun' for you, can be 'bad fun' for other person.

You're free to refuse putting thought into a game. Doesn't mean I need to play the game your way. :smalltongue:

If I write a paragraph (or more) backstory and the DM still insists on an alignment, then he's being lazy not me. To be exact, I'm saying that he reads it and goes,

"What alignment are you?" then yeah, he's being lazy and will likely just get a response of me saying TN and putting that on my sheet and then just ignoring the matter.

If he says "It looks like you are wanting to play a NG character. Can you write that on your sheet please?" then I'll respect that and put that down.

Of course you do kinda look like a hypocrite when you basically say, "I agree, but anyone who doesn't use alignment is being a lazybum and a special snowflake and is usually a bad player. After all it's not my fault if you don't want to put thought in your game."

His entire point was about respecting the other player's playstyles and not insulting them or forcing them into your playstyle. And I do think that applies to GM's too, unless the particular thing is required for the setting/game to work.

[Falka]

If I write a paragraph (or more) backstory and the DM still insists on an alignment, then he's being lazy not me. To be exact, I'm saying that he reads it and goes,

"What alignment are you?" then yeah, he's being lazy and will likely just get a response of me saying TN and putting that on my sheet and then just ignoring the matter.

If he says "It looks like you are wanting to play a NG character. Can you write that on your sheet please?" then I'll respect that and put that down.

Of course you do kinda look like a hypocrite when you basically say, "I agree, but anyone who doesn't use alignment is being a lazybum and a special snowflake and is usually a bad player. After all it's not my fault if you don't want to put thought in your game."

His entire point was about respecting the other player's playstyles and not insulting them or forcing them into your playstyle. And I do think that applies to GM's too, unless the particular thing is required for the setting/game to work.

But that isn't what I understood from his first example. He depicted a player who cba to write some stuff in his character sheet to not put much thought, like an alignment, which is different from saying, "I can't really place him somewhere. He's like X, Y and Z".

You can't narrow down stuff for an argument and then call me a hypocrite because I didn't take in account data that wasn't implied in the example. That's a bit obvious.

And nice strawman, but that's not what I said.

[Morty]

Or are we going to start to talk about 'badwrongfun'?

That's amusing, coming from someone who has repeatedly accused others of being lazy for not using alignment and disparaged character concepts 3e-era alignment restrictions don't allow for as 'special snowflakes'.

[Falka]

That's amusing, coming from someone who has repeatedly accused others of being lazy for not using alignment and disparaged character concepts 3e-era alignment restrictions don't allow for as 'special snowflakes'.

Not using alignments for the sole reason of saying "my character is too special to have an alignment" is, in my opinion, a lazy option and I can't see another reason besides trying to be a special snowflake.

But it's not 'badwrongfun'. There is no RP police dedicated to stop people from doing that. Because it's not wrong to play games that way if people are having fun.

Now, I don't play that way and I'm entitled to have my own personal opinion, right? Seems like being an orthodox player is a crime in this forum. :P

[obryn]

Not using alignments for the sole reason of saying "my character is too special to have an alignment" is, in my opinion, a lazy option and I can't see another reason besides trying to be a special snowflake.
Do you honestly believe anyone does this?

[Logosloki]

I'm starting to think that backgrounds were meant to replace alignments completely and someone at Wizards got scared that that might alienate someone. Because they could've added the pages they used up on alignments to give more background options. The deity table can stay in because that was useful and some of the settings conveniently were already segregated into evil/good/law/chaos.

[Broken Twin]

I just dislike L-C/G-E Alignment because I feel like it pigeonholes characters. Well, to be more specific, I think it's frequently used by certain GMs as a straitjacket against player actions. Especially in regards to what constitutes an 'evil' action. There's no distinction between universal morals and cultural morals, which causes IRL clashes between players and GMs.

For example, I recently read the great example of eating human flesh. It's usually regarded as evil on a cultural level, but an argument can be made that it's not a universal evil. Heck, some cultures consider homosexuality to be evil.

I just don't like using a system that can cause these arguments over a game. I've used it without issue, but I don't like the mechanical enforcement on mortals. Extraplanars are fine. I can see a demon literally being evil. I don't think Smite Evil should work on a crooked shopkeeper.

And as roleplay guides go, I honestly prefer using a Beliefs system. Much more granular, and I find it helps the players get into the heads of their characters better.

Having said all that, the alignment grid is essentially a part of the D&D brand at this point. They've got no reason to toss it from the core books, and multiple reasons to keep it. I prefer the method they've used in 5E, where it's a roleplay guide that's not enforced by mechanics.

[cobaltstarfire]

In the adventurers league it can be for clerics. (probably doesn't have to but it can depending on how much the DM cares)

The domains you can choose from are dependent on the "suggested" domains of the god you choose and you are required to choose a god if you are a cleric or acolyte. You aren't required to share an alignment with your preferred deity anymore, but from a role playing standpoint either you have to have similar alignments, or a good story to explain why you don't.

[Morty]

Not using alignments for the sole reason of saying "my character is too special to have an alignment" is, in my opinion, a lazy option and I can't see another reason besides trying to be a special snowflake.

