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Pleh
2020-10-25, 03:29 PM
Let's separate alignment from Auras, or at least separate morality from auras.

There should (and I know in many games they do) be a difference between characters that are good by nature and those who emanate the essence of another plane.

Therefore, a good hearted commoner should have a Good alignment, but this isn't what a Detect spell should be discerning.

A Good Aligned Paladin, however, should be emanating a Holy Aura that is Detected by spells.

Fiendish hags probably emanate a Profane/Unholy aura, but a corrupt town guard fishing for bribes won't magically ping on a Detect spell.

Kitten Champion
2020-10-25, 03:46 PM
That's how it works in 5th edition. Using Detect Evil and Good -- identifies Aberrations, Fiends, Fey, Celestials, or Undead Creatures rather than the alignments of Creatures.

Granted that doesn't necessarily include Paladins or the like, but I wouldn't object to their inclusion on the argument that certain classes and sub-classes are heavily tied into extra-planar entities as their power source.

Lord Raziere
2020-10-25, 03:47 PM
You mean what 5e has already done by making the paladin's ability about detecting supernatural creatures like Fae, Demons and so on without alignment being involved?

Jason
2020-10-27, 09:08 AM
On the one hand I like that 5E has removed the "just detect the evil guy" method of solving mysteries for parties with paladins, but on the other I kind of miss the idea of forcing paladins to make choices to let someone go when they know a person is evil, just not being actively evil at that moment.

ImNotTrevor
2020-10-27, 08:08 PM
On the one hand I like that 5E has removed the "just detect the evil guy" method of solving mysteries for parties with paladins, but on the other I kind of miss the idea of forcing paladins to make choices to let someone go when they know a person is evil, just not being actively evil at that moment.

Not gonna lie, I 100% do not miss that as an option.

It's a super boring false dilemma that only exists because the Paladin MIGHT randomly get insider information about a person's current Morality Score.

What that means is that based on the DM this dilemma is either:
1. Super low stakes, you're just debating killing them now or killing them later or
2. A super stupid GOTCHA moment on the Paladin where you either "kill da evul" or fall.

I cannot fathom a less interesting dilemma to find oneself in.

Rynjin
2020-10-27, 08:46 PM
I mean, there's the (far more common) 3rd option: you detect someone as Evil...but it doesn't matter, because they're not an enemy.

There are plenty of Evil aligned characters who are not a threat to be Smote, and in fact killing them would be wrong. The Evil shopkeeper is a common example for a reason. They're Evil because they cheat their customers, or sell stolen goods, or some other such sustained and petty evils.

Detect Evil might ping them (if they're high enough level), but that doesn't tell you why they're Evil, how they're Evil, or any of the necessary info to DO anything about it.

It's not a mystery ender, it's a mystery beginner, as you might choose to investigate them further to see what kind of wrongdoing they're doing and report them to the proper authorities. Or don't; choosing to ignore a lesser evil in the pursuit of a greater one is perfectly fine for a Paladin to do.

Lord Raziere
2020-10-27, 09:49 PM
I mean, there's the (far more common) 3rd option: you detect someone as Evil...but it doesn't matter, because they're not an enemy.

There are plenty of Evil aligned characters who are not a threat to be Smote, and in fact killing them would be wrong. The Evil shopkeeper is a common example for a reason. They're Evil because they cheat their customers, or sell stolen goods, or some other such sustained and petty evils.

Detect Evil might ping them (if they're high enough level), but that doesn't tell you why they're Evil, how they're Evil, or any of the necessary info to DO anything about it.

It's not a mystery ender, it's a mystery beginner, as you might choose to investigate them further to see what kind of wrongdoing they're doing and report them to the proper authorities. Or don't; choosing to ignore a lesser evil in the pursuit of a greater one is perfectly fine for a Paladin to do.

I prefer Divine Sense, as it can serve pretty much the same purpose, just in a different way, so detect evil is not needed. it can detect the location of celestials, fiends or undead within 60 feet of you that is not behind total cover, or things that have been consecrated or desecrated, is much more sensible, thematic and magical-seeming than seeing if people have eviltrons inside them, and if someone is dealing with undead or fiends this is often a much better indication of it something worth investigating by PCs, while also being more flexible: if your in an evil tyranny it serves as a good way to find somewhere consecrated or protected by a secret celestial so you can hide, doubling as a way to find hidden allies.

Divine Sense thus gives you much the same benefits while making it more of a planar and undead sensing thing rather than something inherent to everyone that we apparently can't judge anyone upon anyways. it also makes sure that you find out whether a shopkeep is evil through their actions or evidence that a rogue can gather instead which gives use to other classes for finding evil. and if a shopkeep has something demonic or undead around, thats more worth investigating and more specific than vague eviltron readings. if the evil alignment is so broad as to include such petty stuff, detecting it is not really useful as a class feature anyways.

it also focuses the paladin's job to fighting outsiders and undead, which makes more sense than being some righteous all-judging crusader. it can make them demon hunters and the defender of people being able to choose their way free of planar influence! it makes their job specific, thematic and with clearer goals in mind. there is no need to make a "greater good" justification because the paladin's jurisdiction and focus is already spelled as out as extraplanar or unnatural threats, and that taking care of normal crime and such is not their primary concern.

jjordan
2020-10-27, 10:51 PM
That's how it works in 5th edition. Using Detect Evil and Good -- identifies Aberrations, Fiends, Fey, Celestials, or Undead Creatures rather than the alignments of Creatures.

Granted that doesn't necessarily include Paladins or the like, but I wouldn't object to their inclusion on the argument that certain classes and sub-classes are heavily tied into extra-planar entities as their power source.I like this implementation of the spell and it ties nicely into my cosmology. I tend to expand this a little, particularly if it is upcast. Allowing them to detect the residue of lasting actions (people that were healed by magic might still show traces of that magic, for example).

Pleh
2020-10-28, 09:15 AM
I mean, there's the (far more common) 3rd option: you detect someone as Evil...but it doesn't matter, because they're not an enemy.

I dunno. I feel like a system with Cosmological Good and Evil kind of implies that anyone who is Evil is automatically your enemy.

It pushes people towards Lawful Stupid. Why waste time investigating or collecting evidence when you know this person is doing evil? You take them in for inquisition and kill them if they resist.

Jason
2020-10-28, 09:50 AM
It pushes people towards Lawful Stupid. Why waste time investigating or collecting evidence when you know this person is doing evil? You take them in for inquisition and kill them if they resist.
But being evil overall is not illegal in most places. A lawful character has to learn to draw the distinction between "evil because I commit punishable crimes" and "evil because I'm a petty jerk but I'm careful to never do anything actually illegal."

In my past campaigns, a Paladin killing someone "because he detected evil" wouldn't get a pass for murdering someone who didn't commit any actual crimes.

A good character must also accept that evil can repent and become good. So no, evil does not automatically mean "enemy."

Pleh
2020-10-28, 10:18 AM
But being evil overall is not illegal in most places. A lawful character has to learn to draw the distinction between "evil because I commit punishable crimes" and "evil because I'm a petty jerk but I'm careful to never do anything actually illegal."

In my past campaigns, a Paladin killing someone "because he detected evil" wouldn't get a pass for murdering someone who didn't commit any actual crimes.

A good character must also accept that evil can repent and become good. So no, evil does not automatically mean "enemy."

What are you talking about? I specifically noted the indisputable fact that Evil is a Cosmological force of nature in this world.

It doesn't matter if the evil is legal or not. It contributes to the continuing desecration of the material plane. That's way more significant than petty mortal laws.

And I didn't say jump straight to murder. I said arrest them and take them in for inquisition. If they resist, it kind of implies their desire to continue desolving the fabric of reality, making them enemies of all mortal beings.

Jason
2020-10-28, 11:24 AM
What are you talking about? I specifically noted the indisputable fact that Evil is a Cosmological force of nature in this world.

It doesn't matter if the evil is legal or not. It contributes to the continuing desecration of the material plane. That's way more significant than petty mortal laws.

And I didn't say jump straight to murder. I said arrest them and take them in for inquisition. If they resist, it kind of implies their desire to continue desolving the fabric of reality, making them enemies of all mortal beings.

Lawful characters obey the law. Paladins are Lawful Good (or were in earlier editions). You could create a campaign world where detecting as evil was a crime you could be arrested and sent to the inquisition for, but most of the published D&D settings don't have such laws. Being evil by itself may well be a danger to the cosmos in the larger scale of things, but if it's not outlawed in whatever place your paladin finds someone who detects as evil then immediatly taking action against them may be a good action, but it isn't a lawful action.

NigelWalmsley
2020-10-28, 11:32 AM
Alignment is stupid and does not make sense. Any change that reduces the mechanical impact of alignment is, ceteris paribus, positive, because it causes the mechanics of the game to be less stupid and make more sense.

Jason
2020-10-28, 11:37 AM
Alignment is stupid and does not make sense. Any change that reduces the mechanical impact of alignment is, ceteris paribus, positive, because it causes the mechanics of the game to be less stupid and make more sense.

How about making an argument instead of just asserting "it's stupid"?

NigelWalmsley
2020-10-28, 12:26 PM
How about making an argument instead of just asserting "it's stupid"?

Why don't you make an argument for alignment? What problem do you think it solves? What does D&D have that games like Shadowrun (which don't use D&D-style alignment) don't have that justifies all the stupid debates about Paladins falling or whether cheating your taxes is Evil in the same way that sacrificing children to Orcus is or what the hell Law and Chaos mean?

We know that games without alignment work. The burden of proof is on your side to provide an affirmative defense for why alignment is useful, not on my side to provide a detailed argument for why it is bad. "It's stupid" is the problem with alignment.

Jason
2020-10-28, 01:45 PM
Why don't you make an argument for alignment? What problem do you think it solves? What does D&D have that games like Shadowrun (which don't use D&D-style alignment) don't have that justifies all the stupid debates about Paladins falling or whether cheating your taxes is Evil in the same way that sacrificing children to Orcus is or what the hell Law and Chaos mean?

We know that games without alignment work. The burden of proof is on your side to provide an affirmative defense for why alignment is useful, not on my side to provide a detailed argument for why it is bad. "It's stupid" is the problem with alignment.
Okay.
Here's Ten things I like about the alignment system in D&D:

1. It's a useful shorthand for how to roleplay an NPC. By providing 9 broad categories of moral behavior for every NPC and monster in the game you have instant guidance to give to any DM on how to play them without having to read a few paragraphs. Will a typical goblin keep a promise or turn on the players as soon as they look the other way? Look at the alignment.

2. Not only is it useful for DMs, it's useful for players to know the moral reputation a particular variety of monster has, stuff their characters should know by virtue of being residents of their world.

3. It's a useful shorthand for how PCs want to play their characters. It's basically the third question you ask after "what class and race are you playing?" to get a basic idea of what the player has in mind.

4. It's a useful shorthand for how the DM might want players to play their characters in his campaign. "No evil alignments." "Everyone should be at least part Lawful" etc.

5. It's a tool for helping DMs to determine if players are holding to their vows or code of behavior. If a player's abilities come in part from their moral behavior, like with a cleric paladin, then violating their vows or code can mean a loss of abilities.

6. It allows magic to key off of a character's morality. Spells and weapons that only affect evil or good, or lawful or chaotic. You can smite the bad guys while sparing the innocents, or vice-versa.

7. It allows for the violence that most of the actual game play in D&D involves to be more justifiable. If you're clearly good and they are clearly bad then you don't feel as bad when you blow their face off with a fireball.

8. It allows for cosmic-level forces of good and evil (and chaos and law) clashing in true epic fashion, with your players already being clearly aligned with one side and ready to play pivotal rolls.

9. It is in keeping with the high fantasy genre. Tolkien has clear good and bad sides. Moorcock has the whole law vs. chaos struggle. Jordan has dark vs. light. Look at just about any high fantasy and you will see clear lines between the forces of good and evil.

10. It's part of D&D's product identity, as much as hit points, armor class, the six attributes, and ability scores that go from 3 to18. Remove alignment and it just doesn't feel like D&D anymore.

So yeah, other games do just fine without it, just like they do fine without classes or levels, but if you want to play the kind and style of games that D&D lets you play it is a useful tool and part of the whole experience.

NigelWalmsley
2020-10-28, 02:40 PM
1. It's a useful shorthand for how to roleplay an NPC. By providing 9 broad categories of moral behavior for every NPC and monster in the game you have instant guidance to give to any DM on how to play them without having to read a few paragraphs. Will a typical goblin keep a promise or turn on the players as soon as they look the other way? Look at the alignment.

No, it isn't. "Evil" or "Law" or "Chaos" aren't useful shorthands. Is a "Lawful" character devoted to the principles of society, or their own principles? Do "Good" characters follow virtue ethics, deontology, or utilitarianism? I don't know, and you don't either. Maybe the fluff says something, but good luck convincing your friend that his moral principles don't actually make him Good. That's not to say that alignment couldn't do this, but the way to do that would be by using something like MTG's Color Wheel where your alignments are associated with actual character traits, rather than terms that people can't even agree on definitions for in the real world.


2. Not only is it useful for DMs, it's useful for players to know the moral reputation a particular variety of monster has, stuff their characters should know by virtue of being residents of their world.

"Moral reputation" is not consistent across alignment. The appropriate response to a demon, a ghoul, a drow, and an orc is different, despite the fact that those creatures are all Chaotic Evil.


5. It's a tool for helping DMs to determine if players are holding to their vows or code of behavior. If a player's abilities come in part from their moral behavior, like with a cleric paladin, then violating their vows or code can mean a loss of abilities.

That doesn't make any sense. You know what determines if you are keeping to a code of behavior? Your code of behavior. If you have a code that says "no using poison" or "no killing captives" or "never submit to authority" or whatever, you don't also need alignment. You can just look at the things you are supposed to do and see if you are doing them, then look at the things you are supposed to not do and see if you are not doing them.


6. It allows magic to key off of a character's morality. Spells and weapons that only affect evil or good, or lawful or chaotic. You can smite the bad guys while sparing the innocents, or vice-versa.

Explain to me why you need an alignment system to have spells not effect people. I'll be over here, casting spells with shapeable areas, or using Fireball on Red Dragons.


7. It allows for the violence that most of the actual game play in D&D involves to be more justifiable. If you're clearly good and they are clearly bad then you don't feel as bad when you blow their face off with a fireball.

No, it doesn't. It encourages you to ignore those questions, but it doesn't solve them. The questions "should we kill the baby orcs" and "is it actually morally necessary to kill the baby orcs" are still there, alignment just hopes you don't bother asking them.


9. It is in keeping with the high fantasy genre. Tolkien has clear good and bad sides. Moorcock has the whole law vs. chaos struggle. Jordan has dark vs. light. Look at just about any high fantasy and you will see clear lines between the forces of good and evil.

If all you want is a team name, what's the benefit to having it be "Good"? If your sides are cosmic forces, isn't it much simpler to have them be abstractions you can clearly define rather than messy real-world terms? You'll note that the examples you cite largely do it that way. Sauron's team isn't "Team Evil", it's just "Sauron's Team". We're able to figure out that they're evil on account of them doing evil stuff.


10. It's part of D&D's product identity, as much as hit points, armor class, the six attributes, and ability scores that go from 3 to18. Remove alignment and it just doesn't feel like D&D anymore.

Funny you mention armor class. Because in the early editions, it worked completely differently from how it does now. And yet the transition from THAC0 to BAB did not break D&D. What feels like D&D is going into dungeons and fighting dragons. Any detail you change is just that: a detail.

JeenLeen
2020-10-28, 02:48 PM
You mean what 5e has already done by making the paladin's ability about detecting supernatural creatures like Fae, Demons and so on without alignment being involved?

I recall one of the familiar options for a warlock still had the old Detect Evil (or Good--forget which) as an option. Or somehow that we got it. I reckon that was a typo (and thus updated/errata'd away by now) and failure while updating the power description from 3.5 to 5e, but it was an interesting abnormality.

Jason
2020-10-28, 03:20 PM
If all you want is a team name, what's the benefit to having it be "Good"? If your sides are cosmic forces, isn't it much simpler to have them be abstractions you can clearly define rather than messy real-world terms? You'll note that the examples you cite largely do it that way. Sauron's team isn't "Team Evil", it's just "Sauron's Team". We're able to figure out that they're evil on account of them doing evil stuff.I would argue that Team Sauron most definitely is team evil, regardless of what he calls himself. Also it's not a team so much as "Sauron and those he has enslaved". It's a more fundamental issue than what you call your side. The kind of stories in high fantasy are stories where one side really is evil. In a fundamental and objective sense, not just as a matter of perspective. Having an in-game alignment allows it to be an objective description of a character, like an attribute score. Games that don't have some kind of moral mechanic can't do this.

Lord Raziere
2020-10-28, 03:30 PM
I dunno. I feel like a system with Cosmological Good and Evil kind of implies that anyone who is Evil is automatically your enemy.

It pushes people towards Lawful Stupid. Why waste time investigating or collecting evidence when you know this person is doing evil? You take them in for inquisition and kill them if they resist.

Indeed, when applied on a societal level you end up with something like this:
"Okay he's evil, get him."
"Why, what he'd do?"
"Who cares? He's evil. the shopkeep has got to have done something to earn that. We can figure out why later, but right now its clear he is on the wrong side of the cosmos. We'll have to put him through the redemption process, he'll confess sooner or later. Of course if he doesn't, we got to kill him as he could be intending to corrupt everyone else into being evil."

black and white cosmological morality seems nice until you start examining what it means for society and building a world around it, and what it means for people to have a way to just automatically know it at a glance. then it quickly starts becoming something alien at best, ugly at worst and not heroic fantasy funtimes at all. a degree of grey and uncertainty is required for the fantasy to work or it devolves into a LE world in all but name where everyone with eviltron rather than virtuetron readings has to undergo forced conversion into virtuetrons.

Divine Sense provides this as well. with divine sense, what you don't know is the alignment of mortals. This makes sense! Why would the personal alignment of a mortal, some so weak be detectable? It isn't, not compared to the powerful divine beacons that are celestials, fiends and undead. it makes interaction with society relatable and sensible, while emphasizing the extraplanar nature and alignment when dealing with the literal incarnations of alignment. It makes it important when dealing with beings that the trait is important FOR.

For most beings in the prime material plane, alignment isn't actually all that important. most Dnd adventurers don't care about it and neither do the beings they fight. random joe fighter or his rogue buddy aren't thinking about their afterlives they're busy wanting loot in this life, while wizards are often more concerned about knowledge or power. while your random goblin in a generic DnD world doesn't care all that much- they're just trying to live one more day in the wilderness no matter the method.

there the people that care most about it are the religious ones and the beings that are literally incarnations of those forces- and their concerns and conflicts are distant things from your average DnD party. DnD characters don't go and fight monsters for a crusade, they do it for exp and loot. while the machinations of angels and demons are often one note without something like Planescape to set things up to make it work. and as it has been observed, most DnD parties don't go past level 10. Such extraplanar concerns as the fate of the universe is thus often not actually addressed.

This kind of distance from such divine concerns is a good thing. it makes the divine more mysterious- and therefore properly DIVINE. It keeps the times when good and evil come up as IMPORTANT and CLIMACTIC rather than a background thing that is constantly required. in high fantasy, the problem of morality isn't actually brought up all that much. most of the hero's actions of their stories aren't actually judged and I could probably find something morally questionable that they do in any story. the times it comes up are rare climatic ones where good or evil is decisively defeated, rather than every literal fight being a contribution. the eviltrons make the conflict feel more like your trying to clean people of bad background radiation or something, its too accumulative to feel fantastic. divine sense makes sure that when celestials and fiends show up, it makes morality important, emphasizes that this is something that the cosmos reps of good and evil care about on a big scale. sure detect evil tells you someone is evil.....but it doesn't tell you whether its something you should care about if your someone playing paladin, leaving room for a lot of knight templar interpretations where the paladin brings such cosmological matters into every day life like a crazy person. that isn't epic, thats pathetic. that is being a crazy moralhobo who rants on the street that the end is nigh and that the angels will come for you all when the time comes. its being that guy who brings up controversial stuff at the grocery store or something, like why even?

divine sense allows the paladin to interact with someone like normal people. it gives them dimensions where they can be sure about fighting a demon but not so sure when they fight a mortal. it makes normal society a better social challenge, allowing the rogue to have more use, and be more believable as they live in a world where they aren't constantly judged for their rogueish actions, but instead are free to do them, as they are one of the people least connected to the divine forces- much like say, Han Solo. sure the Force in Star Wars is an important thing, but its primarily important for JEDI, for a smuggler like Han? its not something they hold to in any meaningful capacity., and rogues should be free to not be held to the standards of paladin and have to follow the paladin's goals in every interaction and encounter because every bit of the world is in on the fight. by making the fights more climactic and rare, you make the fight of good and evil something that is a bigger deal than a constant low level effort. the battle for good and evil should be like the big fights of Minas Tirith or Helms Deep, should be like the Battle of Yavin 4 or the Moon of Endor or the Last Battle in Wheel of Time. not every fight is epic or apart of the cosmos struggle, and thats vital to make sure that when it comes up it feels properly epic and heroic.

ImNotTrevor
2020-10-28, 04:02 PM
No, it isn't. "Evil" or "Law" or "Chaos" aren't useful shorthands. Is a "Lawful" character devoted to the principles of society, or their own principles? Do "Good" characters follow virtue ethics, deontology, or utilitarianism? I don't know, and you don't either. Maybe the fluff says something, but good luck convincing your friend that his moral principles don't actually make him Good. That's not to say that alignment couldn't do this, but the way to do that would be by using something like MTG's Color Wheel where your alignments are associated with actual character traits, rather than terms that people can't even agree on definitions for in the real world.



"Moral reputation" is not consistent across alignment. The appropriate response to a demon, a ghoul, a drow, and an orc is different, despite the fact that those creatures are all Chaotic Evil.



That doesn't make any sense. You know what determines if you are keeping to a code of behavior? Your code of behavior. If you have a code that says "no using poison" or "no killing captives" or "never submit to authority" or whatever, you don't also need alignment. You can just look at the things you are supposed to do and see if you are doing them, then look at the things you are supposed to not do and see if you are not doing them.



Explain to me why you need an alignment system to have spells not effect people. I'll be over here, casting spells with shapeable areas, or using Fireball on Red Dragons.



No, it doesn't. It encourages you to ignore those questions, but it doesn't solve them. The questions "should we kill the baby orcs" and "is it actually morally necessary to kill the baby orcs" are still there, alignment just hopes you don't bother asking them.



If all you want is a team name, what's the benefit to having it be "Good"? If your sides are cosmic forces, isn't it much simpler to have them be abstractions you can clearly define rather than messy real-world terms? You'll note that the examples you cite largely do it that way. Sauron's team isn't "Team Evil", it's just "Sauron's Team". We're able to figure out that they're evil on account of them doing evil stuff.



Funny you mention armor class. Because in the early editions, it worked completely differently from how it does now. And yet the transition from THAC0 to BAB did not break D&D. What feels like D&D is going into dungeons and fighting dragons. Any detail you change is just that: a detail.

Bravo.

I am personally in full agreement that Alignment has no practical utility that cannot be achieved with a Session 0 or, in the case of the NPC biz, a small note.

I've never yet had anyone give me a unique and meaningful reason for alignment to exist beyond "it's part of the brand." In an old interview I watched shortly after the 5e release even the developers of 5e admitted that the only thing keeping Alignment in the system was its association with the D&D brand making it obligatory. Hence why alignment has NO mechanical effect in 5e.

Which is good and correct.

ImNotTrevor
2020-10-28, 04:08 PM
I would argue that Team Sauron most definitely is team evil, regardless of what he calls himself. Also it's not a team so much as "Sauron and those he has enslaved". It's a more fundamental issue than what you call your side. The kind of stories in high fantasy are stories where one side really is evil. In a fundamental and objective sense, not just as a matter of perspective. Having an in-game alignment allows it to be an objective description of a character, like an attribute score. Games that don't have some kind of moral mechanic can't do this.

Sorry to double post but this is outright false. "Chaotic Evil" is exactly as objective as labelling a particular set of stats as "Galtorax, Embodiment of All Evil" and roleplaying accordingly.

Fate has no such alignment system and literally giving "Embodiment of all Evil" as an aspect does the EXACT SAME THING with BETTER MECHANICAL/THEMATIC COHESION.

In Apocalypse World (a game with no alignment at all) I have had an NPC who was the personification of humanity's collective sins, violence, trauma, pain, etc. And I did not require alignment to have that character.

So nah, man, systems without alignment do "inherently evil big bads" just fine.

NigelWalmsley
2020-10-28, 04:22 PM
I would argue that Team Sauron most definitely is team evil, regardless of what he calls himself.

Yes, that's the point. You were able to identify Sauron as the bad guy on the basis that he uses strategies like "bombard Gondor with severed heads" and "make magic rings that corrupt the minds of men" without Sauron being on an explicit "Team Evil".


It's a more fundamental issue than what you call your side. The kind of stories in high fantasy are stories where one side really is evil. In a fundamental and objective sense, not just as a matter of perspective.

Have you read Malazan? Or The Second Apocalypse? Or The Chronicles of Amber? Or The Black Company? Or Lord of Light? Hell, even A Practical Guide to Evil, a book where the protagonist is literally on "Team Evil" does a pretty good job of demonstrating that "Team Evil" and "Team Morally In The Wrong" are not equivalent concepts. Plenty of high fantasy doesn't have a definite, unambiguous "Good" and "Evil".

Jason
2020-10-28, 04:28 PM
Fate has no such alignment system and literally giving "Embodiment of all Evil" as an aspect does the EXACT SAME THING with BETTER MECHANICAL/THEMATIC COHESION.
Wouldn't being able give someone the aspect "embodiment of evil" or a similar "pure goodness" aspect be an alignment system of sorts?


In Apocalypse World (a game with no alignment at all) I have had an NPC who was the personification of humanity's collective sins, violence, trauma, pain, etc. And I did not require alignment to have that character.Like i said, you can play other games just fine without an alignment system.

I'm not familiar with Apocalypse World, but I'm guessing it doesn't have the same six attributes, classes like fighter or cleric, levels, or elves or dwarves, and that you don't generally play out high fantasy struggles between good and evil with it either.

No, you don't need alignment if you're not playing D&D.

jjordan
2020-10-28, 04:54 PM
No, it isn't. "Evil" or "Law" or "Chaos" aren't useful shorthands. Is a "Lawful" character devoted to the principles of society, or their own principles? Do "Good" characters follow virtue ethics, deontology, or utilitarianism? I don't know, and you don't either. Maybe the fluff says something, but good luck convincing your friend that his moral principles don't actually make him Good. That's not to say that alignment couldn't do this, but the way to do that would be by using something like MTG's Color Wheel where your alignments are associated with actual character traits, rather than terms that people can't even agree on definitions for in the real world.



"Moral reputation" is not consistent across alignment. The appropriate response to a demon, a ghoul, a drow, and an orc is different, despite the fact that those creatures are all Chaotic Evil.



That doesn't make any sense. You know what determines if you are keeping to a code of behavior? Your code of behavior. If you have a code that says "no using poison" or "no killing captives" or "never submit to authority" or whatever, you don't also need alignment. You can just look at the things you are supposed to do and see if you are doing them, then look at the things you are supposed to not do and see if you are not doing them.



Explain to me why you need an alignment system to have spells not effect people. I'll be over here, casting spells with shapeable areas, or using Fireball on Red Dragons.



No, it doesn't. It encourages you to ignore those questions, but it doesn't solve them. The questions "should we kill the baby orcs" and "is it actually morally necessary to kill the baby orcs" are still there, alignment just hopes you don't bother asking them.



If all you want is a team name, what's the benefit to having it be "Good"? If your sides are cosmic forces, isn't it much simpler to have them be abstractions you can clearly define rather than messy real-world terms? You'll note that the examples you cite largely do it that way. Sauron's team isn't "Team Evil", it's just "Sauron's Team". We're able to figure out that they're evil on account of them doing evil stuff.



Funny you mention armor class. Because in the early editions, it worked completely differently from how it does now. And yet the transition from THAC0 to BAB did not break D&D. What feels like D&D is going into dungeons and fighting dragons. Any detail you change is just that: a detail.
You don't need alignment. You also don't need HP or AC (which is mechanically different in 5e from 2e but conceptually does the exact same job of determining how hard it is to cause damage to an opponent). It's just another mechanic used by the game and, as long as you don't let it get out of hand, it works well enough for most. Literally most. While I prefer a more nuanced approach that doesn't use alignment at all, I grew up playing the game with people who were overwhelmingly detect evil -> smite evil players.

JoeJ
2020-10-28, 04:57 PM
Why don't you make an argument for alignment? What problem do you think it solves?

It solves the problem of how to model a setting in which alignment is inherent to the cosmos. Planescape completely doesn't work without an alignment system. Star Wars pretty much requires there be a mechanical effect to choosing the light side vs. the dark side of the force. OTOH, setting where the cosmos doesn't have alignments don't really need it for the characters either.

NigelWalmsley
2020-10-28, 05:26 PM
It's just another mechanic used by the game and, as long as you don't let it get out of hand, it works well enough for most.

"It works okay" is not the kind of ardent defense I was hoping for.


It solves the problem of how to model a setting in which alignment is inherent to the cosmos. Planescape completely doesn't work without an alignment system. Star Wars pretty much requires there be a mechanical effect to choosing the light side vs. the dark side of the force. OTOH, setting where the cosmos doesn't have alignments don't really need it for the characters either.

Planescape doesn't need alignment. You can gather demons to the banner of "more stuff should be run by demons" without bringing objective morality into the question, and even insofar as it is necessary, it could just as easily be "demons fight devils because demons are Red/Black and devils are Blue/Black", and that would be more useful and more coherent. And you're just flat wrong about Star Wars. There's basically no underlying logic to who gets what force powers. Vader and the Emperor do evil stuff with the force, but that's because they're evil, not because those force powers are inherently evil. There's no meaningful difference between Vader's Force Choke and Luke's Force Grab except that Vader uses his abilities on people's throats and Luke doesn't. The Emperor is the only person who uses force lightning in the OT, but that could as easily be because he's higher level than everyone else as because it's an inherently evil power.

Jason
2020-10-28, 05:40 PM
Hmm. I see my longest reply has completely disappeared. Probably too late to recreate it now. Oh well.

JoeJ
2020-10-28, 06:38 PM
Planescape doesn't need alignment. You can gather demons to the banner of "more stuff should be run by demons" without bringing objective morality into the question, and even insofar as it is necessary, it could just as easily be "demons fight devils because demons are Red/Black and devils are Blue/Black", and that would be more useful and more coherent.

It's not just about teams; the planes themselves have alignment, and inhabitants and visitors are affected by the plane's alignment. On Mt. Celestia, for example, the chance of successfully casting many spells depends on how close the caster's alignment is to lawful good.

It's also possible for a region on one plane to shift to a different plane if a critical mass of that region's inhabitants changes alignment (or if enough people of that other alignment travel there at once). Gate cities on the Outlands are especially susceptible to this.



And you're just flat wrong about Star Wars. There's basically no underlying logic to who gets what force powers. Vader and the Emperor do evil stuff with the force, but that's because they're evil, not because those force powers are inherently evil. There's no meaningful difference between Vader's Force Choke and Luke's Force Grab except that Vader uses his abilities on people's throats and Luke doesn't. The Emperor is the only person who uses force lightning in the OT, but that could as easily be because he's higher level than everyone else as because it's an inherently evil power.

That doesn't match what I recall from the films. According to Yoda, the dark side is easier and quicker, although no more powerful. But it also seduces and eventually dominates the wielder. The two sides of the force are objectively different in ways that affect the wielder.

NigelWalmsley
2020-10-28, 06:57 PM
It's not just about teams; the planes themselves have alignment, and inhabitants and visitors are affected by the plane's alignment. On Mt. Celestia, for example, the chance of successfully casting many spells depends on how close the caster's alignment is to lawful good.

A passive effect that cares what team you're on is very much "just about teams". Imagine that we replaced D&D's alignment with MTG's color wheel. Is there anything in Planescape we couldn't port? What are we getting for defining our factions in a way that is confusing, ambiguous, and causes IRL arguments over terms?


That doesn't match what I recall from the films. According to Yoda, the dark side is easier and quicker, although no more powerful. But it also seduces and eventually dominates the wielder. The two sides of the force are objectively different in ways that affect the wielder.

The movies don't really bear that out though. The only person we see learn to use the force is Luke, and he learns the Light Side over like three lessons. Hard to imagine the Dark Side beating that for speed. In fact, going strictly by what's shown on-screen, the Dark Side seems to be the harder to master, as it's the only one with exclusive techniques. But regardless, that still doesn't require alignment. Maybe Sith do learn faster but eventually turn into gibbering cultists. No part of that requires that you declare that Sith are Evil and Jedi are Good.

Anymage
2020-10-28, 07:50 PM
Planescape specifically is predicated on a lot of things that all do boil down to D&D's alignment system. The Great Wheel and assorted monsters for every alignment niche included. (Slaads and modrons exist because you needed planar citizens for chaos and law.) It's a cool setting that's intrinsically tied to D&D's alignment system because it was built from that basis, but granted the "fairy tale meets cyberpunk meets interdimensional transit hub" could be built around other cosmologies too.

The existence of a cool D&D setting based around D&D concepts does not prove the innate value of those concepts by themselves, though.

Celestia
2020-10-29, 07:31 AM
Star Wars does not, in fact, have a light/dark dynamic. In fact, the term "light side" never once appears in any of the original six movies. It is just the Force: one, singular power source. The "dark side" is a corruption of the Force, using it in ways that it's not supposed to be used. That's why the Jedi can be seeking "balance" and the elimination of the Sith without those goals being contradictory. They are, in fact, the same goal. If we imagine the Force as a person, then the dark side is a cancer.

JoeJ
2020-10-29, 03:09 PM
A passive effect that cares what team you're on is very much "just about teams". Imagine that we replaced D&D's alignment with MTG's color wheel. Is there anything in Planescape we couldn't port? What are we getting for defining our factions in a way that is confusing, ambiguous, and causes IRL arguments over terms?

I don't know anything about MtG, but an alignment system organized along different lines is still an alignment system. The axes don't necessarily have to match the ones used in D&D. Using very different axes, however, would change the nature of the planes to the point that your setting is not ported from Planescape so much as simply inspired by it.



The movies don't really bear that out though. The only person we see learn to use the force is Luke, and he learns the Light Side over like three lessons. Hard to imagine the Dark Side beating that for speed. In fact, going strictly by what's shown on-screen, the Dark Side seems to be the harder to master, as it's the only one with exclusive techniques. But regardless, that still doesn't require alignment. Maybe Sith do learn faster but eventually turn into gibbering cultists. No part of that requires that you declare that Sith are Evil and Jedi are Good.

If you want to play a Star Wars game where there's no difference between the two sides of the Force, have fun. It wouldn't be Star Wars for me.



he existence of a cool D&D setting based around D&D concepts does not prove the innate value of those concepts by themselves, though.

On the contrary, the innate value for any set of game rules is that they allow you to do some fun thing in the game. Alignment rules are necessary not just for Planescape, but for any setting in which morality is treated as objective. If you want to play the kind of fantasy in which it's possible to have a Sword of Evil Smiting that does extra damage when used against evil, or where chaotic beings can be magically detected, or where concentrating enough people with similar beliefs can change the physical environment, or where reading the Book of Bad Mojo can increase the power of evil characters and harm good ones, then you need to have some sort of alignment rules.

NigelWalmsley
2020-10-29, 03:40 PM
I don't know anything about MtG, but an alignment system organized along different lines is still an alignment system.

There's a clear distinction between "there are factions" and "one of the factions is Good".


If you want to play a Star Wars game where there's no difference between the two sides of the Force, have fun. It wouldn't be Star Wars for me.

That's not really an argument. If you look at the source material, there really isn't support for a binary light side/dark side. There are certainly differences between Jedi and Sith, but there are also other types of force sensitives out there. Something like Shadowrun's Traditions are probably a better fit. And, of course, there are people who don't use the force at all, for which force-based alignment is wholly irrelevant.


then you need to have some sort of alignment rules.

That's not a defense of D&D's alignment rules, which are the ones in question. Also, you're wrong about a bunch of that stuff, because you can have "Smite Aberration" without anyone having a "Tentacles" alignment. If you just want tags, that also works fine.

JoeJ
2020-10-29, 04:48 PM
There's a clear distinction between "there are factions" and "one of the factions is Good".

Exactly. Good vs. evil is only one possibly alignment axis. Even in D&D, the alignments were originally restricted to Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic.


That's not really an argument. If you look at the source material, there really isn't support for a binary light side/dark side. There are certainly differences between Jedi and Sith, but there are also other types of force sensitives out there. Something like Shadowrun's Traditions are probably a better fit. And, of course, there are people who don't use the force at all, for which force-based alignment is wholly irrelevant.


"But how am I to know the good side from the bad?"

"You will know... when you are calm, at peace, passive."

Yoda seemed to think there is a good side and a bad side.



That's not a defense of D&D's alignment rules, which are the ones in question. Also, you're wrong about a bunch of that stuff, because you can have "Smite Aberration" without anyone having a "Tentacles" alignment. If you just want tags, that also works fine.

What tag would you suggest is targeted by my previously mentioned Sword of Evil Smiting? Or the Book of Empowering Evil and Damaging Good? How do you have a fantasy world in which good and evil are objective descriptions that meaningfully impact the world without an alignment system? If you don't want to play in that kind of fantasy world, that's fine. Not everybody does. But if you do want that in your setting, alignment is necessary.

Lord Raziere
2020-10-29, 04:54 PM
What tag would you suggest is targeted by my previously mentioned Sword of Evil Smiting? Or the Book of Empowering Evil and Damaging Good? How do you have a fantasy world in which good and evil are objective descriptions that meaningfully impact the world without an alignment system? If you don't want to play in that kind of fantasy world, that's fine. Not everybody does. But if you do want that in your setting, alignment is necessary.

Not really.

A demon comes and begins slaughtering people just minding their own business in some random village, mercilessly killing them because they are a demon. whether there is some cosmic system giving them a label is superfluous, they're clearly already cartoonishly evil and need to be put down. like what more do you need?

JoeJ
2020-10-29, 05:03 PM
Not really.

A demon comes and begins slaughtering people just minding their own business in some random village, mercilessly killing them because they are a demon. whether there is some cosmic system giving them a label is superfluous, they're clearly already cartoonishly evil and need to be put down. like what more do you need?

What I need to know is which creatures are affected by my Sword of Evil Smiting. Sure it works on demons, but does it also work Sir Nastypants, the despicable but completely non-magical normal human knight?

Lord Raziere
2020-10-29, 05:10 PM
What I need to know is which creatures are affected by my Sword of Evil Smiting. Sure it works on demons, but does it also work Sir Nastypants, the despicable but completely non-magical normal human knight?

why do you need smite evil? just because a world has objective cosmic morality doesn't mean those swords exist. you could have the Sword of Demon Smiting and it'd be just as good for the demon, while you have to content your with normal nonmagical sword strikes for the human knight because....they're not magical. they're human and therefore different from a literal incarnation of evil, and thus has a choice about whether they can be evil or not, while the demon has lost its chance forever and thus the magic can effect it. its not as if the evil human knight is all that tough and needing of extra damage, nor is it like you'll be facing any NON-evil people when you fight mortal foes anyways, so all your asking is for extra damage for doing what your already doing.

NigelWalmsley
2020-10-29, 05:11 PM
Exactly. Good vs. evil is only one possibly alignment axis. Even in D&D, the alignments were originally restricted to Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic.

It is also the one D&D actually has, and the one this thread is about. It is certainly true that there are mechanics that are kind of like D&D alignment that aren't stupid. That's entirely irrelevant to the discussion at hand.


Yoda seemed to think there is a good side and a bad side.

I don't understand what point you're trying to make. Yes, there are multiple Force philosophies. Yes, Yoda like the one he agrees with and doesn't like others. None of that gets you to alignment, let alone the Good/Evil binary you're pushing. There are, for example, characters who don't use the force, and therefore don't fall into this paradigm at all. Han isn't a "Light Side Smuggler" and Boba Fett isn't a "Dark Side Bounty Hunter". They're just a smuggler and a bounty hunter. By far the most reasonable way to model the Star Wars universe is by giving force users "Force Traditions" (of which Jedi and Sith are examples, but there are obviously more in both the old EU and Disney's stuff). You could call those "alignments" if you wanted to, but it's really nothing like D&D's system.


What tag would you suggest is targeted by my previously mentioned Sword of Evil Smiting?

You're missing the point. Is "Cold" an alignment? Are things that create ice "morally Cold"? Of course not, that's absurd. You can group things with declaring that the grouping is moral. What objective morality gets you isn't the ability to smite demons, it's a cosmic horror story about the misalignment between your own moral beliefs and those of the universe. See: The Second Apocalypse and A Practical Guide to Evil. Now, I like both of those stories, but the questions they raise re:morality are very much not the sort of thing you want as the default in a TTRPG.

JoeJ
2020-10-29, 06:05 PM
why do you need smite evil? just because a world has objective cosmic morality doesn't mean those swords exist. you could have the Sword of Demon Smiting and it'd be just as good for the demon, while you have to content your with normal nonmagical sword strikes for the human knight because....they're not magical. they're human and therefore different from a literal incarnation of evil, and thus has a choice about whether they can be evil or not, while the demon has lost its chance forever and thus the magic can effect it. its not as if the evil human knight is all that tough and needing of extra damage, nor is it like you'll be facing any NON-evil people when you fight mortal foes anyways, so all your asking is for extra damage for doing what your already doing.

A better question would be, why do you need me to be unable to smite evil? If I want to play in a world where a Sword of Evil Smiting works against demons, devils, evil (but not good) knights, evil (but not good) faeries, and all the other forces of wickedness in the world, why is that not allowed? It's not like having alignment in one game prevents you from playing a different game that's more to your taste. (And Lord Nastypants is a high level NPC who's much tougher than some demons.)



I don't understand what point you're trying to make. Yes, there are multiple Force philosophies. Yes, Yoda like the one he agrees with and doesn't like others. None of that gets you to alignment, let alone the Good/Evil binary you're pushing. There are, for example, characters who don't use the force, and therefore don't fall into this paradigm at all. Han isn't a "Light Side Smuggler" and Boba Fett isn't a "Dark Side Bounty Hunter". They're just a smuggler and a bounty hunter. By far the most reasonable way to model the Star Wars universe is by giving force users "Force Traditions" (of which Jedi and Sith are examples, but there are obviously more in both the old EU and Disney's stuff). You could call those "alignments" if you wanted to, but it's really nothing like D&D's system.

Not everybody does use the force, that's true. But if you're going to tell me that there isn't a good vs. evil dynamic among those who do use it, we're just going to have to agree to disagree. (Although admittedly, my understanding of Star Wars is based solely on the three* movies, not the innumerable books, comics, video games, etc.)



You're missing the point. Is "Cold" an alignment? Are things that create ice "morally Cold"? Of course not, that's absurd. You can group things with declaring that the grouping is moral. What objective morality gets you isn't the ability to smite demons, it's a cosmic horror story about the misalignment between your own moral beliefs and those of the universe. See: The Second Apocalypse and A Practical Guide to Evil. Now, I like both of those stories, but the questions they raise re:morality are very much not the sort of thing you want as the default in a TTRPG.

Of course I can group things without declaring that the grouping is moral, but I want some groupings to be moral. What alignment gets me is the ability to play in a world that has objective morality. A world in which the gods or God or the nature of the cosmos itself defines some things, actions, and creatures as good and others as evil. I get that that's not to your taste. Sometimes it isn't to mine either, but sometimes it is.


*That right, three. There are only three Star Wars films.

JNAProductions
2020-10-29, 06:24 PM
A better question would be, why do you need me to be unable to smite evil? If I want to play in a world where a Sword of Evil Smiting works against demons, devils, evil (but not good) knights, evil (but not good) faeries, and all the other forces of wickedness in the world, why is that not allowed? It's not like having alignment in one game prevents you from playing a different game that's more to your taste. (And Lord Nastypants is a high level NPC who's much tougher than some demons.)

Not everybody does use the force, that's true. But if you're going to tell me that there isn't a good vs. evil dynamic among those who do use it, we're just going to have to agree to disagree. (Although admittedly, my understanding of Star Wars is based solely on the three* movies, not the innumerable books, comics, video games, etc.)

Of course I can group things without declaring that the grouping is moral, but I want some groupings to be moral. What alignment gets me is the ability to play in a world that has objective morality. A world in which the gods or God or the nature of the cosmos itself defines some things, actions, and creatures as good and others as evil. I get that that's not to your taste. Sometimes it isn't to mine either, but sometimes it is.

*That right, three. There are only three Star Wars films.

So how evil do you have to be for Smite Evil to work on you?

Let's say I steal and cheat on my significant other. Does it work?
What if I steal from orphans specifically?
What if above, but I need to steal to survive?

Or, to ask another question, what does it ADD to the game?

Lord Raziere
2020-10-29, 06:49 PM
A better question would be, why do you need me to be unable to smite evil? If I want to play in a world where a Sword of Evil Smiting works against demons, devils, evil (but not good) knights, evil (but not good) faeries, and all the other forces of wickedness in the world, why is that not allowed? It's not like having alignment in one game prevents you from playing a different game that's more to your taste. (And Lord Nastypants is a high level NPC who's much tougher than some demons.)


Why do you need me to leave? I don't need to, 5e's divine strike is the status quo. divine strike is completely alignmentless, just deals radiant damage to everything. 5e paladins pull off the objective morality thing just fine without the thing claimed to be needed. if your going to using the feature on anything you fight anyways (because its not as if you'll be fighting good or neutral thing all that often and even if you do, its unlikely you'll want to use features to INCREASE your damage if your being heroic) you might as well get rid of the meaningless restriction if its just a damage boost to all the enemies you fight. smite evil would only be significant if you fought things OTHER than evil, because it implies a restriction of not being able to use it on enemies that aren't, but if all you do is fight evil its not even a restriction that makes sense to have, because a good person doesn't need "my class feature won't work on somebody" to not use on/harm someone with it. while any GM that makes you think your fighting evil than surprises you with your smite evil not working is just pulling a gotcha on you.

the removal of such elements actually make for a better paladin because it makes sure they have to think about WHY they using the features they have now and what they are using them FOR. its portrays objective morality better, by making sure its something that you can't pass the buck to some mindless detect and destroy mentality that only encourages evil behavior. a paragon of morality is a paragon because of their own decisions and efforts to be a paragon, not because the universe smooths the way for them to become so.

after all, I would not be surprised if detect evil fostered a sense of paranoia in paladins about the people who show up as evil even if they weren't allowed to kill them. after all, it marks the person as "more likely to do something evil" in their eyes and thus gives a paladin a bias in who to blame about something going wrong with no clear culprit. I've seen enough Among Us games to know that being "sus" is a surefire way to get voted off within two rounds regardless of whether they are the imposter or not. and having an evil alignment in a DnD game is great way to be sus, and thus EVIL people can have injustices done TO them just for having that alignment because something went wrong in their area and they had nothing to do with it.

MoiMagnus
2020-10-29, 07:00 PM
But being evil overall is not illegal in most places.

Assuming there is no false positive, why wouldn't it?
Why would the law protect evil peoples? Why wouldn't "popular justice" instantly blame evil and push toward making it illegal.

Secondary question: Does discriminating against evil peoples / killing them for no other reason than them being evil makes you more evil or more good, from a cosmological alignment perspective?

A universe were Paladin kill evil at sight is probably a universe in which evil is illegal, or at least the player in question assumed that being evil was illegal in universe (and that the DM should quickly and promptly clarify it if that's not the case).
And while I doubt a lot of tables play with the full ramification and the consequences of this choice, there are probably more tables than you think that play in a setting where being discovered evil is a death penalty.

NigelWalmsley
2020-10-30, 09:46 AM
t's not like having alignment in one game prevents you from playing a different game that's more to your taste.

It does actually matter what the default assumption in the books is. And alignment is a bad one. Yes, I could change it. But the default could also be that it doesn't exist and you add it.


But if you're going to tell me that there isn't a good vs. evil dynamic among those who do use it, we're just going to have to agree to disagree. (Although admittedly, my understanding of Star Wars is based solely on the three* movies, not the innumerable books, comics, video games, etc.)

There's a "Light Side"/"Dark Side" dynamic. That's not the same as "Good" and "Evil". There is absolutely a difference between being a Jedi and being a Sith. But even in the original movies, it's not as simple as the Jedi being "Good" and the Sith being "Evil".


What alignment gets me is the ability to play in a world that has objective morality.

No, it doesn't. Because "objective morality" is incoherent. It allows a world with cosmological morality, but again that is a cosmic horror story. If you want knights in shiny armor that fight demons, the words Good and Evil don't need to have a damn thing to do with your mechanics.

Jason
2020-10-30, 10:20 AM
Assuming there is no false positive, why wouldn't it?
Why would the law protect evil peoples? Why wouldn't "popular justice" instantly blame evil and push toward making it illegal.
"Popular justice" might very well push for evil being outlawed and a positive test for evil meaning imprisonment or even execution. Mobs can easily be provoked by someone claiming a person detects as evil. Totalitarian states in 5th edition may still outlaw "evil" and try to promote goodthink in their populace with random detect thoughts screenings and the like.

More enlightened rulers, however, will realize that just laws can only punish evil acts, not evil intent. There is also a practical threshold to what behavior should be considered illegal and have laws enforced against it, and this isn't necessarily the same as what constitutes evil behavior or alignment. A person may detect as evil for a lifetime of petty and spiteful actions none of which were individually illegal.

Compassionate leaders will recognize that alignments change and that a person who presently detects as evil from past deeds may redeem themselves and should be given that opportunity so long as they are not doing current harm to a society.

More cynical leaders will realize that such a law could be used against them or against those they favor and will uphold the idea of only punishing evil acts or allowing evil detection to be a factor in determining guilt but not allowing punishment without additional evidence of evil actions.

Where it is discussed in published settings mere detection of evil is not enough by itself for a person to be condemned as a criminal.

NigelWalmsley
2020-10-30, 10:26 AM
If "this person detects as evil", doesn't mean they're a bad person, what's the point of having people detect as evil at all?

Jason
2020-10-30, 10:38 AM
If "this person detects as evil", doesn't mean they're a bad person, what's the point of having people detect as evil at all?It does mean they're a bad person at the moment of detection. But as they say in the investment industry "past performance is no guarantee of future results."

Theoboldi
2020-10-30, 11:44 AM
If "this person detects as evil", doesn't mean they're a bad person, what's the point of having people detect as evil at all?

I'd assume that them detecting as evil does indeed mean they are a bad person. However, there are still degrees of evil.

If somebody is a jerk and petty bully, you might call them a bad person. But if they were not doing anything otherwise illegal, you wouldn't demand that they be sent to jail or killed for it. Not only can they still be a functioning member of society, there's still every chance that their behavior and ideals will change at some point in the future.

Jason
2020-10-30, 01:12 PM
Explain to me why you need an alignment system to have spells not effect people. I'll be over here, casting spells with shapeable areas, or using Fireball on Red Dragons. You don't need an alignment system to avoid affecting people with spells. You do need an alignment system to avoid affecting people with spells because of their moral state and not some other game effect. Or to affect them because of their moral state.


Funny you mention armor class. Because in the early editions, it worked completely differently from how it does now. And yet the transition from THAC0 to BAB did not break D&D. What feels like D&D is going into dungeons and fighting dragons. Any detail you change is just that: a detail.
Armor class works on exactly the same principles in 5th edition as it always has. It's determined primarily by what armor you're wearing but also affected by dexterity, shields, and enchantments or spells. Heavier armor provides better protection. Armor completely negates blows rather than softening them, and never needs repair no matter how much damage it has deflected. You derive what number an opponent needs to hit you on a d20 from your armor class, and anyone attacking you adds their own combat modifiers to the roll, if any (in 2nd Edition monsters usually had no combat modifiers - their THAC0 gave them a straight to-hit number and you just had to equal or beat that number with a natural roll).