But it's not 'badwrongfun'. There is no RP police dedicated to stop people from doing that. Because it's not wrong to play games that way if people are having fun.

Now, I don't play that way and I'm entitled to have my own personal opinion, right? Seems like being an orthodox player is a crime in this forum. :P

You're free to dress it up however you like, but the fact remains is that you misrepresent people's intentions to deride them.

[Composer99]

I think alignments, or at least, alignment-related keywords/tags, have useful mechanical function in the generic D&D setting. However, I will voice my agreement that it's best reserved for cosmic or supernatural forces and entities, and mortals should be considered 'unaligned', whatever their moral or ethical behaviour, unless they are specifically throwing in their lot with cosmic forces or entities. This allows the mechanical function of alignment to be meaningful (so you can have a holy sword that is extra effective against fiends, or an anarchic sabre that is extra effective against, say, modrons or Harmonium members, and your protection from good spell keeps the cleric of Lathander at bay, and so on) without needing to come up with a whole bunch of granularity. Do you want the paladin's smite evil to work on that dragon the party's about to face? Slap on an [evil] keyword/tag, and you're good to go!

That being said, I do not think the classical alignment grid is very useful as an aid to role-playing, for reasons that have, I think, been more than adequately elucidated upthread.

[Falka]

You're free to dress it up however you like, but the fact remains is that you misrepresent people's intentions to deride them.

You mean, that's your opinion. Facts usually need proof of evidence.

Attack the argument, not the person behind it!

[Falka]

I just dislike L-C/G-E Alignment because I feel like it pigeonholes characters. Well, to be more specific, I think it's frequently used by certain GMs as a straitjacket against player actions. Especially in regards to what constitutes an 'evil' action. There's no distinction between universal morals and cultural morals, which causes IRL clashes between players and GMs.

For example, I recently read the great example of eating human flesh. It's usually regarded as evil on a cultural level, but an argument can be made that it's not a universal evil. Heck, some cultures consider homosexuality to be evil.

I just don't like using a system that can cause these arguments over a game. I've used it without issue, but I don't like the mechanical enforcement on mortals. Extraplanars are fine. I can see a demon literally being evil. I don't think Smite Evil should work on a crooked shopkeeper.

And as roleplay guides go, I honestly prefer using a Beliefs system. Much more granular, and I find it helps the players get into the heads of their characters better.

Having said all that, the alignment grid is essentially a part of the D&D brand at this point. They've got no reason to toss it from the core books, and multiple reasons to keep it. I prefer the method they've used in 5E, where it's a roleplay guide that's not enforced by mechanics.

Yeah but the thing is that one difference is what some people percieve as evil and what's evil in an "objetive" (read D&D) way.

Homosexuality wouldn't be evil unless you rape someone (not respecting their free will and stomping their dignity, that's Evil according to D&D).

If we agree on what the labels say, then it can work.

But yeah, more often than not they're useful to control general guidelines of the player's actions.

[Morty]

You mean, that's your opinion. Facts usually need proof of evidence.

Attack the argument, not the person behind it!

Why, that's what I'm doing - I'm pointing out that your arguments rely solely on baseless accusations of laziness and desire to have a 'special snowflake' character.

[Composer99]

Not using alignments for the sole reason of saying "my character is too special to have an alignment" is, in my opinion, a lazy option and I can't see another reason besides trying to be a special snowflake.

But it's not 'badwrongfun'. There is no RP police dedicated to stop people from doing that. Because it's not wrong to play games that way if people are having fun.

Now, I don't play that way and I'm entitled to have my own personal opinion, right? Seems like being an orthodox player is a crime in this forum. :P

You're free to dress it up however you like, but the fact remains is that you misrepresent people's intentions to deride them.


You mean, that's your opinion. Facts usually need proof of evidence.

Attack the argument, not the person behind it!

The facts in this particular case are your very own words, written plain as day over several pages of this thread. Do those not count as "evidence"?

The argument that Morty is attacking is your repeated claim that people who don't like, dislike, hate, or loathe the D&D "Standard Model" of alignment are "lazybums", or whose "sole reason" for their views is that they want their PCs to be "special snowflakes".

Suffice it to say that your argument smells very strongly of straw.

[Tectorman]

And those things aren't mutually exclusive. Actually I think that respect comes from respecting the DM's preference. If the DM wants to play with alignment, you shouldn't be the snowflake or the lazybum that says "**** alignments, because I'm special".

A person who refuses to write down basic stuff (usually alignment is a basic trait you should write down in a D&D game) shows low interest for a game and laziness. I think that's rude. Had players like that, usually they like that. A newbie may not know for a game or two, but they end up learning and cooperating.

I happen to agree with the corollary of your point: that people should try to respect each other and have fun. Just fun: there is no bad fun, no good fun. Because what can be 'good fun' for you, can be 'bad fun' for other person.

You're free to refuse putting thought into a game. Doesn't mean I need to play the game your way.

Again the lack of respect. The desire to avoid alignment with a ten-foot pole, if not a 1000-yard restraining order, is not refusing to put thought into the game. So I doubt your veracity when you say you agree with my point that people ought to respect each other.

Regarding the DM, I would have to ask why the DM cares. My response would depend on whether it's a gameplay issue or something less valid.

Example 1:
DM: I need to know your character's alignment.
Player: I prefer not to bother with alignment. I get micromanaged enough as it is at work and the last thing I need at a game is a Sword of Damocles hanging over my head.
DM: Okay, that's fine, but the game operates on the assumption that all characters will fall somewhere on the alignment chart. So you will need to have an alignment for that purpose. Since you want to play a Monk, let's just have you be Lawful Neutral. That doesn't mean you have to have that character be Lawful or act any certain specific way (beyond, you know, what you established for your character), he just has to register as LN.
Player: That's fine.
DM: That means you can't multiclass with Bard or Barbarian. If ya'll go plane-hopping, you'll get benefits on Mechanus and penalties if you go to Limbo. It also means that if you accidentally put a Helm of Opposite Alignment on, you won't be able to progress as a Monk until you get it taken care of.
Player: But what would that be in-universe?
DM: I was just going to call it an ineffable part of your soul, due in part to your use of ki. You know, something vague and undefined that doesn't impact anything it doesn't need to.
Player: Sounds good. Thanks.

A gameplay issue. A valid concern that did need to be addressed somehow.

Example 2:
DM: I need to know your character's alignment.
Player: I prefer not to bother with alignment. I get micromanaged enough as it is at work and the last thing I need at a game is a Sword of Damocles hanging over my head.
DM: Well, that's too bad, because I absolutely need to have some way of yanking the rug out from under you. I mean, if you were just one of those people that wanted to play characters such as were established by the Holy Doctrine of thirty years ago to be the Good and Proper characters that all people should want to play, then I wouldn't have to do this. I mean, did you actually believe the tagline that this was a game limited only by your imagination? Oh my goodness, no. No, your imagination is to be limited by people from long ago that have nothing to do with you.
Player: (had walked away long before now)

Not remotely a valid concern.


But that isn't what I understood from his first example. He depicted a player who cba to write some stuff in his character sheet to not put much thought, like an alignment, which is different from saying, "I can't really place him somewhere. He's like X, Y and Z".

You can't narrow down stuff for an argument and then call me a hypocrite because I didn't take in account data that wasn't implied in the example. That's a bit obvious.

And nice strawman, but that's not what I said.

Interesting that I gave absolutely no information on Player 1's character and you didn't care about that.

As far as you know, Player 1's character doesn't even have a name. He might've even just picked LG because he thinks he needs an alignment, so he just rolled some d6s and came up with LG. He might've had a whole different character concept that he had to nix.

I give no information for Player 2 as far as what he included or left out, but you assume his character sheet must be totally blank. I do the same for Player 1, and somehow two letters qualify as a vast, elaborate chapterbook of a background with pictures. Utter bull.

No matter. Your challenge was unfairly issued but I'll respond anyway.

Both Players 1 and 2 have extensive backgrounds. Who they know, what they know, where they learned it from, what sentimental possessions they have and who they came from. Where they've been and what past exploits they've done. Who they look up to, who they've wronged, who they've sworn revenge on, and who might be hunting them. Several pages each.

Player 1 chose to pick an alignment for whatever reason people decide to do that.

Player 2 chose not to pick an alignment. Maybe it's because, after looking over his character's background, he sees elements of every alignment. In some aspects, he's lawful, in others, he's chaotic. And he's done outright evil and virtuous good. To crunch it all down to one alignment or another is dishonest, misleading, and not true to his character concept at all.

Maybe it's because he sees alignment as a helping hand to figure out a character concept, but since he's already got his figured out, it's so much uselessness.

Maybe it's because he wants to play his concept of a good guy character, but he knows that when you declare yourself Good (or whichever alignment you're using), you're not declaring your version of good, you're declaring the other person's definition of good. Or the book's definition of good, or the DM's. That character is Good according to everyone's definition of Good except for the person whose character it was supposed to have been in the first place. Wanting to avoid that, and the inevitable philosophical battles that, for some strange reason, he doesn't want to be participating in on his day off playing a game, he decides to skip one irrelevant section of his character sheet.

...

Also, I'm wondering about why you're so keen on holding other people's FICTIONAL CHARACTERS to such a high standard (be lawful or you don't get kung fu Bigg Kewl Powerz, be one of the Holy Doctrine-accepted character concepts of thirty years ago or it's just laziness and/or a lack of thought) when intolerance and disrespect are perfectly okay.

[pwykersotz]

The pretension is strong with this thread. :smallyuk:

I like alignment because how a game frames alignment changes the experience. Frameworks that don't go with our own views sometimes provide unexpected insight or challenges that make it fun to play. My own game experience would be poorer for D&D not having the intrigue of absolute morals/ethics in the form of the outer planes, and the conflicts that result from it and affect mortals. Heck, even OOtS is richer for it, as the sometimes reliance on/sometimes subversion of the alignment system is greatly entertaining.

I hope alignment sticks around for the foreseeable future. Although it might be interesting to see it change form once in a while, I hope it never truly mirrors our own current moral system. That would defeat some of the purpose for me.