The differences between THAC0 and BaB are mere details in how the to-hit number is derived, not any fundamental change in how armor class works.

NigelWalmsley
2020-10-30, 01:24 PM
If somebody is a jerk and petty bully, you might call them a bad person.

I wouldn't call them Evil. If someone isn't at the point where drastic action would be justified to stop them, I don't think calling them "Evil" is really accurate to how the term is used.


You don't need an alignment system to avoid affecting people with spells. You do need an alignment system to avoid affecting people with spells because of their moral state and not some other game effect. Or to affect them because of their moral state.

Alignment doesn't track "moral state", because "moral state" isn't objective. Is someone who steals bread to feed their starving family Good or Evil? If alignment is objectively real, they have to be one or the other (unless you punt and make them Neutral, but that's just not having alignment with more steps). But people don't actually agree which they are in real life, so unless you're prepared to make a universally convincing argument for the morality you encode in alignment, what you are actually doing is creating a setting where people sometimes suffer arbitrarily for doing what's right. And we still haven't figured out what we get from this, aside from the fact that some people apparently really want to write the words "Lawful" and "Good" next to each other on their character sheet.

hamishspence
2020-10-30, 01:43 PM
Depends on the setting and the edition.

Eberron material tends to the

"one in three average commoners can be expected to have an evil alignment - and most of those don't deserve to be attacked by adventurers"

view.

Lord Raziere
2020-10-30, 02:05 PM
I'd assume that them detecting as evil does indeed mean they are a bad person. However, there are still degrees of evil.

If somebody is a jerk and petty bully, you might call them a bad person. But if they were not doing anything otherwise illegal, you wouldn't demand that they be sent to jail or killed for it. Not only can they still be a functioning member of society, there's still every chance that their behavior and ideals will change at some point in the future.

Then let me propose a hypothetical scenario:

Let us say in a small village there are two shopkeeps. One is a good shopkeep who offers fair prices, and the other is an Evil shopkeep who is only evil because his prices are all about screwing people over but is otherwise a normal guy. the good shopkeep also knows of a prominent child bully who also has an alignment of evil because of that, but is otherwise normal. The good shopkeep knowing that he lives in a cosmic morality world where adventurers kill evil people all the time decides to murder the evil kid bully then frame on the evil shopkeep for it, and the local paladin sheriff detecting the evil shopkeep as evil and therefore more likely to commit an evil act and also having false evidence that the evil shopkeep did it, decides to execute the evil shopkeep lacking a prison as its a small town. the good shopkeep then satisfied with good prevailing, proceeds to keep offering his fair prices knowing he saved people from the evil shopkeep and the child who was a bully.

There is no question that the scenario is unjust. but if the paladin didn't have detect evil, the scenario would actually have the potential to be more just: a paladin with divine sense wouldn't have detect evil to bias their thinking towards the evil shopkeep because of their apparently meaningless alignment. Thus its more likely they would consider investigating further into the situation rather than assuming because someone is evil that they are the person who did it, not having a fact that slants the investigation towards stereotyping. Thus they might investigate more, find out that the good shopkeep did it and punish them instead. There is a reason why they say justice is blind.

Jason
2020-10-30, 02:37 PM
Then let me propose a hypothetical scenario:

Let us say in a small village there are two shopkeeps. One is a good shopkeep who offers fair prices, and the other is an Evil shopkeep who is only evil because his prices are all about screwing people over but is otherwise a normal guy.
How does the evil shopkeep stay in business if it's a small village and everyone knows he's crooked?
Also, someone who's entire business is built on evil enough acts to make him evil probably does other evil acts as well.


the good shopkeep also knows of a prominent child bully who also has an alignment of evil because of that, but is otherwise normal.
Does bullying make you evil? I guess that would depend on the extent of the bullying. If you bully someone enough to give you an evil alignment you probably aren't "otherwise normal". You're probably doing all sorts of other evil activities too. But I digress again.


The good shopkeep knowing that he lives in a cosmic morality world where adventurers kill evil people all the time decides to murder the evil kid bully then frame on the evil shopkeep for it, and the local paladin sheriff detecting the evil shopkeep as evil and therefore more likely to commit an evil act and also having false evidence that the evil shopkeep did it, decides to execute the evil shopkeep lacking a prison as its a small town. the good shopkeep then satisfied with good prevailing, proceeds to keep offering his fair prices knowing he saved people from the evil shopkeep and the child who was a bully.But the good shopkeep changed his alignment to evil. Because you can't murder someone who was doing you no personal harm and frame a business rival, crooked or not, for the murder without an alignment shift. What happens when the local sheriff detects that both shopkeepers are now reading evil, especially if the one didn't detect as evil before?

Lord Raziere
2020-10-30, 02:46 PM
How does the evil shopkeep stay in business if it's a small village and everyone knows he's crooked?
Also, someone who's entire business is built on evil enough acts to make him evil probably does other evil acts as well.


Does bullying make you evil? I guess that would depend on the extent of the bullying. If you bully someone enough to give you an evil alignment you probably aren't "otherwise normal". You're probably doing all sorts of other evil activities too. But I digress again.

But the good shopkeep changed his alignment to evil. Because you can't murder someone who was doing you no personal harm and frame a business rival, crooked or not, for the murder without an alignment shift. What happens when the local sheriff detects that both shopkeepers are now reading evil, especially if the one didn't detect as evil before?

Well obviously, the paladin concludes both of them did it and kills them both. Its not as if he can trust an evil person not to throw his evil "partner" under the bus. And even if they aren't, why take the chance that killing only one will spare the other?

So your saying that its just for the shopkeep to sacrifice their own alignment to make sure that two people who have already done unknown evil acts in the past to get punishment on false charges?

JoeJ
2020-10-30, 02:52 PM
There is no question that the scenario is unjust. but if the paladin didn't have detect evil, the scenario would actually have the potential to be more just: a paladin with divine sense wouldn't have detect evil to bias their thinking towards the evil shopkeep because of their apparently meaningless alignment. Thus its more likely they would consider investigating further into the situation rather than assuming because someone is evil that they are the person who did it, not having a fact that slants the investigation towards stereotyping. Thus they might investigate more, find out that the good shopkeep did it and punish them instead. There is a reason why they say justice is blind.

Are you saying it's a bad thing that the GM has the ability to use alignment to create a red herring in a murder mystery? If so, are all red herrings bad or only alignment-based ones?

Theoboldi
2020-10-30, 02:59 PM
I wouldn't call them Evil. If someone isn't at the point where drastic action would be justified to stop them, I don't think calling them "Evil" is really accurate to how the term is used.


*shrugs*

Then that's a matter of personal definition. Or indeed, how 'evil' is defined in game terms, which need not to have anything to do with real world morality.

Anyways, not interested in partaking in this discussion otherwise. Just figured I'd point out that potential source of miscommunication and alternative interpretation.

Jason
2020-10-30, 03:01 PM
Well obviously, the paladin concludes both of them did it and kills them both. Its not as if he can trust an evil person not to throw his evil "partner" under the bus. And even if they aren't, why take the chance that killing only one will spare the other? If he's Lawful Stupid like Miko, maybe. He won't stay a Paladin very long with that attitude either.


So your saying that its just for the shopkeep to sacrifice their own alignment to make sure that two people who have already done unknown evil acts in the past to get punishment on false charges?
Uh, no, I'm not saying that at all. If your alignment changes to evil from an action that means the action was not justified. You can't sacrifice your alignment in that way. If you are making a truly selfless sacrifice for a justifiable action it won't change your alignment to evil. If you murder someone and set up a business rival to take the fall with the rationalization "they were both evil anyway" you are no longer a good person, because you just did something tremendously unjust.

In fact, the formerly good shopkeeper would register as "stronger" evil than the crooked one, because murdering someone and framing a rival is more evil than cheating someone on the price of their beef jerky. Even a lifetime of cheating people on the price of their beef jerky.

Lord Raziere
2020-10-30, 03:25 PM
If he's Lawful Stupid like Miko, maybe. He wouldn't stay a Paladin very long either.

Uh, no, I'm not saying that at all. If your alignment changes to evil from an action that means the action was not justified. You can't sacrifice your alignment. If you are making a truly selfless sacrifice for a justifiable action it won't change your alignment to evil. If you murder someone and set up a business rival to take the fall with the rationalization "they were both evil anyway" you are no longer a good person, because you just did something tremendously unjust.

In fact, the formerly good shopkeeper would register as "stronger" evil than the crooked one, because murdering someone and framing a rival is more evil than cheating someone on the price of their beef jerky.

So? :smallamused: I was never talking about whether or not the paladin's actions were justified. I am merely talking about the effects of Detect Evil and how it creates a bias against evil people, and thus how a paladin with detect evil could be less just than one without it.

I agree with the fact that the shopkeeps actions are unjust. Again, that was never in question. But its not about what we KNOW is right, its about what people in the scenario THINK is right making them deviate from what is morally right, because of the factors presented making them do so.

Problem is you just said that for these two evil people whom the shopkeep murdered and framed, you said that they would have to done other evil acts to earn the alignment, and now your suddenly saying that all the crooked one has done is cheating someone on a price? Which interpretation of evil are holding to? the one where you need to do major evil acts that don't make you a contributing member of society to become evil or minor evil acts that keep you a contributing member of society?

JoeJ
2020-10-30, 03:41 PM
Which interpretation of evil are holding to? the one where you need to do major evil acts that don't make you a contributing member of society to become evil or minor evil acts that keep you a contributing member of society?

How about one in which the degree of nuance that exists in the cosmic definition of evil, whatever it is, is known to those people who can magically detect evil, and those people take that nuance into account when they decide how to act?

Jason
2020-10-30, 03:51 PM
So? :smallamused: I was never talking about whether or not the paladin's actions were justified. I am merely talking about the effects of Detect Evil and how it creates a bias against evil people, and thus how a paladin with detect evil could be less just than one without it. Your example is only one hypothetical, however. What about all the times where detect evil is actively useful in detecting a criminal? Which is more likely to happen more often?


I agree with the fact that the shopkeeps actions are unjust. Again, that was never in question. But its not about what we KNOW is right, its about what people in the scenario THINK is right making them deviate from what is morally right, because of the factors presented making them do so. I don't think it's possible for someone who is good aligned to believe that it is morally acceptable to murder someone and set up a business rival "because they are evil."

Likewise the paladin can't possibly really believe he is really acting for the best if he doesn't fully investigate a crime with the excuse of "I found someone evil in the vicinity so that's good enough".


Problem is you just said that for these two evil people whom the shopkeep murdered and framed, you said that they would have to done other evil acts to earn the alignment, and now your suddenly saying that all the crooked one has done is cheating someone on a price? Which interpretation of evil are holding to? the one where you need to do major evil acts that don't make you a contributing member of society to become evil or minor evil acts that keep you a contributing member of society?
I was merely pointing out how unlikely it is for someone to be evil in just one aspect of their life. Your hypothetical required such people, however.

I would say that either one or two major seriously evil acts or many minor petty evil acts are enough to make you evil, and that it's possible in either case for them to be evil acts but not illegal acts.

Lord Raziere
2020-10-30, 04:02 PM
How about one in which the degree of nuance that exists in the cosmic definition of evil, whatever it is, is known to those people who can magically detect evil, and those people take that nuance into account when they decide how to act?

You are not Jason. How is this your question to answer?

I have entirely different scenario for you JoeJ:

say the paladins are unrealistically always the perfect moral actors as you describe them to be an always catch the people committing evil acts, and are therefore evil because they did so. The public notices a pattern that every criminal the paladins bring to justice is evil, unfailingly, even as the paladins pass over the minor evil people and justly ignore their alignment. The common people and the public begin questioning "if all the criminals that are brought to justice evil, why even have evil people at all?" and thus make a law to exile or punish all evil people pre-emptively against the paladins wishes. the paladins argue to repeal the law, and thus people reason that the paladins are corrupt for defending evil people, because they unlike the paladins are not perfect moral actors who can see the nuance, because they don't have the spell. and thus the paladins are punished as well for being evil-defenders.

But if the spell Detect Evil doesn't exist....then that doesn't occur. because people won't know anyone is evil from some eviltron readings that non-paladins don't get the nuances of, and paladins won't defend them and thus get punished for being perceived and suddenly turning against their job.

JoeJ
2020-10-30, 04:15 PM
You are not Jason. How is this your question to answer?

I have entirely different scenario for you JoeJ:

say the paladins are unrealistically always the perfect moral actors as you describe them

I'm pretty sure I didn't describe paladins as perfect anything.


to be an always catch the people committing evil acts, and are therefore evil because they did so. The public notices a pattern that every criminal the paladins bring to justice is evil, unfailingly, even as the paladins pass over the minor evil people and justly ignore their alignment. The common people and the public begin questioning "if all the criminals that are brought to justice evil, why even have evil people at all?" and thus make a law to exile or punish all evil people pre-emptively against the paladins wishes. the paladins argue to repeal the law, and thus people reason that the paladins are corrupt for defending evil people, because they unlike the paladins are not perfect moral actors who can see the nuance, because they don't have the spell. and thus the paladins are punished as well for being evil-defenders.

That sounds like it would be a fascinating setting. Paladins would be kind of like X-Men, fighting to protect a public that hates and fears them. Cool idea!

Lord Raziere
2020-10-30, 04:26 PM
That sounds like it would be a fascinating setting. Paladins would be kind of like X-Men, fighting to protect a public that hates and fears them. Cool idea!

So a less just world than one where Divine sense exists instead and people actually like them for doing their jobs. I rest my case.

JoeJ
2020-10-30, 04:33 PM
So a less just world than one where Divine sense exists instead and people actually like them for doing their jobs. I rest my case.

Okay, and? I guess I'm not seeing your point. Are you trying to describe a world to live in, or one to have fantasy RPG adventures in?

Rynjin
2020-10-30, 04:36 PM
Alignment doesn't track "moral state", because "moral state" isn't objective. Is someone who steals bread to feed their starving family Good or Evil? If alignment is objectively real, they have to be one or the other (unless you punt and make them Neutral, but that's just not having alignment with more steps). But people don't actually agree which they are in real life, so unless you're prepared to make a universally convincing argument for the morality you encode in alignment, what you are actually doing is creating a setting where people sometimes suffer arbitrarily for doing what's right. And we still haven't figured out what we get from this, aside from the fact that some people apparently really want to write the words "Lawful" and "Good" next to each other on their character sheet.

Theft is morally neutral. It is legally forbidden. You guys seem to be really stuck on the Good/Evil axis as the only one that matters.

Also, you know a setting where people sometimes arbitrarily suffer for doing what's right? Reality.

Lord Raziere
2020-10-30, 04:45 PM
Okay, and? I guess I'm not seeing your point. Are you trying to describe a world to live in, or one to have fantasy RPG adventures in?

Let me answer your question with another question: Why would I want fantasy rpg adventures where Detect Evil exists? It just gets in the way of doing whats right.

Jason
2020-10-30, 04:47 PM
Also, you know a setting where people sometimes arbitrarily suffer for doing what's right? Reality.

I could argue that in reality people sometimes atbitrarily suffer in spite of doing right, not because of doing right.

NigelWalmsley
2020-10-30, 04:50 PM
It's kind of telling that after all this discussion, the only defense of alignment anyone has come up with is "you might like alignment". Which, yes, that is true. But that is true of every game mechanic. There's someone out there who gets good use out of FATAL's anal circumference table. Does that mean it should be a core element of D&D?


Theft is morally neutral. It is legally forbidden.

There are absolutely moral systems that unequivocally condemn theft.


You guys seem to be really stuck on the Good/Evil axis as the only one that matters.

The Good/Evil axis is the one the people who want alignment to exist are defending. JoeJ isn't asking for a Sword of Chaos Smiting. If you want to make a case for Law/Chaos being useful, no one is stopping you from doing that.

Rynjin
2020-10-30, 05:30 PM
I could argue that in reality people sometimes atbitrarily suffer in spite of doing right, not because of doing right.

No, there are concrete examples that could be shared of people suffering BECAUSE of doing right. Without pulling anything specific, a person who stands up for revolution against a totalitarian monarchy or something that is causing their people to suffer WILL often suffer more, be made an "example of", BECAUSE of doing right. If they'd kept their heads down, they would not have suffered the same fate.


There are absolutely moral systems that unequivocally condemn theft.

None of these are systems I would give the time of day.

JoeJ
2020-10-30, 05:31 PM
Let me answer your question with another question: Why would I want fantasy rpg adventures where Detect Evil exists? It just gets in the way of doing whats right.

You personally, I have no idea. As for why somebody might want it, your own suggestion about people turning against paladins provides one answer. I've seen a lot of ideas for settings where spellcasters are hunted. Having it be paladins instead is an interesting change that has a built-in reason why the hunted don't use their power to just take over: because the people who are doing this are not all evil, many of them are simply misguided.

Having something get in the way of doing what's right is a good thing! Overcoming tough challenges makes for excitement and fun. For me, anyway. If the challenge is too small, the game is boring. So yeah, I would totally play a paladin in the world you suggested. The popularity of X-Men makes me suspect I'm not the only one who would.

JoeJ
2020-10-30, 05:43 PM
JoeJ isn't asking for a Sword of Chaos Smiting.

On that axis, I'd much rather have a Sword of Law Smiting. Most of my D&D characters are CG.

Lord Raziere
2020-10-30, 06:07 PM
On that axis, I'd much rather have a Sword of Law Smiting. Most of my D&D characters are CG.

I wouldn't. I also play CG, but only because its closest a limiting troublesome alignment system gets the morality I like. Paladins can hold themselves to superfluous higher standards all they like, I'm a pragmatist, and I don't condone having weapons to kill entire categories of people just because their beliefs are different from mine- because I believe that is objectively wrong and I'd rather have an objective morality universe reflect this. If your going to give me a weapon, give me one deadly to all, that is only fair, so that I may choose who it harms with my own decisions and not the decisions of the universe.

JoeJ
2020-10-30, 06:26 PM
I wouldn't. I also play CG, but only because its closest a limiting troublesome alignment system gets the morality I like. Paladins can hold themselves to superfluous higher standards all they like, I'm a pragmatist, and I don't condone having weapons to kill entire categories of people just because their beliefs are different from mine- because I believe that is objectively wrong and I'd rather have an objective morality universe reflect this. If your going to give me a weapon, give me one deadly to all, that is only fair, so that I may choose who it harms with my own decisions and not the decisions of the universe.

Cool. If you're ever a player in my game, I'll keep that in mind when I decide what magic items to drop.

Jason
2020-10-30, 08:03 PM
None of these are systems I would give the time of day.
Wait, are you talking real world or in an RPG?

Jason
2020-10-30, 08:12 PM
I wouldn't. I also play CG, but only because its closest a limiting troublesome alignment system gets the morality I like. Paladins can hold themselves to superfluous higher standards all they like, I'm a pragmatist, and I don't condone having weapons to kill entire categories of people just because their beliefs are different from mine- because I believe that is objectively wrong and I'd rather have an objective morality universe reflect this. If your going to give me a weapon, give me one deadly to all, that is only fair, so that I may choose who it harms with my own decisions and not the decisions of the universe.
I don't condone killing anyone just because their beliefs are different from mine, but if I have to kill someone who is actively trying to kill or enslave me or harm others, I will gladly accept a weapon that does more damage to them because of their moral beliefs and which can't be used against me because it will burn them if they pick it up, and even if they could manage it the weapon would be nothing special against me or my allies. And I'll gladly use spells in such a fight that won't affect any innocents but will harm the enemy.

Lord Raziere
2020-10-30, 08:26 PM
I don't condone killing anyone just because their beliefs are different from mine, but if I have to kill someone who is actively trying to kill or enslave me or harm others, I will gladly accept a weapon that does more damage to them because of their moral beliefs and which can't be used against me because it will burn them if they pick it up, and even if they could manage it the weapon would be nothing special against me or my allies. And I'll gladly use spells in such a fight that won't affect any innocents but will harm the enemy.

Well I don't condone killing innocents either, which is why I don't trust a weapon that harms anyone who is Lawful or Chaotic, and thus could potentially be more likely to kill a lawful or Chaotic innocent if it strikes them. furthermore any good aligned weapon can have an evil aligned weapon in response, thus causing more danger for any good allies or innocents. whats worse is that Evil lacks the moral compunctions of Good. Thus an evil being is more likely to be willing and able to make a Evil Nuke that just wipes out all GOOD people without harming any Evil people. or worse, enchant a plague to only affect good-aligned people. Good on the other hand has to be better than that, thus making them more likely they lose by default.

Rynjin
2020-10-30, 08:51 PM
Wait, are you talking real world or in an RPG?

IRL.

Any morality system that judges an action as inherently evil/good regardless of context is essentially meaningless to me.

Jason
2020-10-30, 10:29 PM
IRL.

Any morality system that judges an action as inherently evil/good regardless of context is essentially meaningless to me.
Oh, so you weren't saying that theft is always morally neutral, just sometimes, depending on the circumstances surrounding the theft.

I can't argue with you there. I don't know of any moral system that completely ignores the circumstances and context in which an action is performed when trying to judge if the action was good or evil.

NigelWalmsley
2020-10-30, 10:37 PM
Your personal moral judgements are all well and good, but the reality is that there are people who don't agree with you. Stealing isn't morally anything in a general way, because there is no moral consensus (let alone objective morality) by which it can be judged. Some people are opposed to theft on principle, either an absolute "stealing is never okay", or a more pragmatic "stealing is okay sufficiently rarely that we're better off forbidding it in general to minimize motivated reasoning" way. Some people are opposed or not opposed to theft based on the particulars of what was stolen and by who and why. But if you declare that your setting has objective Good in it, you're going to have to decide when (if ever) stealing is "Good", and that's going to leave some completely valid (or at least, not disproven by you) moral frameworks in conflict with the universe.


I will gladly accept a weapon that does more damage to them because of their moral beliefs

That is not what alignment does. Alignment does not give you weapons that are baleful to people who think kicking puppies is hilarious. It gives you weapons that are baleful to people who violate the fundamentally arbitrary set of rules that alignment follows. That might correspond to moral beliefs you don't like, but it also might not. The heroes of a lot of fantasy stories (particularly ones told in the periods D&D claims to model) don't really follow moral codes we'd agree with.


And I'll gladly use spells in such a fight that won't affect any innocents but will harm the enemy.

Didn't we just establish that you can be Evil and not deserve summary imprisonment? Because I'm pretty sure we did, and that makes this nonsense. If "pings as Evil" isn't grounds for execution, Holy Word doesn't protect innocents. It protects some innocents, but so does Fireball. Fireball just protects innocents that belong to the arbitrary category "is immune to fire".

Jason
2020-10-30, 10:57 PM
That is not what alignment does. Alignment does not give you weapons that are baleful to people who think kicking puppies is hilarious. It gives you weapons that are baleful to people who violate the fundamentally arbitrary set of rules that alignment follows. That might correspond to moral beliefs you don't like, but it also might not. The heroes of a lot of fantasy stories (particularly ones told in the periods D&D claims to model) don't really follow moral codes we'd agree with. But the rules are not arbitrary. There are often very good reasons for categorizing actions as good or evil. And if I'm the DM, as I often am, then what is good or evil in the game will in fact exactly correspond to my beliefs, at least as far as I want it to.


Didn't we just establish that you can be Evil and not deserve summary imprisonment? Because I'm pretty sure we did, and that makes this nonsense. Yes we did. But (a) "doesn't deserve to be killed for their beliefs when they aren't actively doing evil right now" is not the same thing as "innocent". And (b) we've moved on to an example where evil creatures or NPCs are actively attempting to do evil things, at which point it is justifiable to use force to prevent them from doing those things.

hamishspence
2020-10-31, 01:35 AM
I don't condone killing anyone just because their beliefs are different from mine, but if I have to kill someone who is actively trying to kill or enslave me or harm others, I will gladly accept a weapon that does more damage to them because of their moral beliefs and which can't be used against me because it will burn them if they pick it up, and even if they could manage it the weapon would be nothing special against me or my allies.

As written, when it comes to Holy (and Unholy, and Anarchic, and Axiomatic) the weapon will kill (and cause to raise as a wight) a 1st level character of the opposed alignment who picks it up.

So, in the context of the Wightopocalypse, these weapons are supremely dangerous.

Vahnavoi
2020-10-31, 04:03 AM
It's kind of telling that after all this discussion, the only defense of alignment anyone has come up with is "you might like alignment".

Ask and ye shall receive. :smalltongue:

1) alignment serves as a pledge for what kind of character you're playing. "My character is Good" tells the GM "my character desires well-being of other creatures", "My character is Neutral" tells the GM "my character is indifferent to well-being of other creatures" and "My character is Evil" tells "my character desires suffering of other creatures". These give the GM a benchmark to evaluate your player decisions against and give them ideas of how other characters might react to them.

2) It gives the GM, who has to play a wide array of characters, ideas of how these characters differ in attitude, behaviour and response to player actions.

3) It can serve as a turning point for other mechanism. In D&D, this means which afterlife a character would go, which gods are for or against them, which spells and magic items they can use etc. It connects particular moral choices made by characters with discreet game mechanics, allowing them to change progress of a game in ways that a player can comprehend and plan for.

---

You can replace semantic content of "Good", "Neutral" and "Evil" with whatever you like, as long as they have a clear relationship the arguments hold. In fact, you can extend the same arguments to other dichtomous pairs, like "Human versus Machine", "Human versus Vampire", "Sane versus Insane" etc.. (Yes, from a perspective of mechanical design and game function, Cthulhu's sanity rules constitute an alignment system, as do WoD various virtue mechanics, Cyberpunk's empathy, corruption as found in many other game systems, etc.)

The only real argument against Good and Evil, specifically, is that some people clearly can't accept "Game Good isn't what I think is good in real life" and that a character following their real life idea of good might be Chaotic Evil (or whatever else) instead. If you think doing a search-and-replace with those terms and turning them into "Holy" and "Unholy", go ahead. It's actually a non-change, because it retains all the good parts of Alignment and fails to avoid this one bad thing (because people still have ideas of what is Holy or Unholy in real life).

PairO'Dice Lost
2020-10-31, 04:45 AM
Stealing isn't morally anything in a general way, because there is no moral consensus (let alone objective morality) by which it can be judged. Some people are opposed to theft on principle, either an absolute "stealing is never okay", or a more pragmatic "stealing is okay sufficiently rarely that we're better off forbidding it in general to minimize motivated reasoning" way. Some people are opposed or not opposed to theft based on the particulars of what was stolen and by who and why. But if you declare that your setting has objective Good in it, you're going to have to decide when (if ever) stealing is "Good", and that's going to leave some completely valid (or at least, not disproven by you) moral frameworks in conflict with the universe.

I don't know why you or anyone else would insist that Ultimate Objective Good in D&D have a single answer for every possible moral question, because the entire point of the ethical alignment axis is that there at least three answers to those questions: the Lawful Good answer (i.e. a deontological one), the Neutral Good answer (i.e. an aretological one), and the Chaotic Good answer (i.e. a consequentialist one). And explicit in character descriptions in prior editions and implicit still in the Great Wheel structure is the fact that even those alignments are not monoliths, as each alignment comes in at least three different flavors (e.g. LG comes in LG[N], LG, and L[N]G, represented in the Wheel by Arcadia, Celestia, and Bytopia, respectively).

Heck, the different layers in each Outer Plane physically represent different philosophies within a plane, which is why the NG/NE/TN/LN/CN planes only have one layer and the LG/CG/LE/CE planes have the most layers. Alignments are categories, not caricatures or straitjackets.

One can make a comparison between the alignments and the elements. Somewhere out there in the multiverse is Ultimate Platonic Fire, the pure cosmic essence of Fire that contains and represents everything physical and metaphysical about fire, cannot be quenched by Water, and doesn't depend on Air's oxygen or Earth's fuel to burn. But if you go to the Elemental Plane of Fire it's not an infinite featureless plain of identical Platonic Fire with a singular native creature that perfectly represents the Platonic Fire Creature; rather, the plane has smoky fire and smokeless fire and liquid fire and solid fire and intense flames and smoldering flames and red flames and violet flames and so on, and it has all sorts of creatures from barely-sapient animentals to supra-genius fire dragons and from amoral fire elementals to decidedly immoral efreet and everything in between. And, further, there are planes of Smoke and Magma and Radiance and Ash that represent combinations of Platonic Fire with other elements without being less Platonic than Fire itself.

So the idea that "detect evil exists therefore anyone who disagrees with the DM is wrong therefore moral philosophy implodes" completely mischaracterizes how D&D alignment actually works. To mangle a Walt Whitman quote, The alignment grid is large, it contains multitudes. :smallamused:

Jason
2020-10-31, 08:32 AM
As written, when it comes to Holy (and Unholy, and Anarchic, and Axiomatic) the weapon will kill (and cause to raise as a wight) a 1st level character of the opposed alignment who picks it up.

So, in the context of the Wightopocalypse, these weapons are supremely dangerous.

Uh, no, it doesn't work that way as written, at least not in 3rd edition:

It bestows one negative level on any good creature attempting to wield it. The negative level remains as long as the weapon is in hand and disappears when the weapon is no longer wielded. This negative level never results in actual level loss, but it cannot be overcome in any way (including restoration spells) while the weapon is wielded.
All the other aligned weapons feature the same rules text. Picking up such a weapon won't kill anyone, because the level drain effect never actually drains a real level, and there isn't anything in the rules about turning anyone into wights.

NigelWalmsley
2020-10-31, 09:04 AM
But the rules are not arbitrary. There are often very good reasons for categorizing actions as good or evil. And if I'm the DM, as I often am, then what is good or evil in the game will in fact exactly correspond to my beliefs, at least as far as I want it to.

Your moral framework is also arbitrary. You may agree with it (indeed, one would assume that you do), but not everyone will. Not even everyone you game with.


Yes we did. But (a) "doesn't deserve to be killed for their beliefs when they aren't actively doing evil right now" is not the same thing as "innocent". And (b) we've moved on to an example where evil creatures or NPCs are actively attempting to do evil things, at which point it is justifiable to use force to prevent them from doing those things.

Sure. But we're also talking about the possibility of innocents. There's a demon attacking the town, and right now it's in the middle of a group of villagers. You drop a Holy Word on it to try to "protect innocents". But it turns out that a third of the peasants -- who are, in this context, innocent -- are in fact Evil, and they die. The spell does not do what you are claiming it does.


alignment serves as a pledge for what kind of character you're playing. "My character is Good" tells the GM "my character desires well-being of other creatures", "My character is Neutral" tells the GM "my character is indifferent to well-being of other creatures" and "My character is Evil" tells "my character desires suffering of other creatures". These give the GM a benchmark to evaluate your player decisions against and give them ideas of how other characters might react to them.

That's not "Good". That's "Utilitarian". And that's fine. Having people be Utilitarians is a useful thing, because Utilitarianism is a real philosophy that we can agree about the claims of and make predictive claims based off of. But it's stupid -- and quite frankly insulting -- to claim that's the only way to be Good. There are people who have other ethical frameworks and still claim to be good people. And even among Utilitarians, there isn't universal agreement about what action is correct in what circumstances.


It gives the GM, who has to play a wide array of characters, ideas of how these characters differ in attitude, behaviour and response to player actions.

Alignment seems like an extremely bad way of doing this. I understand the appeal of having roleplaying prompts for NPCs, but you want more than nine of them. The 3.5 DMG has a table of a hundred different personality traits, which seems like a much better toolkit than alignment. Particularly because you're going to want to distinguish between different characters of the same alignment. Clerics of Kord, Corellon Larethian, and Tymora should not all have the same attitude towards things, despite the fact that those gods are all Chaotic Good.


It can serve as a turning point for other mechanism. In D&D, this means which afterlife a character would go, which gods are for or against them, which spells and magic items they can use etc. It connects particular moral choices made by characters with discreet game mechanics, allowing them to change progress of a game in ways that a player can comprehend and plan for.

I don't see how this is desirable. Mechanical consequences for moral choices means players will optimize their morality. That sounds extremely awful for the game.


* snip *

This is just punting. You are accepting that alignment is stupid and we should use philosophies whose definitions we can agree on instead, but insisting that we keep a layer of obscurantism between "this faction is Utilitarians" and the name of the faction, and that the layer of obscurantism we use be extremely loaded terms that people care deeply about in real life. But if the faction actually are Utilitarians, we should just call them that and short-circuit all the stupid debates about definitions. Because while we may or may not agree on whether Utilitarianism is a useful or correct moral framework, we can at least agree what the word means in a way that we can't for "Good" or "Lawful". And we can agree what actions a Utilitarian would take in what circumstances.

hamishspence
2020-10-31, 09:24 AM
Picking up such a weapon won't kill anyone, because the level drain effect never actually drains a real level, and there isn't anything in the rules about turning anyone into wights.

Nope - one negative level is enough to kill a 1st level character the moment it's taken. The character does not need to fail the save 24 hours later against it converting to a real level loss - just the negative level, is enough.

And the standard rule for energy drain (anything that inflicts negative levels) of any kind, is that they come back as a wight unless specified otherwise.

https://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#energyDrainAndNegativeLevels

Negative levels remain until 24 hours have passed or until they are removed with a spell, such as restoration. If a negative level is not removed before 24 hours have passed, the affected creature must attempt a Fortitude save (DC 10 + ½ draining creature’s racial HD + draining creature’s Cha modifier; the exact DC is given in the creature’s descriptive text). On a success, the negative level goes away with no harm to the creature. On a failure, the negative level goes away, but the creature’s level is also reduced by one. A separate saving throw is required for each negative level.

A character with negative levels at least equal to her current level, or drained below 1st level, is instantly slain. Depending on the creature that killed her, she may rise the next night as a monster of that kind. If not, she rises as a wight.

A first level Evil character who picks up a Holy sword "has negative levels equal to their current level" even if they are never required to make that save 24 hours later.

Jason
2020-10-31, 09:32 AM
Nope - one negative level is enough to kill a 1st level character the moment it's taken.

A first level Evil character who picks up a Holy sword "has negative levels equal to their current level" even if they are never required to make that save 24 hours later.

Yes, the standard effect of a level drain is death and wightness, but you didn't read the rule I posted from the DMG carefully enough: "This negative level never results in actual level loss,"

No real level loss = nobody killed just by picking up a sword.

The SRD descriptions I have of aligned weapons include the same text as the DMG about no actual level drains occurring.

It might be open to interpretation whether "no real level loss" means it can kill or not. Certainly it would be weird for a holy sword to turn evil creatures who try to use it into wights.

hamishspence
2020-10-31, 09:35 AM
you didn't read the rule I posted from the DMG carefully enough: "This negative level never results in actual level loss,"

No real level loss = nobody killed just by picking up a sword.


That's not how negative levels work. A 1st level person hit by a wight dies immediately, not 24 hours later.

Same with Enervation:

https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/enervation.htm

You point your finger and utter the incantation, releasing a black ray of crackling negative energy that suppresses the life force of any living creature it strikes. You must make a ranged touch attack to hit. If the attack succeeds, the subject gains 1d4 negative levels.

If the subject has at least as many negative levels as HD, it dies. Each negative level gives a creature a -1 penalty on attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, ability checks, and effective level (for determining the power, duration, DC, and other details of spells or special abilities).

Additionally, a spellcaster loses one spell or spell slot from his or her highest available level. Negative levels stack.

Assuming the subject survives, it regains lost levels after a number of hours equal to your caster level (maximum 15 hours). Usually, negative levels have a chance of permanently draining the victim’s levels, but the negative levels from enervation don’t last long enough to do so.



A negative level does not need to be one which "permanently drains the victim's level" to kill.



Sure. But we're also talking about the possibility of innocents. There's a demon attacking the town, and right now it's in the middle of a group of villagers. You drop a Holy Word on it to try to "protect innocents". But it turns out that a third of the peasants -- who are, in this context, innocent -- are in fact Evil, and they die. The spell does not do what you are claiming it does.


It's worse. Any nongood being 10 levels lower than the caster, who hears a Holy Word and fails their save, dies.

https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/holyWord.htm

So an 11th level caster casting it in a crowd, will kill a bunch of 1st level Evil and Neutral people.

Jason
2020-10-31, 09:54 AM
Hmm. I see the problem. But as it makes no sense for a holy weapon to make 1st level evil creatures who pick it up more powerful by turning them into wights (CR3 creatures), and since the level drain effect is supposed to be temporary (only while wielding the weapon, and never causes permanent level loss when you drop it), I would rule in my games that it only kills them and does not also turn them into a wight. After all, as soon as they're dead they drop the weapon and regain their lost level.

hamishspence
2020-10-31, 09:58 AM
I would rule in my games that it only kills them and does not also turn them into a wight. After all, as soon as they're dead they drop the weapon and regain their lost level.It's the standard rule for any alignment conflict between person and item.

Negative energy and "things that inflict negative levels" are neutral - all alignments can use them.


But things that inflict negative levels, are dangerous, because all beings "killed by having a negative level inflicted on them" arise as wights the next night. Even if the beings or items inflicting the negative levels are good.

"You dropping it after you die" doesn't change the fact that what killed you, was A Negative Level. You can houserule otherwise, but it is a houserule.



The sole exception is certain undead beings whose energy drain powers turn victims into undead of the same kind, instead.

Jason
2020-10-31, 10:07 AM
It's the standard rule for any alignment conflict between person and item.
Right, but the "mis-aligned weapon" level drain doesn't work like any other energy drain effect. It never results in permanent level loss and it disappears as soon as the weapon is dropped. Also, it doesn't give temporary hit points to the weapon, obviously.


"You dropping it after you die" doesn't change the fact that what killed you, was A Negative Level. You can houserule otherwise, but it is a houserule.
Okay, it's a house rule, but it's a house rule that makes sense. The aligned weapon rule is obviously not intended to allow a bad guy to create hoards of undead by forcing a bunch of villagers to pick it up.

hamishspence
2020-10-31, 10:17 AM
Enervation never results in permanent level loss too.

Jason
2020-10-31, 10:28 AM
Enervation never results in permanent level loss too.
Granted, but you can't instantly lose the negative level by dropping an enervation spell either, so they are clearly different effects.

hamishspence
2020-10-31, 10:34 AM
There are many ways of inflicting negative levels. But the consequences of being "slain by negative levels" are always the same, except when explicitly stated otherwise.

That's why a character with an intelligent weapon or an aligned weapon, should be extremely careful with it - and if the weapon kills somebody who handles it, the victim should always be dealt with in whatever way will prevent them rising as a wight.

Either get them raised/resurrected, or, if they're an enemy, destroy the body.

For another example - take a Life Drinker. Negative levels inflicted by it on its wielder go away in 1 hour instead of up to 15 hours. Still dangerous.


https://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicWeapons.htm#lifeDrinker

Life-Drinker
This +1 greataxe is favored by undead and constructs, who do not suffer its drawback. A life-drinker bestows two negative levels on its target whenever it deals damage, just as if its target had been struck by an undead creature. One day after being struck, subjects must make a DC 16 Fortitude save for each negative level or lose a character level.

Each time a life-drinker deals damage to a foe, it also bestows one negative level on the wielder. Any negative level gained by the wielder in this fashion lasts for 1 hour.

Morty
2020-10-31, 11:55 AM
Theft is morally neutral. It is legally forbidden. You guys seem to be really stuck on the Good/Evil axis as the only one that matters.


The reason people are stuck on the good/evil axis is because it's the one with a clear enough definition to actually argue about; arguments about the law/chaos axis tend to break against the fact that few people can agree on what it actually means. It's telling that D&D 5E and Pathfinder 2E, the latest two instalments of the franchise, interpret it completely differently. As someone once put it, it's a solution 40 years in search of a problem.

hamishspence
2020-10-31, 12:12 PM
It's telling that D&D 5E and Pathfinder 2E, the latest two instalments of the franchise, interpret it completely differently.

Are they really all that different? Or is it just that 5e doesn't discuss each axis separately, but only describes each alignment on its own rather than each part?

From the relevant SRDs:


Your character has a good alignment if they consider the happiness of others above their own and work selflessly to assist others, even those who aren’t friends and family. They are also good if they value protecting others from harm, even if doing so puts the character in danger. Your character has an evil alignment if they’re willing to victimize others for their own selfish gain, and even more so if they enjoy inflicting harm. If your character falls somewhere in the middle, they’re likely neutral on this axis.


Your character has a lawful alignment if they value consistency, stability, and predictability over flexibility.

Lawful characters have a set system in life, whether it’s meticulously planning day-to-day activities, carefully following a set of official or unofficial laws, or strictly adhering to a code of honor. On the other hand, if your character values flexibility, creativity, and spontaneity over consistency, they have a chaotic alignment—though this doesn’t mean they make decisions by choosing randomly.

Chaotic characters believe that lawful characters are too inflexible to judge each situation by its own merits or take advantage of opportunities, while lawful characters believe that chaotic characters are irresponsible and flighty.

Many characters are in the middle, obeying the law or following a code of conduct in many situations, but bending the rules when the situation requires it. If your character is in the middle, they are neutral on this axis.


Lawful good (LG) creatures can be counted on to do the right thing as expected by society. Gold dragons, paladins, and most dwarves are lawful good.

Neutral good (NG) folk do the best they can to help others according to their needs. Many celestials, some cloud giants, and most gnomes are neutral good.

Chaotic good (CG) creatures act as their conscience directs, with little regard for what others expect. Copper dragons, many elves, and unicorns are chaotic good.

Lawful neutral (LN) individuals act in accordance with law, tradition, or personal codes. Many monks and some wizards are lawful neutral.

Neutral (N) is the alignment of those who prefer to steer clear of moral questions and don’t take sides, doing what seems best at the time. Lizardfolk, most druids, and many humans are neutral.

Chaotic neutral (CN) creatures follow their whims, holding their personal freedom above all else. Many barbarians and rogues, and some bards, are chaotic neutral.

Lawful evil (LE) creatures methodically take what they want, within the limits of a code of tradition, loyalty, or order. Devils, blue dragons, and hobgoblins are lawful evil.

Neutral evil (NE) is the alignment of those who do whatever they can get away with, without compassion or qualms. Many drow, some cloud giants, and goblins are neutral evil.

Chaotic evil (CE) creatures act with arbitrary violence, spurred by their greed, hatred, or bloodlust. Demons, red dragons, and orcs are chaotic evil.

Both of them emphasise, at least for Lawful, a tendency to follow rules of some kind, whether those rules are personal codes, or "what's expected by society".

NorthernPhoenix
2020-10-31, 12:20 PM
I don't really mind how 5e has done it, but i find it strange to assume that in the infinite scope of what magic can do in a fantasy setting, being able to scan and tell if someone is lowercase "good" or "evil" would somehow be impossible. Even if you removed the traditional alignment system entirely, people and things can still be "good" or "evil" in the colloquial sense of the word, after all.

Vahnavoi
2020-10-31, 12:26 PM
That's not "Good". That's "Utilitarian". And that's fine. Having people be Utilitarians is a useful thing, because Utilitarianism is a real philosophy that we can agree about the claims of and make predictive claims based off of. But it's stupid -- and quite frankly insulting -- to claim that's the only way to be Good.

Oh hey, look at that, someone nitpicking and demonstrating something I already addressed. Let me quote myself from the post you are replying to:


You can replace semantic content of "Good", "Neutral" and "Evil" with whatever you like, as long as they have a clear relationship the arguments hold. [...] The only real argument against Good and Evil, specifically, is that some people clearly can't accept "Game Good isn't what I think is good in real life" and that a character following their real life idea of good might be Chaotic Evil (or whatever else) instead.

I will also paraphrase 1st edition AD&D rules, since they codified nine-grid alignment: "within these guidelines, every GM has to decide what, exactly, Good and Evil stand for in their game". I can fetch you the exact quote later when I have my ink & paper books at hand.

Using (my particular brand of) Utilitarianism as in-game Good is not an error. It is how the system is meant to function. {scrubbed}


Alignment seems like an extremely bad way of doing this. I understand the appeal of having roleplaying prompts for NPCs, but you want more than nine of them. The 3.5 DMG has a table of a hundred different personality traits, which seems like a much better toolkit than alignment. Particularly because you're going to want to distinguish between different characters of the same alignment. Clerics of Kord, Corellon Larethian, and Tymora should not all have the same attitude towards things, despite the fact that those gods are all Chaotic Good.

First of all, (A)D&D, which codified this, always had those other things to use alongside Alignment. Alignment has never been be-all-end-all of personality, so a large part of your criticism is aimed at a flaw that never existed. Second, have you ever asked if nine is actually a small amount for basic moral characteristics? Kohlberg's theory of moral development only characterized six, and when they couldn't find empirical evidence for the last one, they condensed it to five.

If you tried to map levels of moral development on alignment grid, you'd run out of levels before running out of alignments.


I don't see how this is desirable. Mechanical consequences for moral choices means players will optimize their morality. That sounds extremely awful for the game.

You don't see how this is desireable in a game concerned with classical mythological concepts such as afterlives?

Also, the game has made a point about players exploiting he system and had rules to penalize it from its inception. The game literally empowers a GM to play the part of god(s), with the option to enact in-game divine punishment for hypocrisy.

Lastly... it's a game. Players attempting to optimize their moral decisions in a game is not more noteworthy than them trying to optimize other types of decisions. Since the game is concerned with modeling afterlife (etc.), characters in the game setting would conceivably do this themselves, were they real people. "What should I do to avoid the big fire below?" is a valid in-character question and mechanized alignment answers that question in a way that a player can also comprehend.

So if you want to convince me this is "extremely awful" , you have to do better than say it "sounds" like it.

hamishspence
2020-10-31, 12:34 PM
I don't really mind how 5e has done it, but i find it strange to assume that in the infinite scope of what magic can do in a fantasy setting, being able to scan and tell if someone is lowercase "good" or "evil" would somehow be impossible.

One 5e monster can - the Sprite (nixies, pixies, and grigs). Its power is more limited than the old 3e Detect Evil spell was though.


Heart Sight. The sprite touches a creature and magically knows the creature’s current emotional state. If the target fails a DC 10 Charisma saving throw, the sprite also knows the creature’s alignment. Celestials, fiends, and undead automatically fail the saving throw.

JoeJ
2020-10-31, 12:37 PM
I don't really mind how 5e has done it, but i find it strange to assume that in the infinite scope of what magic can do in a fantasy setting, being able to scan and tell if someone is lowercase "good" or "evil" would somehow be impossible. Even if you removed the traditional alignment system entirely, people and things can still be "good" or "evil" in the colloquial sense of the word, after all.

I'm starting to wonder if many people feel threatened by the idea that good and evil might be defined differently than they define them, even as fantasy.

NorthernPhoenix
2020-10-31, 12:46 PM
One 5e monster can - the Sprite (nixies, pixies, and grigs). Its power is more limited than the old 3e Detect Evil spell was though.
Yes that is a thing. But what i think is more important to remember (on this topic and others) is that this creature and its ability are just an example of the infinite variety of such things that can exist in a world. The perspective that nothing exists until it's in a book and that once a new book is published things go from not existing to existing is one i find fundamentally flawed and unhelpful. Published books just grant access or perspective over something that always was there.


I'm starting to wonder if many people feel threatened by the idea that good and evil might be defined differently than they define them, even as fantasy.

While that's certainly true, i don't think it's the whole story.

JoeJ
2020-10-31, 12:57 PM
While that's certainly true, i don't think it's the whole story.

I don't think it's the whole story either, but it may be one important facet of the discussion.

I also find it fascinating that many of the anti-alignment arguments object to an extremely simple "X is always evil" kind of morality that is nowhere implied in the rules. As the Planescape setting shows, the opposite can be the case; cosmic morality is sufficiently complex and nuanced that even angels don't come to the right conclusion 100% of the time.

hamishspence
2020-10-31, 12:58 PM
The perspective that nothing exists until it's in a book and that once a new book is published things go from not existing to existing is one i find fundamentally flawed and unhelpful. Published books just grant access or perspective over something that always was there.I think the point behind changing the way the Detect Evil paladin power works though,

is that the designers thought that the "3.5 version" was not conducive to the gameplay style they wanted.



I also find it fascinating that many of the anti-alignment arguments object to an extremely simple "X is always evil" kind of morality that is nowhere implied in the rules.Maybe not in the core books - but BoVD does have a few "X is always evil" statements.

Even in the 3.5 PHB, there was "Channelling positive energy is a good act and channelling negative energy is evil" for clerics.

NigelWalmsley
2020-10-31, 01:31 PM
I don't really mind how 5e has done it, but i find it strange to assume that in the infinite scope of what magic can do in a fantasy setting, being able to scan and tell if someone is lowercase "good" or "evil" would somehow be impossible. Even if you removed the traditional alignment system entirely, people and things can still be "good" or "evil" in the colloquial sense of the word, after all.

But there's the rub. The colloquial sense isn't consistent. The colloquial good is like the colloquial "tall" or "old" or "dumb". What does it mean to "Detect Tall"? Does a guy who's 6 feet tall detect as Tall? Does it matter if he's a gnome or a giant? Does it matter what height you are? Does it matter how old he is? Similarly, you could detect things like "has killed someone" or "practices necromancy", but different groups are going to have different answers to the basic question of how moral doing those things is. So you can't have a "Detect Evil" spell and have that mean anything.


Using (my particular brand of) Utilitarianism as in-game Good is not an error.

Yes, it is. It's an error because it makes the game more complicated for no reason. If you mean Utilitarianism, say that. Then we can all know what everyone is talking about. Insisting that we call your opinion "Good" and other opinions "Evil" is childish petulance, particularly when your justification is "it's that way because I'm the DM".


First of all, (A)D&D, which codified this, always had those other things to use alongside Alignment.

Then why do we need alignment exactly? If we're already using something that is fit for purpose, why do we also need obscurantist ranting? Why not just use something that is simple, comprehensible, and doesn't cause pointless arguments?


Also, the game has made a point about players exploiting he system and had rules to penalize it from its inception. The game literally empowers a GM to play the part of god(s), with the option to enact in-game divine punishment for hypocrisy.

If your system needs an explicit "DM slaps down the PCs" mechanic to work, it is a bad system. Full stop. Every word you say in defense of alignment leaves me more convinced it is a mechanic that has no place in the game.


I'm starting to wonder if many people feel threatened by the idea that good and evil might be defined differently than they define them, even as fantasy.

That's not how morality works. You can't have good and evil "defined differently", because those terms are subjective. However you define Good is how you define Good. It doesn't matter if someone else defines Good differently, even if that person has the power to punish you for doing things they don't like (unless you'd like to take the stance that "Good" means different things in different countries). You can have a metaphysical force and call it Evil, but that just makes things confusing. If you declare, for example, that Utilitarianism is "Good", you haven't magically made Virtue Ethics wrong. Virtue Ethics doesn't claim to be correct because of the way the universe functions to begin with. You've fixed exactly zero moral debates, but you've made all moral debates more confusing.

Jason
2020-10-31, 02:20 PM
I will also paraphrase 1st edition AD&D rules, since they codified nine-grid alignment: "within these guidelines, every GM has to decide what, exactly, Good and Evil stand for in their game". I can fetch you the exact quote later when I have my ink & paper books at hand.
If you had bought the digital version you could quote it right now:

You, as Dungeon Master, must establish the meanings and boundaries of law and order as opposed to chaos and anarchy, as well as the divisions between right and good as opposed to hurtful and evil.

JoeJ
2020-10-31, 02:28 PM
That's not how morality works. You can't have good and evil "defined differently", because those terms are subjective.

Unless they're not. If they're not subjective, then it's possible to be 100% convinced that you're right and be mistaken, just like you can be 100% convinced you know the law of gravity and be mistaken. Not just possible in fact, but given characters who aren't omniscient, it's certain to occur some of the time.

A great example of this is Zariel. She didn't fall because she wanted to do wrong. She was zealous to do good but too arrogant to consider that she might be mistaken about what the good really was.

Less dramatically, the Ceremony/Atonement spell (in Xanathar's Guide to Everything) exists for characters who recognize their error and wish to correct it.



However you define Good is how you define Good. It doesn't matter if someone else defines Good differently, even if that person has the power to punish you for doing things they don't like (unless you'd like to take the stance that "Good" means different things in different countries). You can have a metaphysical force and call it Evil, but that just makes things confusing. If you declare, for example, that Utilitarianism is "Good", you haven't magically made Virtue Ethics wrong. Virtue Ethics doesn't claim to be correct because of the way the universe functions to begin with. You've fixed exactly zero moral debates, but you've made all moral debates more confusing.

The goal of D&D is not to resolve moral debates, but to roleplay a fantasy character. Cosmic good vs. evil is a theme in many fantasy stories, so why shouldn't it also be possible in a fantasy game?

JNAProductions
2020-10-31, 02:32 PM
Less dramatically, the Ceremony/Atonement spell (in Xanathar's Guide tThe goal of D&D is not to resolve moral debates, but to roleplay a fantasy character. Cosmic good vs. evil is a theme in many fantasy stories, so why shouldn't it also be possible in a fantasy game?

Why should it be the default?

JoeJ
2020-10-31, 02:43 PM
Why should it be the default?

It's only the default in a small number of published games. In most, it's not there at all.

NigelWalmsley
2020-10-31, 02:55 PM
Unless they're not.

They are. Those things are, fundamentally, subjective. That is the inherent nature of moral claims. When someone says "you should kill one guy in the Trolley Problem" or "you should kill five guys in the Trolley Problem", they are not making a factual claim. You cannot change the facts so that one of those answers is wrong. You can change the facts so that they have different consequences, but they already have different consequences, and people already give different answers.


The goal of D&D is not to resolve moral debates

Then why are you demanding that the game center things that do nothing but cause moral debates? You can still have cosmic conflicts without "Good" and "Evil" as the sides. See: most of the examples people give of "Good v Evil" conflicts, Malazan, The Stormlight Archive, Mistborn, MtG, Lensman, and The Second Apocalypse. Frankly, the only story I've seen that has an explicit "Good v Evil" setup is A Practical Guide to Evil, and that very much is not in line with people's notions of how D&D alignment should work.


It's only the default in a small number of published games. In most, it's not there at all.

Yes, such obscure titles as two of the three RPGs that have ever held the title for "best selling RPG". We're not debating some obscure mechanic from Fading Suns or something, alignment is part of the game that is synonymous with TTRPGs for most of the world.

Vahnavoi
2020-10-31, 03:52 PM
Yes, it is. It's an error because it makes the game more complicated for no reason. If you mean Utilitarianism, say that. Then we can all know what everyone is talking about. Insisting that we call your opinion "Good" and other opinions "Evil" is childish petulance, particularly when your justification is "it's that way because I'm the DM".

As any good Utilitarian will tell you, there's no error in saying "Utilitarianism = Good". :smalltongue: But more importantly, statements like this communicate big and important ideas about settings. Accompanied by the mythological and mechanical layers, they frame and reframe how things work. A setting where "Utilitarianism = Good" is radically different from, say, "Utilitarianism = Evil" - it makes the entire game of "dodge the big fire below" (etc.) different.

That you can only see GM's authorial statements of setting morality as "childish petulance" is your own failing. If this is the level you feel is the cutting edge of the argument, you're just being a case in my earlier point: a player who can't cope with the idea that "Game Good is not real life good".


Then why do we need alignment exactly? If we're already using something that is fit for purpose, why do we also need obscurantist ranting? Why not just use something that is simple, comprehensible, and doesn't cause pointless arguments?

Were you using Kohlberg's theory of moral development in your games? Had you even considered that concept, if not for me saying it? Had I ever come up with the comparison, if I wasn't already familiar with Alignment?

I know the answer to the last one: "No". Prior to D&D, games weren't really concerned with describing moral characteristics of game characters at all, as far as I know. Certainly, D&D popularized it and AD&D codified it in a way that directly inspired multiple other systems. Alignment directly inspired concepts and settings such as the Great Wheel and Planescape. Due to its foundational nature, not having Alignment makes those things less functional than they'd otherwise be.

If you cannot find a point for Alignment in all of that, there's no point in me trying to try to convince you any further.


If your system needs an explicit "DM slaps down the PCs" mechanic to work, it is a bad system. Full stop. Every word you say in defense of alignment leaves me more convinced it is a mechanic that has no place in the game.

You must absolutely hate all manners of sports with referees. Having a mechanic to "slap down" players who are trying to exploit a game rule is Tuesday. It's nothing special, certainly it's not especially bad, and if you want to try proving it is instead of just stating it is, plenty of ludologists will be interested in your graduate thesis.

Nevermind that the actual mechanic is the GM playing part of in-game entities. Such a radical concept in a roleplaying game! :smalltongue:

---


If you had bought the digital version you could quote it right now:

That was not an option when I bought my copy of the rules.

NorthernPhoenix
2020-10-31, 03:57 PM
But there's the rub. The colloquial sense isn't consistent. The colloquial good is like the colloquial "tall" or "old" or "dumb". What does it mean to "Detect Tall"? Does a guy who's 6 feet tall detect as Tall? Does it matter if he's a gnome or a giant? Does it matter what height you are? Does it matter how old he is? Similarly, you could detect things like "has killed someone" or "practices necromancy", but different groups are going to have different answers to the basic question of how moral doing those things is. So you can't have a "Detect Evil" spell and have that mean anything.



I think, in the absence of a strict alignment system, it's up to the DM to define such things, just as it's up to them to define the weather or or how easy or hard it is to climb a given wall.

NigelWalmsley
2020-10-31, 05:15 PM
That you can only see GM's authorial statements of setting morality as "childish petulance" is your own failing. If this is the level you feel is the cutting edge of the argument, you're just being a case in my earlier point: a player who can't cope with the idea that "Game Good is not real life good".

The cutting edge of the argument is that, fundamentally, you agree with me. You don't have a "Good" alignment in your games. You have a "Utilitarian" alignment in your games. Calling it "Good" is one of two things: obscurantism, or a childish demand that the rest of the group stroke your ego. If we could just call a spade a spade, we'd be able to have clearer discussions, better transparency between groups, and more useful terminology. And since the concepts at hand would be exactly the same, we wouldn't lose anything. All you're doing is digging in your heels for no reason.


Prior to D&D, games weren't really concerned with describing moral characteristics of game characters at all, as far as I know.

Prior to FATAL, games weren't really concerned with describing the anal circumference of game characters at all, as far as I know.


Alignment directly inspired concepts and settings such as the Great Wheel and Planescape.

The Great Wheel and Planescape work noticeably better with a non-standard alignment system. Specifically, Planar Alignment. In the Great Wheel, the units of alignment aren't really "Evil" or "Law", but the specific planes, which embody specific philosophies. If you wanted to faithfully model that system, what you'd do is allow people to declare themselves to be aligned with "Baator" or "The Beastlands" or whatever plane had a philosophy they liked, or even no plane at all. That would make alignment clear, useful, and specific, while keeping the overall dynamics the same.


You must absolutely hate all manners of sports with referees.

That's true. I also only read CYOA books, and the only think on Netflix that I've watched is Bandersnatch. Or, wait, no I understand that context matters and there's a difference between competitive and cooperative play, or single-author and multi-author fiction. If the rules are broken, it's the responsibility of the group to determine how to deal with that, not the responsibility of the DM to slap the players around until they stay on the garden path.


I think, in the absence of a strict alignment system, it's up to the DM to define such things, just as it's up to them to define the weather or or how easy or hard it is to climb a given wall.

Why do such things need to be defined? It's not like a wall, where you need a DC to climb it. In the real world, we don't know what the right answer to the Trolley Problem is. But we manage to make moral decisions none the less. The players can save the princess because they think that is the right thing to do, without having to have the DM reassure them that it is the Good thing to do as well. For all the ranting and raving by the people demanding that the game take stances on deep moral questions, that's not actually necessary at all. There's no story you can only tell if it is objectively and absolutely Good to save the princess, even if that was a thing that made sense.

JoeJ
2020-10-31, 05:33 PM
They are. Those things are, fundamentally, subjective. That is the inherent nature of moral claims.

Unless you're wrong and those things aren't fundamentally subjective. Are you unable to accept the possibility that morality might not work the way you think it does, even if only in a fantasy game?



Yes, such obscure titles as two of the three RPGs that have ever held the title for "best selling RPG". We're not debating some obscure mechanic from Fading Suns or something, alignment is part of the game that is synonymous with TTRPGs for most of the world.

That level of popularity is good evidence that for an awful lot of people the alignment system is a positive, or at the least not enough of a negative to spoil their enjoyment of the game. So why change what clearly isn't a problem when there are plenty of other games you can play if D&D isn't to your taste.

Jason
2020-10-31, 06:13 PM
Unless you're wrong and those things aren't fundamentally subjective. Are you unable to accept the possibility that morality might not work the way you think it does, even if only in a fantasy game?Indeed, I would say that playing in a world which absolutely has objective good and evil written into its rules is part of the draw for many people. You really can play someone who is objectively good (or evil) - it says so right on your character sheet, and the world will react to your alignment.

I for one have never met someone able to consistently maintain that good and evil are entirely subjective. Thorough discussion will always reveal something that they feel is just plain wrong or unfair, as if they really do believe there is an objective framework within which to judge such things.

Lord Raziere
2020-10-31, 06:52 PM
Thing is, I want objective morality, but detect evil and smite evil are incredibly flawed executions of that idea. Again, I don't want objective morality in the form of literal eviltron readings. there is objective morality and then there is just being cartoonish. right and wrong do not have aesthetics/cosmetics, nor are they are matter of opinion. Its the former belief that makes me dislike detect evil, as it implies that evil has a specific aesthetic that makes it identifiable and thus anyone that emulates that aesthetic can be mistaken for evil- as well as aesthetics that if one use can be mistaken for good. I don't want this, not for mortals. for outsiders like celestials and fiends, them having specific aesthetics makes sense, but for mortal people on the prime material plane I do not want to kill something just because "looks evil", not even with the nuances involved.

Why? Well hm.....lets say I found someone found some hidden villain who really deserves killing, like really truly deserves it, and say to do so I got a lot of evidence to support my case for killing him so that everyone will allow me to. I do everything right....so then why is Detect Evil needed? If there is no enough evidence to convince people someone needs to die because he is evil, then there is enough evidence for anyone to make that case and hunt that person down to do it. whether a paladin is there is superfluous, because a rogue with skills in finding the clues could just as easily find evidence of something fishy and figure it out from non-detect evil means and bring the person to justice. There are other ways of finding the villain that are more organic and fun than detect evil, because, how would know to use detect evil on some hidden villain in the first place? what are you, just randomly turning it on just because? while if you have suspicions of someone already, wouldn't your energy be better suited to finding a piece of evidence that you can prove to someone else that wrongdoing was done rather than something only you can see? It makes no sense. and if the ability is so useless as to not even be sure that you can pursue further evidence even if they are evil, its hard to see why you'd even turn it on, as your still someone randomly activating it or activating it on unconfirmed suspicion.

Vahnavoi
2020-10-31, 08:37 PM
The cutting edge of the argument is that, fundamentally, you agree with me. You don't have a "Good" alignment in your games. You have a "Utilitarian" alignment in your games. [...] If we could just call a spade a spade, we'd be able to have clearer discussions, better transparency between groups, and more useful terminology. And since the concepts at hand would be exactly the same, we wouldn't lose anything. All you're doing is digging in your heels for no reason

What weird twisting of terms here. Utilitarianism is a moral theory - it's concerned with defining what is good and what is not. You can't do a text-editor search-and-replace between "Good" and "Utilitarian" because it fails to explain roles of "Neutral" and "Evil" in the system.

You also forgot the entire point of the actual AD&D rules that I paraphrased and another person quoted verbatim: a GM decides exact meaning of Good and Evil for their setting. I may define them in Utilitarian terms, but another GM may not, and is allowed not to, by the rules. Sure, when and where two GMs want to compare notes and know the relevant philosophical terms, they can use those to quickly communicate ideas. But for non-philosopher, you need to follow "I'm using Utilitarian alignment" with "Utilitarianism considers good to be this and evil to be that" (etc.). Thus, to most players, saying "Good is X and Evil is Y" is calling spade a spade. And again, it communicates focus of the setting. A game system does not need to define, include or appeal to every moral theory that exists in real life.


Calling it "Good" is one of two things: obscurantism, or a childish demand that the rest of the group stroke your ego.

You keep saying that; at this point, I'm going ahead and just dismiss as an ad hominem.


Prior to FATAL, games weren't really concerned with describing the anal circumference of game characters at all, as far as I know.

But FATAL's rules didn't inspire people to make entire settings. It's almost as if describing moral characteristics has greater appeal to and utility for players and game designers.


The Great Wheel and Planescape work noticeably [I]better with a non-standard alignment system. Specifically, Planar Alignment. In the Great Wheel, the units of alignment aren't really "Evil" or "Law", but the specific planes, which embody specific philosophies. If you wanted to faithfully model that system, what you'd do is allow people to declare themselves to be aligned with "Baator" or "The Beastlands" or whatever plane had a philosophy they liked, or even no plane at all. That would make alignment clear, useful, and specific, while keeping the overall dynamics the same.

Uh, except, invented terms like "Baator" and "the Beastlands" don't tell most players anything about morality before you go through a process like described earlier and explain "Baator is based on a philosophy where X is evil and Y is good...". And even once you have every invented term associated with a proper philosophical term, you pretty much need to invoke AD&D's original construction of Law versus Chaos and Good versus Evil to explain their relative positions on the Wheel.


That's true. I also only read CYOA books, and the only think on Netflix that I've watched is Bandersnatch. Or, wait, no I understand that context matters and there's a difference between competitive and cooperative play, or single-author and multi-author fiction. If the rules are broken, it's the responsibility of the group to determine how to deal with that, not the responsibility of the DM to slap the players around until they stay on the garden path.

And when the group chooses to deal with rule-breaking by nominating a single person among them as a referee, what happens to your argument? It vanishes in a puff of logic, because the distinctions between multi-author versus single-author and competitive versus co-operative gaming do not matter for what I said. Conflicts between players happen in all kinds of games, there is no special flaw in empowering the GM to serve as a referee and giving them tools with which to deal with rule-brealking.

ImNotTrevor
2020-11-01, 02:12 PM
I think the point behind changing the way the Detect Evil paladin power works though,

is that the designers thought that the "3.5 version" was not conducive to the gameplay style they wanted.



According to an interview I watched a few years back, the 5e team wanted to minimize what alignment does, period. They can't remove it from the game, but they can make it have no functions or effect on the gameplay in any real way. Which is what they did.

Which was the right call.

I've been busy for a couple days but I'm still with OP here:
Alignment is pointless, and running 5e as if alignment isn't there is easy, simple, and flat-out better.

NorthernPhoenix
2020-11-01, 04:23 PM
According to an interview I watched a few years back, the 5e team wanted to minimize what alignment does, period. They can't remove it from the game, but they can make it have no functions or effect on the gameplay in any real way. Which is what they did.

Which was the right call.

I've been busy for a couple days but I'm still with OP here:
Alignment is pointless, and running 5e as if alignment isn't there is easy, simple, and flat-out better.

See, that's the part where i disagree. You can take out the old alignment system in terms of player vs DM gatcha mechanics entirely, but i don't belive any character, protagonist or antagonist, can or should be encouraged to be described as if they are post-modern abstractions beyond morality.

Lord Raziere
2020-11-01, 04:40 PM
See, that's the part where i disagree. You can take out the old alignment system in terms of player vs DM gatcha mechanics entirely, but i don't belive any character, protagonist or antagonist, can or should be encouraged to be described as if they are post-modern abstractions beyond morality.

....Pardon? :smallconfused:

what do you mean by that? what is a "post-modern abstraction beyond morality"?

Can you please explain? I'd just run them as enemies and people, villains and heroes. no need for an alignment system for that.

hamishspence
2020-11-01, 06:03 PM
According to an interview I watched a few years back, the 5e team wanted to minimize what alignment does, period. They can't remove it from the game, but they can make it have no functions or effect on the gameplay in any real way. Which is what they did.

Which was the right call.

I'd say 5e is a compromise between 3e and 4e - alignment is "more mechanically relevant" than in 4e, but less mechanically relevant than in 3e.

NigelWalmsley
2020-11-01, 06:51 PM
Unless you're wrong and those things aren't fundamentally subjective. Are you unable to accept the possibility that morality might not work the way you think it does, even if only in a fantasy game?

I'm not wrong, because that subjectivity is part of the definition of the terms. If you'd like to use the terms to mean something else, you can, but the problems we discuss using those terms don't go away if you do that. They just become harder to talk about.

Let's suppose we postulate a moral universe where it is "wrong" to pull the lever (killing the one person) in the Trolley Problem, and if you do that you detect as Evil and if you don't do that you detect as Good. That doesn't actually resolve the moral dilemma at all. All you've done is changed the consequences from "one person dies" v "five people die" to "one person dies, you detect as Evil" v "five people die, you detect as Good". Who's to say that I'm obligated to believe that detecting as Evil rather than Good (or whatever consequence you decide alignment has) is worse than four additional people dying? Who's to say that I have to subscribe to a consequentialist theory of morality at all? Maybe I believe people have an ethical obligation to pull levers. That belief isn't consequentialist to begin with, so changing the consequences cannot change the outputs of that ethical theory. All you have done, literally the only thing, is made this conversation harder to have. You haven't answered any questions, you haven't simplified anything.


That level of popularity is good evidence that for an awful lot of people the alignment system is a positive, or at the least not enough of a negative to spoil their enjoyment of the game. So why change what clearly isn't a problem when there are plenty of other games you can play if D&D isn't to your taste.

This argument proves too much. Every edition of D&D has, at some point, been the market leader. Most of them were the market leader for their whole lifespans. Therefore, we can conclude that nothing about D&D should be changed, and that all the changes ever made were actually unnecessary. Of course, that's absurd. D&D has a lot of moving parts. Saying that we should keep alignment because D&D as a whole succeeded is like saying the Zune was a success because Microsoft didn't go bankrupt.


I for one have never met someone able to consistently maintain that good and evil are entirely subjective. Thorough discussion will always reveal something that they feel is just plain wrong or unfair, as if they really do believe there is an objective framework within which to judge such things.

That is subjective. Saying "I think X is unfair" is a subjective claim. That doesn't make it bad or wrong, and it doesn't mean we should reject those things as a basis for morality. But they are, fundamentally, subjective.


"Baator is based on a philosophy where X is evil and Y is good...".

Oh, look, you've completely lost the plot. Once you start talking about "Evil according to Baator", having Baator's philosophy be calle Evil no longer makes even the faintest amount of sense. Since you have soundly rebutted your own position, I see no need to waste any more of my time on it.


See, that's the part where i disagree. You can take out the old alignment system in terms of player vs DM gatcha mechanics entirely, but i don't belive any character, protagonist or antagonist, can or should be encouraged to be described as if they are post-modern abstractions beyond morality.

That's a false dichotomy. Consider characters from elsewhere in fiction. Characters are almost never described in terms of some abstract metaphysical alignment (literally the only story I've heard of that does that is A Practical Guide to Evil, and it really doesn't work out the way the alignment side wants). Most people just do stuff and have values and we are left to judge whether we think they are good or not (sometimes the narrative will include other character's judgements, but that's not the same as saying "Lawful Evil" or "Neutral Good"). Characters like Han Solo, Dalinar Kholin, Sherlock Holmes, and Cersei Lannister don't ever get scenes where someone says "this character is Good" or "this character is Evil", but that doesn't mean they're "beyond morality".

PairO'Dice Lost
2020-11-01, 09:09 PM
This is just punting. You are accepting that alignment is stupid and we should use philosophies whose definitions we can agree on instead, but insisting that we keep a layer of obscurantism between "this faction is Utilitarians" and the name of the faction, and that the layer of obscurantism we use be extremely loaded terms that people care deeply about in real life.

I'm accepting nothing of the sort. Chaos isn't just Utilitarianism on the cosmic scale in the same way that the Plane of Water isn't just an infinite expanse of Caribbean seawater, so just doing a search-replace everywhere misses the point and accomplishes nothing. Alignment encompasses personal values, societal structures, cosmic forces, and various scales in between, and isn't reducible to just a WoD-style personality system or an MtG-style color wheel.


And we can agree what actions a Utilitarian would take in what circumstances.

Say you set up a trolley problem with three divergent tracks, one with three happy kindergarteners tied to it, one with a burned-out retiree tied to it, and one with a golden retriever puppy tied to it, and ran an experiment where you let eight different Utilitarians pick a track. Would you get the same result every time just because they're all Utilitarians?

Nope. The Negative Utilitarian and Sentient Utilitarian would disagree about whether to go for the puppy, the Average Utilitarian and Total Utilitarian would disagree about how to count the retiree, the Motive Utilitarian and Rule Utilitarian would (hopefully) disagree with how to handle the kindergarteners, and the Act Utilitarian and Two-Level Utilitarian would possibly settle on the same outcome but disagree on how they reached that decision. Utilitarianism isn't a singular ethical philosophy which its adherents follow in lockstep, it's one of three overarching families of related ethical philosophies within which exist multiple philosophies that agree on the big picture stuff but can disagree on the particulars.

Same with alignment: as I said before, they are (and are useful as) categories, not singular personalities or straitjackets of behavior. If you insist on unreasonably high standards for defining and separating philosophical standards, then not only does alignment collapse under scrutiny but so does every single moral and ethical system ever developed by humanity--so it's a good thing that that's not how alignment works, in any edition.


Alignment is pointless, and running 5e as if alignment isn't there is easy, simple, and flat-out better.

Having an alignment system of some sort is a fundamental necessity in any system that goes for the "high fantasy" setup with Cosmic Good and Cosmic Evil and other Abstract Capitalized Concepts because that's how those stories and tropes work. Whether it's Good vs. Evil or Light Side vs. Dark Side or Eru vs. Morgoth and whether you have one axis or two (or rarely more) will vary by setting, but the hallmark of those kinds of settings is that the opposing moral precepts are cosmic forces that have tangible physical effects on the world and on those who align themselves with one side or the other.

Now, does that mean every D&D campaign needs to care about alignment? Of course not; if you're running a gritty swords-and-sorcery campaign or a political Game of Thrones-like campaign you can toss alignment and that's fine, because those kinds of stories are about moral ambiguity and petty human squabbles and such, and they aren't about opposing or supporting the Elder Gods of Lankhmar or the Others of Westeros on philosophical grounds, simply the grounds of "they're going to kill us all if we don't do anything about them and that would be bad." When I ran a pseudohistorical Norse campaign (basically, set in the real world in the 900s except Norse mythology was true) I didn't use the standard alignments at all because alignments weren't a good fit for the Norse milieu (though I did use a replacement system based on four cardinal values of Norse heroism).

But D&D as a game cares about alignment because it operates at scales from the grittiest swords and sorcery to the highest of high fantasy depending on what level you're playing at, what setting you're playing in, and the plot of the campaign you're playing through, and as anyone who has tried to run Planescape or Dragonlance in 5e can probably attest, it's much easier to have all that information and all those mechanical "hooks" available throughout the game and let people ignore it if they don't want to use it than to not have any of it and force people to add it back in if they do want to use it.

Trying to remove alignment from D&D-the-game would be like trying to make D&D-the-game low magic rather than simply houseruling a low-magic campaign: that's not what the game is or does, and trying to contort it into that is a dumb idea when you could simply play a different game more focused on the experience you want that does swords and sorcery or low magic better.


That's a false dichotomy. Consider characters from elsewhere in fiction. Characters are almost never described in terms of some abstract metaphysical alignment (literally the only story I've heard of that does that is A Practical Guide to Evil, and it really doesn't work out the way the alignment side wants).

Funny you bring up PGtE, because it's a great example of how viewing Good and Evil as monocultures without acknowledging the ethical alignment axis leads to bad and/or nonsensical outcomes.

Its basic premise is that for centuries the Heroes have all equated Good with Law and are a bunch of paladin types fighting for Truth, Justice, and the Calernian Way, while the Villains have all equated Evil with Chaos and are a bunch of scheming and backstabbing cartoon villains, and the Heroes beat the Villains because that's the way the stories go...but as soon as a set of villains show up who are LE instead of CE, they start kicking butt and taking Names because they don't buy into the black-and-white caricature of Good and Evil in the Narrative.


Most people just do stuff and have values and we are left to judge whether we think they are good or not (sometimes the narrative will include other character's judgements, but that's not the same as saying "Lawful Evil" or "Neutral Good"). Characters like Han Solo, Dalinar Kholin, Sherlock Holmes, and Cersei Lannister don't ever get scenes where someone says "this character is Good" or "this character is Evil", but that doesn't mean they're "beyond morality".

Putting aside the fact that Neutrality in general and TN in particular is an option and so characters don't always have to be Good or Evil, when a demon shows up and starts making human sacrifices and kicking puppies you don't have someone literally stand there and say "oh by the way demons are Evil" either, but that doesn't make them any less Evil, it just means that the writer/DM doesn't feel the need to condescend to their audience/players and spell out something that should be obvious.

Vahnavoi
2020-11-02, 03:52 AM
Who's to say that I'm obligated to believe that detecting as Evil rather than Good (or whatever consequence you decide alignment has) is worse than four additional people dying? Who's to say that I have to subscribe to a consequentialist theory of morality at all?

That you feel the need to ask these questions best demonstrates you never approached the system in good faith to begin with.

Nothing obligates you, as a player, to believe in the setting morality. Nothing obligates your character to believe in it. The only thing you, as a player, are obligated to do is accept that in the game, the character who rejects in-setting Good morality is no longer Good in that setting, meaning they might not get in the Good afterlife, be able to worship Good gods etc. The "solution" to moral dilemmas exists so a GM can easily tell the setting's reaction to whatever choice you make and attach mechanics to it.


Oh, look, you've completely lost the plot. Once you start talking about "Evil according to Baator", having Baator's philosophy be calle Evil no longer makes even the faintest amount of sense. Since you have soundly rebutted your own position, I see no need to waste any more of my time on it.

Incorrect. You forgot the part where this is about relative positions of the planes on a literal map. The definitions given to Good and Evil (and Law and Chaos) on the Alignment grid axels serve as a common comparison point for all of the planes, so once you've answered "What's Good and Evil according to the greater setting?", the follow-up of "What's good and evil according to baatorians?" helps to put them on the map and explain why they are on that part of the map instead of somewhere else.

The Great Wheel and by extension Planescape were derived from this construction, so I fail to see any obvious way in which omitting the construction makes a game using those better. In any case, you have not demonstrated that the game runs better, you've only stated so.

NigelWalmsley
2020-11-02, 07:57 AM
Alignment encompasses personal values, societal structures, cosmic forces, and various scales in between, and isn't reducible to just a WoD-style personality system or an MtG-style color wheel.

Personal values, social structures, and cosmic forces all sound like things that get color alignments in MTG. That said, I don't see why you want or need one term for all of those scales. In Star Wars, the cosmic forces are "The Light Side" and "The Dark Side", but the social structures are "Republic" and "Empire". You certainly could claim that those were fundamentally the same, but it's not particularly obvious that they are.


Would you get the same result every time just because they're all Utilitarians?

Yes, there are different kinds of Utilitarians. But the point is that, once you slice things down to the point that you agree that we're talking about a single philosophy, we can agree about what that philosophy values from just the name. You can't do that with alignment, even if you divide things Lawful Neutral-Lawful Good and Lawful Good-Lawful Good and whatever. The terms you're using don't have an objective accepted meaning, you can't build one by combining them. Eventually, you have to explain what it is that you think the natives of Baator or Celestia value, and at that point what you have is a poorly-explained version of Planar Alignment.


the hallmark of those kinds of settings is that the opposing moral precepts are cosmic forces that have tangible physical effects on the world and on those who align themselves with one side or the other.

In Star Wars, the "tangible physical effects" of the Light Side don't come from believing in Light Side philosophy. They come from being a Jedi. There's not even really any indication that you have to be a Jedi or a Sith to use the Force. It's true that all the force users are, but there are also only five of them, and two of those are disciples of the others. In The Stormlight Archive, the "tangible physical effects" of being on Team Honor are a result of a bond with a Spren, an actual physical (well, cognitive, or maybe spiritual) creature with actual specific powers. The idea that power comes directly from cosmic forces that care about morality qua morality is pretty rare. And insofar as it does exist, it is about some particular moral philosophy that you can just name, rather than insisting on "Good" and "Evil".


Funny you bring up PGtE, because it's a great example of how viewing Good and Evil as monocultures without acknowledging the ethical alignment axis leads to bad and/or nonsensical outcomes.

PGtE is a great example of how cosmic forces of Good and Evil don't map well to personal-scale moral questions. The Grey Pilgrim unleashes a plague that kills thousands to capture Black. The Saint of Swords cuts out Black's soul. Those people are both heroes. Cordelia's scheming against Malicia isn't particularly better or more restrained than Malicia's scheming against her. But Cordelia arbitrarily gets to be Good. The elves are racial supremacists, but still on team Good. In fact, the whole backstory of the setting is that "Good" is "determinism" and "Evil" is "free will". If you happen to think that the distinction between the two is not morally important, the story all but explicitly tells you that you don't consider "Good" good and "Evil" evil.


when a demon shows up and starts making human sacrifices and kicking puppies you don't have someone literally stand there and say "oh by the way demons are Evil" either, but that doesn't make them any less Evil, it just means that the writer/DM doesn't feel the need to condescend to their audience/players and spell out something that should be obvious.

Again, that is exactly my point. You don't need alignment to figure out that Hagar The Baby Eater is a dude you should fight. You can observe that he eats babies, and fight him on that basis. The only places alignment enters into the equation are cases that are ambiguous, and those are exactly the cases where declaring that one side is "Evil" and one side is "Good" is the least helpful. If you're fighting people-eating demons, they don't need to be explicitly Evil. If you're adjudicating a border conflict with the hobgoblins, it doesn't help for them to be explicitly Evil. So why do we need Evil to begin with?

Jason
2020-11-02, 10:41 AM
That is subjective. Saying "I think X is unfair" is a subjective claim. That doesn't make it bad or wrong, and it doesn't mean we should reject those things as a basis for morality. But they are, fundamentally, subjective. You misunderstand me. They don't say "I think this is unfair or wrong" they argue as if it actually is unfair or wrong.
In other words, I've never met someone who professes that good and evil are entirely subjective concepts who is fully consistent in their belief. There is always something that they believe really is objective, no matter how they talk.

JoeJ
2020-11-02, 01:53 PM
I'm not wrong, because that subjectivity is part of the definition of the terms.

That is incorrect. If subjectivity is part of your definition of good and evil, then your definition is faulty as far as D&D is concerned.



Let's suppose we postulate a moral universe where it is "wrong" to pull the lever (killing the one person) in the Trolley Problem, and if you do that you detect as Evil and if you don't do that you detect as Good. That doesn't actually resolve the moral dilemma at all. All you've done is changed the consequences from "one person dies" v "five people die" to "one person dies, you detect as Evil" v "five people die, you detect as Good". Who's to say that I'm obligated to believe that detecting as Evil rather than Good (or whatever consequence you decide alignment has) is worse than four additional people dying? Who's to say that I have to subscribe to a consequentialist theory of morality at all? Maybe I believe people have an ethical obligation to pull levers. That belief isn't consequentialist to begin with, so changing the consequences cannot change the outputs of that ethical theory. All you have done, literally the only thing, is made this conversation harder to have. You haven't answered any questions, you haven't simplified anything.

You're not obligated to believe anything. Many creatures don't believe that Good is the superior moral position. Those creatures are Neutral or Evil. Thus, Zariel can say, "I did not fall into the clutches of evil. I rose to shoulder a cosmic burden." She believes she's doing the right thing, but she is wrong.

Also, referencing your example, alignment as described in the rules is more about attitude and belief than actions. Whether pulling the lever is a good, neutral, or evil action depends in large part upon why the character is pulling it.



This argument proves too much. Every edition of D&D has, at some point, been the market leader. Most of them were the market leader for their whole lifespans. Therefore, we can conclude that nothing about D&D should be changed, and that all the changes ever made were actually unnecessary.

We can at the very least conclude that the burden rests on those who want the game to be changed for everybody (rather than just house ruling their own game, or playing a different game entirely) to show that the change is justified.

JNAProductions
2020-11-02, 01:54 PM
Well, as it stands now, there are very few mechanical elements to alignment in 5E. It's still there, but it has similar effects to saying "Many elves have blonde hair" or "Dwarves have thick, majestic beards".

Lord Raziere
2020-11-02, 02:45 PM
Again, that is exactly my point. You don't need alignment to figure out that Hagar The Baby Eater is a dude you should fight. You can observe that he eats babies, and fight him on that basis. The only places alignment enters into the equation are cases that are ambiguous, and those are exactly the cases where declaring that one side is "Evil" and one side is "Good" is the least helpful. If you're fighting people-eating demons, they don't need to be explicitly Evil. If you're adjudicating a border conflict with the hobgoblins, it doesn't help for them to be explicitly Evil. So why do we need Evil to begin with?

Agreed, the people-eating demons don't need to be labeled evil, they demonstrate that they are evil. quite clearly with the fact that they eat people, with their actions. slapping an eviltron label on top of it is superfluous. like, its not as if there are good people-eating demons or something that would just be absurd.

I think I can boil down my problem with the whole alignment thing to a single phrase: "Innocent Until Proven Guilty". with detect evil, you look at someone and they are just assumed guilty of something without any proof of what it actually is. It makes the process of justice backwards: instead of having faith that people are innocent and be considered as such until proven otherwise, one can just check under the hood, see they are guilty of something even if you don't know what that is then go about searching for things to match the guilt. Thus the process becomes assuming they are guilty and searching for evidence to fit what you've already assumed.

Problem is, even if you do it "right" and not involve the "Evil Innocents", your still operating on "Guilty Until Proven Innocent" logic. Your starting with the conclusion and searching for evidence to support what you've already concluded. Its twisted, and I'm not sure if I can call that justice. Its not moral to me, its alien: because only a weird alien creature would think switching to Moral Vision like its thermal or X-ray then trying to carry out justice from that, and its not alien in a fascinating way to me but in a "unsettling" way. Especially when what you see isn't actually evidence of anything. Its not even whether about the detect evil works: its about the process being weird and backwards to me.

NigelWalmsley
2020-11-02, 03:24 PM
You misunderstand me. They don't say "I think this is unfair or wrong" they argue as if it actually is unfair or wrong.

People believe their beliefs. That doesn't make those beliefs not subjective. Saying you "think X is wrong" means that you "argue as if X is wrong".


That is incorrect. If subjectivity is part of your definition of good and evil, then your definition is faulty as far as D&D is concerned.

It is part of how people use those terms. If you insist that "2" actually means "5", that doesn't make "2 + 2 = 4" wrong, it just makes you difficult to communicate with. Similarly, if you declare that the "Good" answer to the Trolley Problem is "pull the lever", that doesn't magically make people who are against pulling the lever change their minds. You have the exact same debate, just with less useful terminology.


Many creatures don't believe that Good is the superior moral position.

Then alignment is fundamentally unhelpful nonsense. If you ever find yourself with an Objective Good that people do not support, your notion of Objective Good is broken. Since any version of Good is something some people don't support, Objective Good is inherently unhelpful nonsense. It's like the thing with "Baator thinks X is good and Y is evil". If you are saying that, you have accepted that alignment is nonsense.


We can at the very least conclude that the burden rests on those who want the game to be changed for everybody (rather than just house ruling their own game, or playing a different game entirely) to show that the change is justified.

Inaction is also a choice. 6e Dungeons and Dragons, as far as we know, has no rules yet. If you think Good/Evil and Law/Chaos belong in it, prove that they do.

Jason
2020-11-02, 03:27 PM
I think I can boil down my problem with the whole alignment thing to a single phrase: "Innocent Until Proven Guilty". with detect evil, you look at someone and they are just assumed guilty of something without any proof of what it actually is.
Well, not quite. It is proof that they are guilty of past misdeeds. The trouble comes when trying to use it as a predictor of future behavior or to determine guilt for a specific crime.

It's like discovering someone had a criminal past. IRL that is often useful information to law enforcement investigating a current crime, and it will certainly have a bearing on sentencing if they are found to be guilty, but law enforcement gets (rightly) in big trouble if they try to use that as the sole determinant of guilt.

NigelWalmsley
2020-11-02, 03:38 PM
Jason, stop. You've already demonstrated that your position on this is incoherent. Detecting as Evil is not enough to justify criminal prosecution, but spells that selectively target Evil people "protect the innocent". Those positions directly contradict each other.

ImNotTrevor
2020-11-02, 03:45 PM
See, that's the part where i disagree. You can take out the old alignment system in terms of player vs DM gatcha mechanics entirely, but i don't belive any character, protagonist or antagonist, can or should be encouraged to be described as if they are post-modern abstractions beyond morality.

I just describe them like people, instead of trying to hamfist them into a 3x3 grid of morality.


I'd say 5e is a compromise between 3e and 4e - alignment is "more mechanically relevant" than in 4e, but less mechanically relevant than in 3e.

Alignment has virtually no uses in 5e. I'm talking about DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS 5e. Not sure what system's 5th edition you're talking about but 5e has all but dumpstered alignment. There's one monster that can detect your alignment, period and.... that's the only mechanic related to it I can think of.





Having an alignment system of some sort is a fundamental necessity in any system that goes for the "high fantasy" setup with Cosmic Good and Cosmic Evil and other Abstract Capitalized Concepts because that's how those stories and tropes work. Whether it's Good vs. Evil or Light Side vs. Dark Side or Eru vs. Morgoth and whether you have one axis or two (or rarely more) will vary by setting, but the hallmark of those kinds of settings is that the opposing moral precepts are cosmic forces that have tangible physical effects on the world and on those who align themselves with one side or the other.

D&D alignment rarely achieves this goal anyways, so I'm not sure what this is meant to mean. I can accomplish exactly this with a Session 0 conversation and descriptions.

Empire shoots red lasers, Rebels shoot green lasers.

It's also super ironic that the Star Wars RPGs (since you quote the force) don't use an alignment system.

PalpatineSayingIronic.gif

Now, I imagine you think that the moment things that are good and things that are evil exist within a setting or campaign, then there is an alignment system. That's just not true.

I play Apocalypse World a lot. If I want an NPC who is just a really evil dude, he acts like a really evil dude.

In a high fantasy D&D campaign, if I want forces of darkness and evil, I make them wear black and describe them doing some evil stuff. I don't need to write down "NE" anywhere in my notes for this to work. It's entirely unneeded. Do you think the guys that write the high fantasy novels are getting out their D&D 3x3 grids so they can make sure their villains are evil, or do they just show them being evil?

Having that little slot on the character sheet and/or a codified method for punishing the players for "roleplaying wrong" is not in any way required for high fantasy, and nobody has ever shown me how.



Now, does that mean every D&D campaign needs to care about alignment? Of course not; if you're running a gritty swords-and-sorcery campaign or a political Game of Thrones-like campaign you can toss alignment and that's fine, because those kinds of stories are about moral ambiguity and petty human squabbles and such, and they aren't about opposing or supporting the Elder Gods of Lankhmar or the Others of Westeros on philosophical grounds, simply the grounds of "they're going to kill us all if we don't do anything about them and that would be bad." When I ran a pseudohistorical Norse campaign (basically, set in the real world in the 900s except Norse mythology was true) I didn't use the standard alignments at all because alignments weren't a good fit for the Norse milieu (though I did use a replacement system based on four cardinal values of Norse heroism).

But D&D as a game cares about alignment because it operates at scales from the grittiest swords and sorcery to the highest of high fantasy depending on what level you're playing at, what setting you're playing in, and the plot of the campaign you're playing through, and as anyone who has tried to run Planescape or Dragonlance in 5e can probably attest, it's much easier to have all that information and all those mechanical "hooks" available throughout the game and let people ignore it if they don't want to use it than to not have any of it and force people to add it back in if they do want to use it.
Except, again, the concepts of Good and Evil can exist within a game without any of the mechanical bits and bobs associated with a formal Alignment System. (Which 5e proves, ironically, by not having Alignment DO anything and making it have as much mechanical effect as hair color.)



Trying to remove alignment from D&D-the-game would be like trying to make D&D-the-game low magic rather than simply houseruling a low-magic campaign: that's not what the game is or does, and trying to contort it into that is a dumb idea when you could simply play a different game more focused on the experience you want that does swords and sorcery or low magic better.

Except there are other games that do high fantasy without using alignment? (Dungeon World can do it just fine, for instance)

How do you explain their existence?

And again, you'll have to demonstrate why I can't have the legion of black-clad worshippers of a dark god trampling the innocents underfoot in the name of wickedness without also making sure to label them all with an NE and making sure to change that label for the one who's doing a redemption arc? Why can't they just... act the part without concerning myself with the grid? You know, like every other form of fiction ever produced?

Jason
2020-11-02, 04:19 PM
Jason, stop. You've already demonstrated that your position on this is incoherent. Detecting as Evil is not enough to justify criminal prosecution, but spells that selectively target Evil people "protect the innocent". Those positions directly contradict each other.
Those are not contradictory positions.

Detecting as evil indicates past guilt. Past guilt however is insufficient to justify punishment for a current crime without further evidence that the person also committed the crime presently under investigation. Those that detect as evil because of past misdeeds are guilty of those misdeeds, even if they did not commit the current crime.

Innocents do not detect as evil and will not be affected by magic that affects evil beings because they have not previously performed evil actions.

Lord Raziere
2020-11-02, 04:42 PM
Those are not contradictory positions.

Detecting as evil indicates past guilt. Past guilt however is insufficient to justify punishment for a current crime without further evidence that the person also committed the crime presently under investigation. Those that detect as evil because of past misdeeds are guilty of those misdeeds, even if they did not commit the current crime.

Innocents do not detect as evil and will not be affected by magic that affects evil beings because they have not previously performed evil actions.

I dunno, criminal records and using detect evil on someone just don't seem equivalent to me for some reason? pretty sure that criminal records are more detailed.

except for those spells that affect neutral beings just for being low level. riiiiight.

that and there are paladins of tyranny and slaughter! even if good spells exist, that means the evil versions exist as well and are used, and both the codes of tyranny and slaughter disallow you from doing good acts, explicitly. thus those evil paladins can use detect good to find good people and kill them just for being good! and there is possibility that since evil has less moral restrictions they can seek forms of power that good won't take, and thus get an advantage that good cannot overcome despite what underdog stories would have you believe.

like what happens if someone figures out how to take the Blasphemy Spell and use it on wider scales to just carpet bomb all the world with blasphemies to kill all non-evil people? good and neutral would die and evil would rule.

NigelWalmsley
2020-11-02, 04:51 PM
Those are not contradictory positions.

Yes, they are. Either "you don't detect as Good" is enough evidence for the government to justify imprisoning you, or Holy Word is killing people who don't deserve it. Because if you don't deserve to be locked up for your alignment, you sure as hell don't deserve to be killed for it.

Jason
2020-11-02, 06:03 PM
Yes, they are. Either "you don't detect as Good" is enough evidence for the government to justify imprisoning you, or Holy Word is killing people who don't deserve it. Because if you don't deserve to be locked up for your alignment, you sure as hell don't deserve to be killed for it.

The potential for collateral damage is why responsible people don't go throwing Holy Word around in every combat situation, in a crowded street for instance, any more than they would a fireball. But it can come in very handy at times when the only targets are evil or good, such as in the evil temple where the only potential targets are "cultists or sacrificial victims".

Rynjin
2020-11-02, 06:39 PM
The potential for collateral damage is why responsible people don't go throwing Holy Word around in every combat situation, in a crowded street for instance, any more than they would a fireball. But it can come in very handy at times when the only targets are evil or good, such as in the evil temple where the only potential targets are "cultists or sacrificial victims".

Except a sacrificial victim is likely to be Neutral, as are most people.

Jason
2020-11-02, 06:46 PM
Except a sacrificial victim is likely to be Neutral, as are most people.

Not when they were specially selected by the cultists using detect good spells.

Rynjin
2020-11-02, 07:06 PM
Not when they were specially selected by the cultists using detect good spells.

Honestly, I don't know how to respond to this.

You do realize that posts like this do not help foster any sort of discussion, right? It just shifts goalposts and serves to make everyone involved frustrated, with you specifically in this case.

Jason
2020-11-02, 08:46 PM
Honestly, I don't know how to respond to this.

You do realize that posts like this do not help foster any sort of discussion, right? It just shifts goalposts and serves to make everyone involved frustrated, with you specifically in this case.

Well maybe in your games evil cultists will settle for whoever happens to be wandering around outside the Temple of Doom. My evil cultists know that their dark masters are only satisfied with 100% good-aligned sacrificial victims.

ImNotTrevor
2020-11-02, 11:35 PM
Well maybe in your games evil cultists will settle for whoever happens to be wandering around outside the Temple of Doom. My evil cultists know that their dark masters are only satisfied with 100% good-aligned sacrificial victims.

You do realize that quoting your particular campaign as evidence for how the general standard should be measured is like.... so egregiously fallacious that I'm baffled how to even communicate the severity of it to you.

And in what way is choosing specifically nice people for your human sacrifices significantly more horrifying and evil than just sacrificing whoever they can drag onto the altar, with particular focus on the visibly nice folks around town. Like, do they really need a spell to know that the guy who donates to the orphanage every Tuesday is a good guy? And even so, isn't it much scarier to imagine a cult carefully stalking and recording the behavior of kind people for them to systematically murder than to just imagine a guy in a cloak waving his hand and going "that guy, that lady, and that guy." The former is malicious, calculated, and done with something bordering on care. The latter is basically what you do at the supermarket. I can't imagine the cultist as having a name other than Carl and this is just an internship that got a bit out of hand but hey, they have dental, so....

If the cultists are basically supermarket shopping the village for nice people it's hard to take the situation seriously.

Yeah, my dude, this is not a good argument for alignment existing. And it kinda borders on parody.

JoeJ
2020-11-03, 01:22 AM
It is part of how people use those terms. If you insist that "2" actually means "5", that doesn't make "2 + 2 = 4" wrong, it just makes you difficult to communicate with.

People use the term "wizard" in a lot of ways, but within D&D, the term has a particular meaning, regardless of how it's used in other contexts. The same is true of alignment terminology. Establishing a definition doesn't make communication difficult. On the contrary, it's what makes communication possible at all.



Similarly, if you declare that the "Good" answer to the Trolley Problem is "pull the lever", that doesn't magically make people who are against pulling the lever change their minds. You have the exact same debate, just with less useful terminology.

Whether or not people change their mind about some silly trolley problem is absolutely irrelevant to any of this.



Then alignment is fundamentally unhelpful nonsense. If you ever find yourself with an Objective Good that people do not support, your notion of Objective Good is broken.

What an absurd idea! Objective good remains good even if nobody at all supports it, or even knows of its existence. Morality is, in that respect, like a natural law.



Inaction is also a choice. 6e Dungeons and Dragons, as far as we know, has no rules yet. If you think Good/Evil and Law/Chaos belong in it, prove that they do.

Inaction would be no change: nothing at all belongs in 6e, since there's no reason for there to be a 6e in the first place.

PairO'Dice Lost
2020-11-03, 02:46 AM
Personal values, social structures, and cosmic forces all sound like things that get color alignments in MTG.

When I said alignment isn't reducible to MtG colors, I don't mean that the two aren't similar kinds of all-encompassing multi-scale construct (because they are), just that the common suggestion of "Just replace alignment with the color wheel, it's obviously superior, problem solved" doesn't work. Firstly and most obviously because White/Black/Blue/Red/Green don't directly map to Good/Evil/Law/Chaos/Neutrality, either in terms of their relationship to each other or in terms of definitions, so the idea that the swap is just replacing moral terms with team labels is incorrect; and secondly because the colors also include things like personality, technology levels, and such that alignment explicitly doesn't.


That said, I don't see why you want or need one term for all of those scales. In Star Wars, the cosmic forces are "The Light Side" and "The Dark Side", but the social structures are "Republic" and "Empire". You certainly could claim that those were fundamentally the same, but it's not particularly obvious that they are.

As with the Game of Thrones example, you don't always want to bundle all those scales together or even involve all of the scales at all, but sometimes you do. During the original and prequel trilogy the Force is the province of a handful of Force users and not dominant on the galactic scale, so of course Republic ≠ Light Side and Empire ≠ Dark Side...but go back to the earlier periods when the Republic is led by Jedi, they're opposed by the Sith Empire, Force-users are a credit a dozen, and the Force is almost visibly shaping events on a grand scale, and it's very much the case that the two are closely intertwined.


Yes, there are different kinds of Utilitarians. But the point is that, once you slice things down to the point that you agree that we're talking about a single philosophy, we can agree about what that philosophy values from just the name. You can't do that with alignment, even if you divide things Lawful Neutral-Lawful Good and Lawful Good-Lawful Good and whatever. The terms you're using don't have an objective accepted meaning, you can't build one by combining them. Eventually, you have to explain what it is that you think the natives of Baator or Celestia value, and at that point what you have is a poorly-explained version of Planar Alignment.

This is a double standard. Claiming that you know how "Motive Utilitarians" act just from the name but have no idea how "Acheronians" act just from the name just means that you think you have a handle on the former but not on the latter--any "X Utilitarian" subset needs just as much explanation as any "X Plane" subset--and means that you've read the literature on your Utilitarianism flavor of choice and have completely ignored all the writings on alignment in every edition of D&D. Someone who's never studied philosophy but has read the Manual of the Planes could easily say that your Utili-whatsit mumbo-jumbo is bogus but that the difference between Acheronian LLE and Gehennan ELE is obvious.


In Star Wars, the "tangible physical effects" of the Light Side don't come from believing in Light Side philosophy. They come from being a Jedi. There's not even really any indication that you have to be a Jedi or a Sith to use the Force. It's true that all the force users are, but there are also only five of them, and two of those are disciples of the others.

Firstly, I'm not just talking Original Trilogy here, I'm talking the prequels and EU as well--y'know, where drawing on the Dark Side deeply enough causes actual physical changes like turning your eyes yellow and aging you and stuff like that. But even just in the OT you have things like the Emperor informing Luke that him killing the Emperor in anger will cause him to fall to the Dark Side, not in some vague sort of way where he might decide he likes beheading geriatric dictators and start doing more evil things on a lark, but in a way where taking that action causes you to choose a side in a way that the Force recognizes and enforces. "If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny," and all that.


PGtE is a great example of how cosmic forces of Good and Evil don't map well to personal-scale moral questions. The Grey Pilgrim unleashes a plague that kills thousands to capture Black. The Saint of Swords cuts out Black's soul. Those people are both heroes. Cordelia's scheming against Malicia isn't particularly better or more restrained than Malicia's scheming against her. But Cordelia arbitrarily gets to be Good. The elves are racial supremacists, but still on team Good. In fact, the whole backstory of the setting is that "Good" is "determinism" and "Evil" is "free will". If you happen to think that the distinction between the two is not morally important, the story all but explicitly tells you that you don't consider "Good" good and "Evil" evil.

Not exactly. The Gods Above and Below are pushing determinism vs. free will as the major conflict in Creation, but the power that Heroes and Villains draw on is explicitly not an active gift by the gods. Providence "is a force, not an intelligence," as per Black; Masego and certain Heroes we see later on can manipulate Light like any other sorcery rather than the divine miracle that the House of Light teaches it is; Names grant power based on how well Heroes and Villains fit into their roles, which is why the Grey Pilgrim can commit evil acts so long as he sincerely believes that it is (and others perceive it as being) for the Greater Good while Vivienne can "fall" from a relatively neutral Name like Thief due to not fitting the role anymore; and villains like Black and Cat can actively spit in the face of the gods' intended narrative while still gaining Name power like anyone else.

This actually maps quite nicely to D&D, where Heironeous and Torm and the other LG gods aren't sources or arbiters of Lawful Goodness but merely individual possible instantiations of it, and a paladin can serve the forces of Law and Good without serving any particular gods (outside the Realms, anyway).


Again, that is exactly my point. You don't need alignment to figure out that Hagar The Baby Eater is a dude you should fight. You can observe that he eats babies, and fight him on that basis. The only places alignment enters into the equation are cases that are ambiguous, and those are exactly the cases where declaring that one side is "Evil" and one side is "Good" is the least helpful. If you're fighting people-eating demons, they don't need to be explicitly Evil. If you're adjudicating a border conflict with the hobgoblins, it doesn't help for them to be explicitly Evil. So why do we need Evil to begin with?

Looking back, I thought you were conflating characters not having an alignment with a DM/producer not explicitly telling the players/audience someone's alignment and was objecting to that with the demon example, but you were actually responding to someone talking about post-modernist non-characters, which I can't find fault with. Carry on.


Then alignment is fundamentally unhelpful nonsense. If you ever find yourself with an Objective Good that people do not support, your notion of Objective Good is broken.

Hardly. People in real life turn against Objective Goodness all the time. I can't get into too much detail, obviously, but basically any time a religion provides a list of Thou Shalt Nots and someone Shalts anyway, that's what they're doing.

And then of course there's the fact that someone who doesn't believe Objective Good is superior can simply be wrong, which doesn't entail any problem with Objective Goodness at all.


It's also super ironic that the Star Wars RPGs (since you quote the force) don't use an alignment system.

Literally every Star Wars RPG has an alignment system, they just use Dark Side Points or whatever instead of an X Evil label. Because, as I mentioned before, Good vs. Evil is not the only possible alignment setup that matters, different settings will have their own takes on it.


Now, I imagine you think that the moment things that are good and things that are evil exist within a setting or campaign, then there is an alignment system.

Nope. I already used Game of Thrones as an example of a setting that doesn't have and doesn't need an alignment system, and a lot of people would argue that a bunch of characters in it are pretty darn evil and that the Others are even evil-er.

An alignment system involving good and evil matters and is necessary when questions of morality are a large part of the setting and intended plotlines and such and forces thereof have a tangible impact on the setting and whether a character is aligned with one or the other is an important factor. There can be other criteria and one might quibble with those points, but that's the basic idea.

Both Lankhmar and the Cthulhu Mythos setting(s) have ancient tentacly beings called Elder Gods, but a Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser game doesn't need an alignment system of any sort while most Cthulthu Mythos games need one (traditionally expressed as some kind of sanity meter that turns you into a gibbering cultist if you fall below a certain point) because in the former the Elder Gods are a background setting detail and in the latter the central conflict is about dealing with the artifacts/cults/etc. of the Elder Gods and being "aligned with the Elder Gods" is a significant thing in terms of both plot and characters.

And note that I said most Cthulhu Mythos games, not all, because a game like Cthulhutech has an explicitly Lovecraftian backdrop, but it's closer to Pacific Rim Meets 40K than any sort of existential horror game and the Elder Gods are a background fluff aspect at most.


Having that little slot on the character sheet and/or a codified method for punishing the players for "roleplaying wrong" is not in any way required for high fantasy, and nobody has ever shown me how.

If you're using alignment as a tool to punish players for roleplaying wrong, you're being a bad DM at that point in time, because for the umpteenth time alignment is not a straitjacket, it's a descriptor.


Except there are other games that do high fantasy without using alignment? (Dungeon World can do it just fine, for instance)

Dungeon World? "High fantasy"? Surely you jest. :smallamused: Dungeon World is a blatantly swords-and-sorcery take on D&D, written by people who dislike everything about D&D as a system as a concession for people who want to play a PbtA game with D&D trappings.

And even then, Dungeon World has an alignment system--the Paladin even has Detect Evil!--so your objection falls flat.


In a high fantasy D&D campaign, if I want forces of darkness and evil, I make them wear black and describe them doing some evil stuff. I don't need to write down "NE" anywhere in my notes for this to work. It's entirely unneeded. Do you think the guys that write the high fantasy novels are getting out their D&D 3x3 grids so they can make sure their villains are evil, or do they just show them being evil?
[...]
And again, you'll have to demonstrate why I can't have the legion of black-clad worshippers of a dark god trampling the innocents underfoot in the name of wickedness without also making sure to label them all with an NE and making sure to change that label for the one who's doing a redemption arc? Why can't they just... act the part without concerning myself with the grid? You know, like every other form of fiction ever produced?

If they're a bunch of punch-clock villains just wearing skulls on the armor and committing garden-variety crimes, sure, there's no need for any kind of alignment system. But as soon as you stick Sir Kills-a-lot the Death Knight at the head of your Legions of Doom and make the plot about the clash between him and his gods vs. Lady Saves-a-lot the Paladin and her gods, you need an alignment system of some kind, just like how as soon as you make a game involving combat you need a combat system of some sort.

hamishspence
2020-11-03, 03:17 AM
This actually maps quite nicely to D&D, where Heironeous and Torm and the other LG gods aren't sources or arbiters of Lawful Goodness but merely individual possible instantiations of it, and a paladin can serve the forces of Law and Good without serving any particular gods (outside the Realms, anyway).

And even in the Realms, the paladin serves Law and Good first, and their god second. Some LN, NG and even one CG god (Sune) have paladins - they still need to stay LG to keep their powers.

Lord Raziere
2020-11-03, 03:21 AM
If they're a bunch of punch-clock villains just wearing skulls on the armor and committing garden-variety crimes, sure, there's no need for any kind of alignment system. But as soon as you stick Sir Kills-a-lot the Death Knight at the head of your Legions of Doom and make the plot about the clash between him and his gods vs. Lady Saves-a-lot the Paladin and her gods, you need an alignment system of some kind, just like how as soon as you make a game involving combat you need a combat system of some sort.

No. Its already pretty obvious one is good and the other is evil, that is over systematizing it. one is doing acts that are bad, others that are good. its obvious and any denial about it is just being obtuse or forgetting what you just said.

we model combat because its a physical thing that CAN be modeled. morality isn't something that can be modeled by any gameable system. I've never seen an attempt that does it well, and all the most moral characters I've had was when were no rules to hold them back from doing what is actually right, rather than is theorized to be right by some limiting system.

a lot of fiction has good heroes and vile villains without any kind of alignment system involved. you know a villain is bad because they do a bad thing, you know an entire legion if bad because you've heard the stories of their villainy. you know a dark sealed evil is bad, because you heard legends passed down the generations of how much he is a bad idea to let out! People are not dumb about who is bad and who isn't, and it takes a special kind of distrustful to assume that a villainous murderer might not evil because you didn't get the cosmos itself giving you a neon sign to confirm it.

like why isn't the dark plated warrior with skulls on their armor, riding on a black horse and riding with an army of skeletons at their back clear shouting "slaughter anyone in our way!", a force that you've heard has slaughtered villages, enough confirmation of evil for you? why do you need eviltron readings to confirm? is there somehow doubt in your mind that they're not actually evil unless you get a cosmos disapproval stamp? I don't get it.

PairO'Dice Lost
2020-11-03, 03:53 AM
a lot of fiction has good heroes and vile villains without any kind of alignment system involved. you know a villain is bad because they do a bad thing, you know an entire legion if bad because you've heard the stories of their villainy. you know a dark sealed evil is bad, because you heard legends passed down the generations of how much he is a bad idea to let out! People are not dumb about who is bad and who isn't, and it takes a special kind of distrustful to assume that a villainous murderer might not evil because you didn't get the cosmos itself giving you a neon sign to confirm it.

The needs of single-author fiction are completely different from the needs of a collaborative RPG. People continually bringing up "Oh, well in this book/movie/etc. no one's consulting the D&D alignment grid!" is missing the point...on two different axes, appropriately enough.


like why isn't the dark plated warrior with skulls on their armor, riding on a black horse and riding with an army of skeletons at their back clear shouting "slaughter anyone in our way!", a force that you've heard has slaughtered villages, enough confirmation of evil for you? why do you need eviltron readings to confirm? is there somehow doubt in your mind that they're not actually evil unless you get a cosmos disapproval stamp? I don't get it.

Because you're focusing myopically on the idea that alignment is a neon sign floating above someone's head that tells you what team they play for and nothing else. Alignment is a mechanical tool to express the common fictional trope of sensing a Great Evil in that cave over yonder, yes, but it's a lot more than that--again, roleplaying prompts, mechanical hooks, etc., see upthread.

Vahnavoi
2020-11-03, 03:58 AM
Then alignment is fundamentally unhelpful nonsense. If you ever find yourself with an Objective Good that people do not support, your notion of Objective Good is broken. Since any version of Good is something some people don't support, Objective Good is inherently unhelpful nonsense. It's like the thing with "Baator thinks X is good and Y is evil". If you are saying that, you have accepted that alignment is nonsense.

"If you ever find yourself with objective theory that a world is round that people do not support, your notion of objective round world theory is broken. Since any theory of how the world is shaped is something some people don't support, objective round world theory is inherently unhelpful nonsense. It's like the thing with "Flat-earthers think the world is a disc and not round". If you are saying that, you have accepted that objective theories about the shape of the world are nonsense. "

EDIT: it's worth noting that, since we're primarily concerned with fantasy in this thread, there are settings where the world is in fact something other than round. There are also settings where shape of the world is in fact subjective and what a character believes about it directly impacts how the world reacts to them.

"In this setting, Good is X and Evil is Y" is, in context of games, no more exotic than "In this game, the world is a disc and the sun is either a giant dungball rolled by a beetle or a golden chariot, depending on who is looking".

Lord Raziere
2020-11-03, 04:03 AM
The needs of single-author fiction are completely different from the needs of a collaborative RPG. People continually bringing up "Oh, well in this book/movie/etc. no one's consulting the D&D alignment grid!" is missing the point...on two different axes, appropriately enough.

Because you're focusing myopically on the idea that alignment is a neon sign floating above someone's head that tells you what team they play for and nothing else. Alignment is a mechanical tool to express the common fictional trope of sensing a Great Evil in that cave over yonder, yes, but it's a lot more than that--again, roleplaying prompts, mechanical hooks, etc., see upthread.

The alignment system has demonstrated more than enough that it doesn't promote collaboration at all. It promotes divisiveness if anything.

I don't see what points your talking about "raised upthread".

any roleplaying prompts or mechanical hooks can be better done other ways.

Edit: also you haven't actually answered my question. So I'll state it again: why do you need the confirmation, even when its so obvious beyond all reasonable doubt that they are evil?

Morty
2020-11-03, 05:29 AM
Having an alignment system of some sort is a fundamental necessity in any system that goes for the "high fantasy" setup with Cosmic Good and Cosmic Evil and other Abstract Capitalized Concepts because that's how those stories and tropes work. Whether it's Good vs. Evil or Light Side vs. Dark Side or Eru vs. Morgoth and whether you have one axis or two (or rarely more) will vary by setting, but the hallmark of those kinds of settings is that the opposing moral precepts are cosmic forces that have tangible physical effects on the world and on those who align themselves with one side or the other.

This might be a stronger argument if there weren't actual RPGs based on LotR, which don't use alignment. IIRC at least some of them use a "corruption" mechanic of some kind - but that just goes to show that the alleged goals of the D&D alignment system can be accomplished much better in other ways.

That's good/evil, mind you. I've yet to see a plausible case of the law/chaos helping with anything. Really, it seems that the entire D&D alignment system is essentially a tool for being able to slap a big, red "EVIL" label on some people or things. Everything else is just twisting logic into knots trying to pretend it's some kind of sensible larger framework.

Vahnavoi
2020-11-03, 06:17 AM
1) The Corruption system seen in, for example, CODA version of Lorf of the Rings RPG, is an alignment system.
2) It's functionally equivalent to saying "you get X Evil points for acting in ways that conflict with Tolkien's morals, if X is larger than 10, your character becomes an NPC".
3) The Law and Chaos axels in D&D are directly inspired by fantasy fiction such as Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion series, along with a ton of other D&D tropes. If you don't know what they're for, you've basically admitted ignorance of the rules. Your case isn't helped by old versions of D&D (such as 1st edition AD&D) directly stating their inspirations in the game books.

ImNotTrevor
2020-11-03, 08:52 AM
... a bunch of punch-clock villains just wearing skulls on the armor and committing garden-variety crimes, sure, there's no need for any kind of alignment system. But as soon as you stick Sir Kills-a-lot the Death Knight at the head of your Legions of Doom and make the plot about the clash between him and his gods vs. Lady Saves-a-lot the Paladin and her gods, you need an alignment system of some kind, just like how as soon as you make a game involving combat you need a combat system of some sort.

All other points aside, this is the one where you fall apart. Because you still can't say WHY.

I as a DM say:
"This is The Army Of King Ebon The Vile, servant of dark gods."
I know this is true. I have them and their leader ACT accordingly.

"This is the army of Lady Valiant, servant of the holy gods."
I know this is true. I have them and their leader ACT accordingly.

Depending upon what the players do, the logical consequences for their interactions with these cosmic forces occurs. I might use a countdown clock for things that might happen over time if not addressed, but countdown clocks aren't alignment.

In what way would my players have a lesser experience for not being able to magically scan people and determine if they're on Team Badguy?

In what way would my player experience suffer if I say in session 0 "You are all fighting on the side of truth, justice, and cosmogical goodness" rather than implementing a 3x3 grid system and telling them to only be in these three arbitrary squares?

In what way *specifically* would my players be unable to experience a cosmological struggle by my decision not to label things as NE or LG? (Assuming I'm playing in 5e, where alignment has no associated mechanics.)

In what way *specifically* am I depriving them by not using a "corruption points" system and instead working through the effects of a character falling to evil organically, working together with the player?

Until you can answer why any of the above approaches are impossible, you cannot argue that an alignment system is required for high fantasy.


ON THE SUBJECT OF STAR WARS DARK-SIDE POINTS:
They're literally Fate Points from Fate but if the GM has them they're Dark Side points. Unless you're ready to argue that the MERE EXISTENCE of Fate Points is an alignment system, this is the stretchiest of stretches.

ON CORRUPTION SYSTEMS:
This presents a bit of a problem. You said Alignment is Descriptive, but Corruption Systems are Prescriptive. And also you said using Alignment Prescriptively is being a bad GM, but Alignment Systems are always good for High Fantasy, but a High Fantasy system using Prescriptive Alignment is... good for High Fantasy?

Are you seeing where I'm suddenly having a harder time taking this position seriously?

On Dungeon World:
I mean, according to you so long as it has a Detect Evil spell it has alignment, and Alignment is required for High Fantasy, so DW should be able to do High Fantasy just fine, since all that's needed (according to you) is Alignment and Combat systems. Yet it's an affront to High Fantasy and made for Sword and Sorcery....

HMMMMMMMMMMMM

Also claiming an ability to reach out for guidance about what might be evil nearby is the same thing as a fleshed-out alignment system is another reaaaaally stretchy stretch. I look forward to seeing you in Cirque Du Soleil.

NigelWalmsley
2020-11-03, 09:14 AM
Establishing a definition doesn't make communication difficult. On the contrary, it's what makes communication possible at all.

Establishing a definition that contradicts established use makes communication difficult. If I want to talk about the number between 2 and 4, calling it 3 is useful. Calling it 2 is not.


Whether or not people change their mind about some silly trolley problem is absolutely irrelevant to any of this.

How people feel about ethical problems is at the core of your ethical system. If your "objective Good" doesn't change people's minds about questions of morality, then it isn't a moral property. It becomes exactly the same as "Cold" or "Fire" -- an arbitrary property with mechanical effects, but no relevance to ethical decisions. By insisting we use ethical terms for it, all you are doing is increasing confusion.


Firstly and most obviously because White/Black/Blue/Red/Green don't directly map to Good/Evil/Law/Chaos/Neutrality, either in terms of their relationship to each other or in terms of definitions, so the idea that the swap is just replacing moral terms with team labels is incorrect; and secondly because the colors also include things like personality, technology levels, and such that alignment explicitly doesn't.

This seems like a weak argument. Obviously the thing we want to replace alignment with won't be the same as alignment. Otherwise why replace alignment? The color wheel is generally superior, because it's a set of terms with definitions that are easily agreed upon. If you really need the properties of e.g. the Great Wheel, you should use Planar Alignment as your replacement (in no small part because that is what the Great Wheel actually is already).


but go back to the earlier periods when the Republic is led by Jedi, they're opposed by the Sith Empire, Force-users are a credit a dozen, and the Force is almost visibly shaping events on a grand scale, and it's very much the case that the two are closely intertwined.

If you're going to bring the EU into things, it needs to be the whole EU, and when you do that the notion of the Force as binary really falls aparnt.


This is a double standard. Claiming that you know how "Motive Utilitarians" act just from the name but have no idea how "Acheronians" act just from the name just means that you think you have a handle on the former but not on the latter

I have no problem with "Archeronian" as an alignment. By problem is specifically with the Good/Evil and Law/Chaos axes D&D uses, because I don't think they're useful or meaningful.


If they're a bunch of punch-clock villains just wearing skulls on the armor and committing garden-variety crimes, sure, there's no need for any kind of alignment system. But as soon as you stick Sir Kills-a-lot the Death Knight at the head of your Legions of Doom and make the plot about the clash between him and his gods vs. Lady Saves-a-lot the Paladin and her gods, you need an alignment system of some kind, just like how as soon as you make a game involving combat you need a combat system of some sort.

Why? That's the plot of The Stormlight Archive, which doesn't have an alignment system, at least not in the way D&D does.


The alignment system has demonstrated more than enough that it doesn't promote collaboration at all. It promotes divisiveness if anything.

Exactly. I don't understand how you can think "these behaviors are Objectively Good" is a stance that promotes collaboration.

Kardwill
2020-11-03, 10:44 AM
All other points aside, this is the one where you fall apart. Because you still can't say WHY.

I as a DM say:
"This is The Army Of King Ebon The Vile, servant of dark gods."
I know this is true. I have them and their leader ACT accordingly.

"This is the army of Lady Valiant, servant of the holy gods."
I know this is true. I have them and their leader ACT accordingly.


Better yet, not having an alignment system means you don't have to label one side being "objectively right". Which means that it allows for example a paladin PC to question the method of Lady Valiant's army when the war turns ugly, or the reasons why some decent people rallied the banner of King Ebon. I think that allows more interesting stories and character development than the convenience of neatly labeled "blue team vs red team" alignments would allow. :)

Jason
2020-11-03, 10:49 AM
This might be a stronger argument if there weren't actual RPGs based on LotR, which don't use alignment. IIRC at least some of them use a "corruption" mechanic of some kind - but that just goes to show that the alleged goals of the D&D alignment system can be accomplished much better in other ways.
For the record, the morality system in The One Ring, the most modern LotR RPG I'm familiar with works like this:
1. Each player Calling (sort of their character class) has a Shadow Weakness which represents the path they would follow if they fail to resist the Shadow's influence. Scholars have the Lure of Secrets, Slayers have the Curse of Vengeance, Treasure Hunters have Dragon-sickness, Wanderers have Wandering-madness, and Wardens and Leaders have the Lure of Power.
2. Players gain Shadow Points from several potential sources: experiencing distressing events, directly confronting more powerful beings of the shadow (like Ringwraiths), crossing or dwelling in areas tainted by the Shadow, committing despicable or dishonorable actions ("regardless of the end they sought to achieve"), or taking possession of a cursed or tainted item or treasure.
3. Players regularly use Hope points to power their abilities and make difficult rolls. Players become Miserable when they have more Shadow Points than their current Hope score. If they roll an Eye of Sauron on their feat die (a 1 in 12 chance with every roll) while Miserable then they are subject to a Bout of Madness where the Loremaster (GM) takes control of their character for a limited time and makes them do something they will regret later. Like trying to take the Ring from Frodo.
4. A Bout of Madness resets the player's Shadow Points to 0 but also gives them a permanent Shadow Point and a Flaw that the Loremaster may invoke at appropriate times in the future to force a player to roll two Feat dice and take the lower result (Disadvantage, basically).
5. A character who already has all four Flaws for his Calling and succumbs to another Bout of Madness becomes an NPC permanently. Elves lose interest in Middle-Earth and return to Valinor, while Men, Hobbits, or Dwarves either kill themselves in despair, threaten others to the point they have to be killed, or "starves to death in some solitary place, forsaken by men and animals."
6. Temporary Shadow Points may be removed in a limited fashion by downtime activities between adventure phases, usually by practicing some creative craft. Permanent Shadow Points are, as the name implies, permanent.

The alignment system in The One Ring therefore doubles as a sort of Sanity system, since you can get corruption for misdeeds but also take corruption hits for confronting powerful enemies or witnessing distressing events. Misdeeds that earn Shadow Points include (in escalating order) violent threats, lying purposefully or subtly manipulating the will of others, cowardice, theft and plunder, unprovoked aggression, abusing own authority to influence or dominate, torment and torture, or murder.

The system is very different from D&D in many aspects. Aside from the game mechanics there are no PC spellcasters in Middle-Earth. PCs can gain some abilities that are obviously magical, but there is no spell casting system, and Gandalf, Saruman and Radagast are all powerful NPCs with abilities that are mostly up to the Loremaster to define. Combat tends to be short and rather deadly, with players only able to take a few hits. Travel rules are also a big part of the system, and all the printed adventures involve traveling extensively.

I ran a whole year-long campaign in the game and my group and I enjoyed it quite a bit. Cubicle 7 also, sadly, lost the license, so its now out of print. A second edition from a different publisher is planned.

PairO'Dice Lost
2020-11-04, 02:42 AM
I don't see what points your talking about "raised upthread".

Sorry, got this thread confused with the other alignment one going on at the moment. Basically, the point of alignment is not, and has never been, simply to put big labels on creatures saying "these are bad, you can kill them" and "these are good, you can't kill them." Alignments serve as roleplaying prompts and mechanical hooks, as I mentioned, at multiple levels of granularity.

Using alignment as a roleplaying prompt has three main benefits:

1) Information density. One of the major benefits of D&D's race and class system compared to more freeform systems is the ability to briefly convey a lot of information about your character. You can give a newbie one list of races and one list of classes, have them pick something from each, and go from there, and an experienced player saying "I'm an Elf Ranger" conveys a heck of a lot of information about their character, compared to more fiddly games like GURPS where a newb has to do everything from scratch and a veteran can't convey detail "packages" in the same way. Alignment is basically that for roleplaying prompts: Saying "here are six flavors of general moral and ethical outlook, pick one" can get a newbie thinking about character motivations and such without going through long lists of character traits or whatever, and "I'm a CE Elf Ranger" vs. "I'm a LG Elf Ranger" is a quick way to convey party dynamics and such between veterans.

2) Universality. In games with defined settings, a character's moral and ethical outlook usually has something to do with the religions or organizations they belong to; in a real-world setting a character might be a Catholic or a Buddhist, and in Star Wars they might be a Jedi or a Sith, and each of those four things gives you a good sketch of their outlooks on life. But there are a lot of religions and organizations even in a single setting--if I tell you my d20 Modern character is a Zoroastrian or that my Star Wars character is a White Current Adept, do you know offhand what that means about their philosophy?--and D&D has a bunch of different settings to the point that "I worship the sun god" means very different things depending on whether you're talking about Pelor in Greyhawk, Amaunator in FR, Dol Arrah in Eberron, or Paraelemental Sun in Dark Sun.

Alignments, meanwhile, are constant across settings (to the point that people can meaningfully talk about what alignment characters from non-D&D settings would be) and there are exactly nine of them you need to remember.

3) Overlaying. People in this thread have talked about replacing alignments with character traits or the like, but the great thing is that they're not mutually exclusive, you can use both (as 5e kinda sorta does). What's more, adding that extra layer can give you more depth: a character who's Altruistic is one thing, but a character who is Lawful Evil and Altruistic? Figuring out how to express that gives you a great prompt right there. Conversely, alignment can be ignored in cases where you think it doesn't make sense (see the bit about swords-and-sorcery in my last post) because D&D functions just fine if you arbitrarily declare that all creatures are TN and alignment magic is gone.

As for mechanical hooks, people have already given examples of systems that work based on alignment systems--Dark Side points, join-Cthulhu-if-you-go-insane sanity meters, and so forth--and then you have the usual detecting/smiting/etc. stuff as well. If you want to represent profane shrines, corrupted swamps, and so forth, there's really no substitute for a mechanical alignment system, especially in a D&D-like setting where "evil" means everything from demons to undead to aboleths so you can't just point to a handful of creatures or one kind of magic or whatever and key everything to those.


Edit: also you haven't actually answered my question. So I'll state it again: why do you need the confirmation, even when its so obvious beyond all reasonable doubt that they are evil?

Again, even if detect evil were (anti)magically removed from the game, there are still plenty of benefits to having alignment around, Evil is not just a neon sign in the shape of a skull.


That's good/evil, mind you. I've yet to see a plausible case of the law/chaos helping with anything. Really, it seems that the entire D&D alignment system is essentially a tool for being able to slap a big, red "EVIL" label on some people or things. Everything else is just twisting logic into knots trying to pretend it's some kind of sensible larger framework.

Law and Chaos have a much vaster pedigree than Good and Evil in terms of fiction and mythology alike. Lots of real-world religions have a fundamental law-vs.-chaos struggle in their mythology (can't give specific examples here, obviously) and while Moorcock's specific take on it was the closest inspiration for D&D there's plenty of other authors and series who delve into that conflict. If anything, the ethical axis is more important and influential than the moral one both at a personal scale ("Sure, you want to be the good guy, but what kind of good guy?") and a cosmic one, and if you put a gun to my head and forced me to ditch one of the two axes in my games I'd ditch Good and Evil and keep Law and Chaos.


In what way would my player experience suffer if I say in session 0 "You are all fighting on the side of truth, justice, and cosmogical goodness" rather than implementing a 3x3 grid system and telling them to only be in these three arbitrary squares?

Those "three arbitrary squares" are broad enough to contain literally the entire span of real-world moral and ethical philosophy and a broad variety of characters from fiction, mythology, and history can fit in each of those squares.


In what way *specifically* would my players be unable to experience a cosmological struggle by my decision not to label things as NE or LG? (Assuming I'm playing in 5e, where alignment has no associated mechanics.)

If you were to describe the Blood War to your players, how would you do that? Would you, perchance, go into detail about how demons are power-hungry maniacs who give into every evil whim and want to carve up the multiverse into little fiefdoms for every demon prince while devils are cunning and strategic types who embody the evils of bureacracy and believe the multiverse must be placed under the Baatorian yoke and so on and so forth?

Congratulations, you've just reinvented the LE and CE labels, you've just gone out of your way not to use labels because they're bad or something.

Like, seriously, Order and Chaos show up all over basically every mythological system (see e.g. here (https://www.encyclopedia.com/science-and-technology/astronomy-and-space-exploration/astronomy-general/cosmogony) and here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_(cosmogony)#Chaoskampf) for some examples), and Good and Evil has been doing the same thing since at least Zoroastrianism. I simply don't understand why applying near-universal symbolic mythical principles to a roleplaying game involving creatures, places, items, and plots from those same myths is such a controversial idea.


In what way *specifically* am I depriving them by not using a "corruption points" system and instead working through the effects of a character falling to evil organically, working together with the player?

Serious answer? Many character arcs that involve explicitly pre-planning things between the player and the GM are generally either very fragile or very capricious.

Fragile, because unless you heavily railroad the party and you have a very cooperative group, the plot can go in totally unforeseen directions that require making drastic alterations to the plot arc or perhaps render the planned arc impossible, other players can do things that derail the arc either intentionally (e.g. they don't want to deal with a fall-and-redemption arc in the game so they sabotage it) or accidentally (e.g. a cleric PC saves an important NPC in the PC-to-fall's backstory who would otherwise have set them on their dark path), the player of the PC-to-fall can derail it themselves either accidentally (e.g. they realize that, whoops, after something that happened a few sessions ago they need to add in some epicycles so their arc still make sense) or intentionally (e.g. they come up with an awesome idea mid-campaign and want to take things in a different direction), and so on.

Capricious, because if there are no hard-and-fast rules for corruption then a GM has to issue rulings on a bunch of game elements, the GM and players might disagree how corrupting certain acts are (see: every player ever who wanted to play a Mace Windu-style "carefully walk the boundary between Light and Dark" Gray Jedi character in a Star Wars game run by a "one Dark Side act and you fall" GM), and so on.

And then there's the basic fact that a lot of games have uncertain schedules or varying group compositions or rotating GMs or are plot-less sandboxes or whatever, and pre-planning character arcs just doesn't make sense for logistical reasons either in- or out-of-game.

Having defined corruption mechanics puts everyone on the same page, ensures fairness and impartiality, removes the need to pre-plan character arcs while not preventing someone from planning them, and such. Plus, it allows for more organic "falling" scenarios, where there's a mechanic right in the book that says you can do X at the cost of Y and you hadn't planned for your character to take that step but y'know this boss is pretty hard and you could use a bit more oomph in your spells/Force powers/etc., so why not just dip a toe in the deep end of the morality pool...., adding spontaneity and character variety in the same way that wizards learning spells from scrolls instead of picking them at level-up, getting random treasure and incorporating that into your build, and the like can.


ON CORRUPTION SYSTEMS:
This presents a bit of a problem. You said Alignment is Descriptive, but Corruption Systems are Prescriptive. And also you said using Alignment Prescriptively is being a bad GM, but Alignment Systems are always good for High Fantasy, but a High Fantasy system using Prescriptive Alignment is... good for High Fantasy?

You're using very...interesting definitions of descriptive and prescriptive, here. When I used them, and pretty much every other time I've seen them used in alignment discussions, here's what it means: some people think alignment is prescriptive, where you put CG on your PC's character sheet and now you're a robot locked into some random CG personality until the end of time and if they act outside their alignment the DM says "You can't do that, you're CG!", while in fact it is descriptive, where you put CG on your PC's character sheet but can act however you feel your character would and if they act outside their alignment then their alignment changes to match.

Similarly, Dark Side points are descriptive, in that if you do Dark Side-y things you get Dark Side points and if you keep doing Dark Side-y things you keep getting Dark Side points until you fall off the moral cliff but if you try to atone you lose Dark Side points until you come back from the brink. A prescriptive corruption system would be a setup where, I dunno, as soon as you have a single Dark Side point you're not allowed to be polite to people and are obligated to kick one puppy per week, or something.


On Dungeon World:
I mean, according to you so long as it has a Detect Evil spell it has alignment, and Alignment is required for High Fantasy, so DW should be able to do High Fantasy just fine, since all that's needed (according to you) is Alignment and Combat systems. Yet it's an affront to High Fantasy and made for Sword and Sorcery....

"High fantasy games really need an alignment system" does not at all imply "any game with an alignment system is automatically a high fantasy system," any more than "school buses need to have a flashing stop sign on them to comply with local laws" implies "putting flashing red lights on your car legally turns it into a school bus." :smallannoyed:

I pointed out the Paladin's Detect Evil ability not because it's some secret sauce that the alignment system requires to function, but because everyone who's against alignment has been focusing all their ire on detect evil as the primary sin of the alignment system for reasons I can't fathom, and then you turned around and held up Dungeon World, a game with an alignment system and Detect Evil, as a counterexample to D&D, that's all.


If you're going to bring the EU into things, it needs to be the whole EU, and when you do that the notion of the Force as binary really falls aparnt.

Hardly. The Potentium may claim that the Force is innately good and the Aing-Tii may believe that there are more shades of nuance between pure Light and pure Dark, but that doesn't mean that their views are accurate (the Potentium's "Oh, there's no such thing as the Dark Side, as long as you don't mean to kill someone with Force Lightning it's hunky dory!" stance is pretty Sith-y in outlook) or that their views contradict those of all the other Force traditions (the Aing-Tii may think the Force has "rainbow shades" but that's basically the same as saying that there are gradations of Light and Dark, and no powers they use fall outside the standard dichotomy).


I have no problem with "Archeronian" as an alignment. By problem is specifically with the Good/Evil and Law/Chaos axes D&D uses, because I don't think they're useful or meaningful.

Why exactly is "Acheronian" perfectly acceptable but "Lawful Evil with Lawful tendencies" an abomination that must be deleted from the game? The point of the Great Wheel is that adjacent planes and different layers within the same plane have very similar but importantly different philosophical outlooks, and if you're going to use a bunch of planar alignments arranged by similarity but then refuse to acknowledge said similarity--and refuse to use labels that are applicable in settings with different cosmologies--then that just seems like being contrary for the sake of contrariness.


Why? That's the plot of The Stormlight Archive, which doesn't have an alignment system, at least not in the way D&D does.

The entire Knights Radiant setup involves holy knights who gain magical powers from oaths forged with higher beings, complete with falling and losing their powers if they break said oaths, and as Kabsal said, "Everything has its opposite, Shallan. The Almighty is a force of good. To balance his goodness, the Cosmere needed the Voidbringers as his opposite," where the Voidbringers are blatant "demon-corrupted mortal" types complete with glowing red eyes and red stormlight to set them apart from the good guys who have glowing light eyes and blue stormlight.

Paladin Kaladin may not have a sheet in the back of the book that says "Lawful Good Human Fighter 5/Windrunner 3" on it, but that's still a textbook example of when an alignment system would fit perfectly with an RPG implementation of the setting.

Lord Raziere
2020-11-04, 04:09 AM
@ Pair O' Dice: Here is the problem with those reasons

1. "Information Density" is unneeded and is actually unhelpful, its nothing but meaningless labels that get in the way of making the character what they actually are in favor of stereotypes, and actually tells me nothing about the character:
A CG elf ranger could be any number of things:
-serious pragmatic rebel drow wielding a crossbow who wants revenge
-cheerful wood elf wielding a sword who just wants to adventure
-decadent high elf noble wielding a bow refluffed as a magic wand that acts a rifle who is bored and wants to amuse themselves but with a good heart

the label didn't actually tell me anything about the character because there is so many things that could be, its meaningless

2. "Universality" Again, I don't see why I'd want this. If a different setting has different situations, there is no reason to shove a square into a round hole with misapplying one morality system. and again, the alignments don't actually tell me anything, because if the morality is different then "LG" for example is defined as, changes from setting to setting, so if LG isn't even consistent, why even have it? I see problem with this kind of attempting to slot in alignments to everything with a whole bunch of characters in fiction, especially more complex ones.

3. "Overlaying" this point contradicts information density because your adding on more labels into a string of words that could again mean anything when your point about it was it was efficient but your making it less efficient by adding on more words. and if you agree with me that situations where alignment doesn't make sense can be ignored, great welcome to 5th edition where its minimized to nothing because it never made any sense

4. "Hooks" Except there is substitutes. a corrupted swamp is an environmental hazard like anything else. You don't need alignment on top of it. sanity is not an alignment system, its a mental health system, that I wouldn't play regardless because I don't play horror. I wouldn't play any game with corruption in it, because I don't want my characters corrupted if I don't want them to. such mechanics just make me uninterested and uncomfortable.

5. "Reinvented the labels" No thats just describing the Hells better, CE and LE don't tell me anything. I've seen people argue that someone is "Lawful" because they follow a internal code that has nothing to do with law, and I've seen people argue that someone can be "Chaotic" even if they don't break the law, while what is "Good" in DnD according to the peoples opinions I've seen many interpretations and they don't agree with each other

6. alignment can also lead to a paradox like this for example:
good person designs a weapon to kill all evil people using a holy explosion covering the entire world. the holy explosion kills all evil people, which is a victory for Good. except it isn't because there are numerous innocent evil people killed by it, thus the person who unleashed the most pure good in the world is evil for doing so. Except if you wield good energy and technically won a victory for good, how can you be evil? But if you fall for wielding good energy to win a victory for good, how good really is good if your capable of that? Isn't Good itself as a moral force, completely hypocritical then for punishing you for using it in that manner yet still making it happen?

lets simplify this to one evil innocent: you use smite evil on them and kill them for being evil, what the feature is designed to do, but then Good Itself punishes you for doing so by making you evil despite just allowing it to happen. So Good Itself hypocritically allows you to carry it out but then turns around and takes away the ability to do so despite fighting its cosmic enemy. you can't say Good Itself is unaware of this until its misused because its aware of your alignment and shifts it to Evil, because its always aware of your alignment and keeps track of it. Now Good COULD take your ability to do BEFORE you do it, but then that is punishing people for thoughtcrime. Thus either good Itself is hypocritically randomly choosing paladins to take its powers away from unless they maintain good thoughts at all times which would lead to willful blindness and self deception, or Good is hypocritically allowing innocents to die due to its own energies touching then punishing the paladins responsible for channeling itself to make sure innocent people die.

hamishspence
2020-11-04, 05:01 AM
Now Good COULD take your ability to do BEFORE you do it, but then that is punishing people for thoughtcrime. Thus either good Itself is hypocritically randomly choosing paladins to take its powers away from unless they maintain good thoughts at all times which would lead to willful blindness and self deception, or Good is hypocritically allowing innocents to die due to its own energies touching then punishing the paladins responsible for channeling itself to make sure innocent people die.
Skip the Evil for a moment. Good energy is capable of killing Neutral people.

A Holy Word cast by an 11th level caster will kill 1st level Neutral people. The majority of people will be 1st level. A cleric of a Good deity, or of the "cosmic force of Good", using Holy Word in a crowded city, will kill innocents, and will likely Fall and lose their powers.

Good "taking away the power after it's been used to kill" is really no different from a cop having his gun taken away after he's shot someone innocent .

It's the right thing to do. If the "cosmic force of Good" is incapable of acting before a person abuses the use of its power, only after, no "hypocrisy" is needed.

Lord Raziere
2020-11-04, 05:08 AM
Skip the Evil for a moment. Good energy is capable of killing Neutral people.

A Holy Word cast by an 11th level caster will kill 1st level Neutral people. The majority of people will be 1st level.

Good "taking away the power after it's been used to kill" is really no different from a cop having his gun taken away after he's shot someone innocent .

It's the right thing to do. If the "cosmic force of Good" is incapable of acting before a person abuses the use of its power, only after,, no "hypocrisy" is needed.

But if Good knows the person is innocent, then why do they die at all? The energy is the physical embodiment of goodness. Therefore it shouldn't be capable of physically doing anything that is wrong like harming an innocent. Otherwise it isn't an actual physical embodiment of good. Neutral people being harmed only further proves this.

Meaning Good isn't actually physically good.

Meaning what is Good really?

Thus either devolves into alien morality, or its not actually moral.

Vahnavoi
2020-11-04, 05:32 AM
The actual trope all variations of Holy Word are based on, is the idea that your petty and mortal soul cannot cope with presence of true divinity and will shrivel away in shame or fright.

hamishspence
2020-11-04, 06:05 AM
But if Good knows the person is innocent, then why do they die at all? The energy is the physical embodiment of goodness. Therefore it shouldn't be capable of physically doing anything that is wrong like harming an innocent. Otherwise it isn't an actual physical embodiment of good. Neutral people being harmed only further proves this.


Neutral people are a mixture of Good and Evil. The Good energy damages the Evil component in Neutral people - killing them.

Good people, by contrast, have so little Evil in them, that the Good energy cannot harm them - there's not enough there for the harmful reaction when Good energy collides with Evil energy.

Good and evil can combine constructively - as in regular life - or destructively - spells used by one, that damage the other.

NigelWalmsley
2020-11-04, 08:06 AM
Better yet, not having an alignment system means you don't have to label one side being "objectively right".

The thing is, alignment doesn't mean you're "objectively right". Because there isn't an "objectively correct" answer to moral questions. It just means that the universe is on a particular side. But you're under no obligation to agree with the universe. Indeed, you very likely disagree with the universe on questions like "should I eventually die" already, without bringing alignment into it.

Basically, imagine that you can't use the words "Good" and "Evil". One side is "Purple" and the other side is "Green". Why should the output of "Detect Green" change your opinion on the morality of someone it targets?


Information density.

Alignment isn't particularly dense with information. "Chaotic Evil" includes demons, drow, Red Dragons, orcs, White Dragons, and ghouls. Those aren't really "the same" in any useful sense.


Universality.

The words "Good" and "Evil" are universal, but that's about it. Different organizations are going to have different priorities and philosophies. The Empire in Star Wars and Ruin in Mistborn are probably both "Evil" in D&D terms, but they don't have the same overall goals in any meaningful sense.


Overlaying.

It seems to me that anything you could accomplish with "alignment + traits" you could accomplish by adding an additional trait.


If you want to represent profane shrines, corrupted swamps, and so forth, there's really no substitute for a mechanical alignment system, especially in a D&D-like setting where "evil" means everything from demons to undead to aboleths so you can't just point to a handful of creatures or one kind of magic or whatever and key everything to those.

Desecrate (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/desecrate.htm) would seem to disagree with you. That's probably the primary mechanic for representing a "profane shrine", and it doesn't make any specific reference to alignment at all. Even Unhallow (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/unhallow.htm) only references alignment in the Magic Circle effect, which is a fairly small part of what's going on there. Not only could you have sacred sites without alignment, the existing mechanics for sacred sites largely don't use alignment. You also don't want sacred shrines to demons, undead, and aberrations to be the same thing. For example, a ghoul necromancer cult would love to profane their temple in a way that causes it to radiate negative energy, because that heals them and hurts their enemies. But people who are trying to summon demons, or sacrificing victims to an aboleth for ancient knowledge, don't want that effect.


Those "three arbitrary squares" are broad enough to contain literally the entire span of real-world moral and ethical philosophy and a broad variety of characters from fiction, mythology, and history can fit in each of those squares.

This is not helping your case. If "Good" contains "every philosophy you might hold", it is effectively meaningless. For alignment to convey useful information, it has to be narrow. Once you make it narrow, you need more than three.


Congratulations, you've just reinvented the LE and CE labels, you've just gone out of your way not to use labels because they're bad or something.

No, you've invented the "Abyss" and "Baator" labels. Those aren't "Lawful Evil" and "Chaotic Evil". Vampire Feudalism is (arguably) also Lawful Evil, but it has very different values and behaviors from Baator. The Unseelie Court is (arguably) also Chaotic Evil, but it has very different values and behaviors from the Abyss.


Hardly. The Potentium may claim that the Force is innately good and the Aing-Tii may believe that there are more shades of nuance between pure Light and pure Dark, but that doesn't mean that their views are accurate (the Potentium's "Oh, there's no such thing as the Dark Side, as long as you don't mean to kill someone with Force Lightning it's hunky dory!" stance is pretty Sith-y in outlook) or that their views contradict those of all the other Force traditions (the Aing-Tii may think the Force has "rainbow shades" but that's basically the same as saying that there are gradations of Light and Dark, and no powers they use fall outside the standard dichotomy).

That sounds exactly like "there are multiple force philosophies". Certainly, you think they all map to the Light Side/Dark Side model from the OT, but if people in-world don't think that (which they presumably don't, on account of the Aing-Tii being Aing-Tii and not Sith), forcing everything to Light Side/Dark Side isn't a useful model of the world.


Why exactly is "Acheronian" perfectly acceptable but "Lawful Evil with Lawful tendencies" an abomination that must be deleted from the game?

Consider what happens when you add a second "Lawful-Lawful Evil" philosophy to your game. If your alignments are planar or philosophical, that's easy. You just declare that there is now a new faction of people, and they have some beliefs, and maybe they have some relationships with your other factions or whatever. But if your alignments are points on a compass, you either have to do a dance of increasingly absurd subdivisions (e.g. "these new guys are Lawful-Lawful-Lawful Evil, the Acheronians are Lawful-Neutral-Lawful Evil"), or you have to do exactly the thing planar and philosophical alignment systems are already doing and rely on names to explain the differences between things.


and refuse to use labels that are applicable in settings with different cosmologies

The labels aren't applicable in different cosmologies. They're the same labels, but the Order of the Emerald Claw is not the same as Baator.


The entire Knights Radiant setup involves holy knights who gain magical powers from oaths forged with higher beings, complete with falling and losing their powers if they break said oaths, and as Kabsal said, "Everything has its opposite, Shallan. The Almighty is a force of good. To balance his goodness, the Cosmere needed the Voidbringers as his opposite," where the Voidbringers are blatant "demon-corrupted mortal" types complete with glowing red eyes and red stormlight to set them apart from the good guys who have glowing light eyes and blue stormlight.

Paladin Kaladin may not have a sheet in the back of the book that says "Lawful Good Human Fighter 5/Windrunner 3" on it, but that's still a textbook example of when an alignment system would fit perfectly with an RPG implementation of the setting.

The Stormlight Archive absolutely has an alignment system. But it doesn't have D&D's alignment system, which is the point. It's system is better in a number of ways.

First, it is explicitly opt in. There's not some weird dance where the average person is a balanced mixture of Stoneward and Skybreaker or Bondsmith and Elsecaller. They're just not aligned. That's already better than D&D's system, because it means there's room outside of the defined alignments for people who's philosophy doesn't agree with any of them.

Second, it's not claiming to be objective morality. Being a Knight Radiant doesn't make you a good guy. The Skybreakers decided to pull for Team Odium (which means there are people with glowing blue eyes on the "Evil" side too). The only Dustbringer (at least as-of the end of Oathbringer) is on Team Diagram.

Third, it's clearly defined. Kaladin doesn't swear an oath to "Do Good", he swears to "Protect Those Who Cannot Protect Themselves" and "Protect Even Those I Hate". The latter is far more useful, because we can agree what it means. Kaladin hasn't sworn himself to the abstract concept of doing things we like, he's sworn to do a particular set of things.

Lord Raziere
2020-11-04, 08:30 AM
Neutral people are a mixture of Good and Evil. The Good energy damages the Evil component in Neutral people - killing them.

Good people, by contrast, have so little Evil in them, that the Good energy cannot harm them - there's not enough there for the harmful reaction when Good energy collides with Evil energy.

Good and evil can combine constructively - as in regular life - or destructively - spells used by one, that damage the other.

*Unamused stare* Hamish if your going to argue that individualism and selfishness are fundamentally evil thus necessary evils, we're going to have problems because I don't believe that or being functional or vital for anything for a second.

@ Vahnovoi: okay here is thing about that: yeah sure its a trope. but its blindly holding yourself to it without thought.

Like guys just because a trope exists and existed doesn't mean its a good idea or that we should preserve it for its own sake. sure its old, but that also means its from somewhere foreign. if you get too caught up in what some alien fantasy form of good is, when are you going to portray a fantasy good that y'know, people can actually relate to? a form of good that actually resembles what we know is good rather than bizarre alien good involving looking at eviltrons of people or using your virtutron weapons on other people?

like sure it exists, that doesn't mean it has to stay the same. you can make a Good that is actually good and doesn't kill people for "not being good enough", these tropes are not a straightjacket, you can change and rework them to make more sense. no one is going to weep over the loss of the headaches these tropes cause when played straight, okay? there more ways to use them. :smallsigh:

Edit: I agree with Nigel on the Stormlight Archive stuff

Vahnavoi
2020-11-04, 09:25 AM
@ Vahnovoi: okay here is thing about that: yeah sure its a trope. but its blindly holding yourself to it without thought.

Uh, no? I know exactly what it's for and why I'd want it in a game or not. I'm not "blindly holding" myself to anything, I brought it up because how Holy Word and derivatives injure and hurt people is relevant.


Like guys just because a trope exists and existed doesn't mean its a good idea or that we should preserve it for its own sake. sure its old, but that also means its from somewhere foreign. if you get too caught up in what some alien fantasy form of good is, when are you going to portray a fantasy good that y'know, people can actually relate to? a form of good that actually resembles what we know is good rather than bizarre alien good involving looking at eviltrons of people or using your virtutron weapons on other people?

like sure it exists, that doesn't mean it has to stay the same. you can make a Good that is actually good and doesn't kill people for "not being good enough", these tropes are not a straightjacket, you can change and rework them to make more sense. no one is going to weep over the loss of the headaches these tropes cause when played straight, okay? there more ways to use them. :smallsigh:

Firstly, you're presuming these things are particularly foreign or alien to me or my players. If they were actually foreign and alien, that would be a bonus, because unlike you, I am heavily interested in playing up the weird to create horror.

Secondly, I have no trouble running Alignment that is recognizably based on a real moral philosophy. The chief objection by NigelWalmsley to everything I've said is that somehow, when explicitly using a particular moral philosophy and defining Good and Evil in its terms (keeping in mind plenty of real moral system have no problems using words "good" and "evil"), using the words "Good" a and "Evil" is obscurantism and artificially making the discussion harder. The thing you seem to forget is that none of these have universal approval, so nothing guarantees they'd fit the taste of you or anyone like you. A lot of people don't like doing real moral philosophy because it quickly takes them to places they don't want to visit. You are appealing to common ground where there is none.

Thirdly, presence of Alignment you can't relate to doesn't mean absence of characters you can't relate to. How many bloody times do I have to say this? In its original form, the system allows playing of all nine Alignments. The only thing required of a player to play a character that fits their own morals, is accepting that in the framework of the given setting, they might not be Good.

ImNotTrevor
2020-11-04, 12:09 PM
1) Information density. One of the major benefits of D&D's race and class system compared to more freeform systems is the ability to briefly convey a lot of information about your character. You can give a newbie one list of races and one list of classes, have them pick something from each, and go from there, and an experienced player saying "I'm an Elf Ranger" conveys a heck of a lot of information about their character, compared to more fiddly games like GURPS where a newb has to do everything from scratch and a veteran can't convey detail "packages" in the same way. Alignment is basically that for roleplaying prompts: Saying "here are six flavors of general moral and ethical outlook, pick one" can get a newbie thinking about character motivations and such without going through long lists of character traits or whatever, and "I'm a CE Elf Ranger" vs. "I'm a LG Elf Ranger" is a quick way to convey party dynamics and such between veterans.
Alignment isn't information dense. It's Vague.

John is Lawful Good. Based on that:
What are his goals?
What does he value?
What is his biggest struggle?

I know none of this information, and alignment implies none of it. And this information is much better roleplaying info than alignment is precisely because it's less vague.



2) Universality. In games with defined settings, a character's moral and ethical outlook usually has something to do with the religions or organizations they belong to; in a real-world setting a character might be a Catholic or a Buddhist, and in Star Wars they might be a Jedi or a Sith, and each of those four things gives you a good sketch of their outlooks on life. But there are a lot of religions and organizations even in a single setting--if I tell you my d20 Modern character is a Zoroastrian or that my Star Wars character is a White Current Adept, do you know offhand what that means about their philosophy?--and D&D has a bunch of different settings to the point that "I worship the sun god" means very different things depending on whether you're talking about Pelor in Greyhawk, Amaunator in FR, Dol Arrah in Eberron, or Paraelemental Sun in Dark Sun.

Alignments, meanwhile, are constant across settings (to the point that people can meaningfully talk about what alignment characters from non-D&D settings would be) and there are exactly nine of them you need to remember.

We can post-hoc apply a lot of labels to a lot of fictional characters. That does not give them inherent value as a thing that must continue to exist.




3) Overlaying. People in this thread have talked about replacing alignments with character traits or the like, but the great thing is that they're not mutually exclusive, you can use both (as 5e kinda sorta does). What's more, adding that extra layer can give you more depth: a character who's Altruistic is one thing, but a character who is Lawful Evil and Altruistic? Figuring out how to express that gives you a great prompt right there. Conversely, alignment can be ignored in cases where you think it doesn't make sense (see the bit about swords-and-sorcery in my last post) because D&D functions just fine if you arbitrarily declare that all creatures are TN and alignment magic is gone.

As for mechanical hooks, people have already given examples of systems that work based on alignment systems--Dark Side points, join-Cthulhu-if-you-go-insane sanity meters, and so forth--and then you have the usual detecting/smiting/etc. stuff as well. If you want to represent profane shrines, corrupted swamps, and so forth, there's really no substitute for a mechanical alignment system, especially in a D&D-like setting where "evil" means everything from demons to undead to aboleths so you can't just point to a handful of creatures or one kind of magic or whatever and key everything to those.

I can't talk about or have a profane and corrupted place without alignment? Bulldroppings, plain and simple.

[The Desecrated Temple]
The moment you set foot in this place, a chill runs through you. The shadows seem to quiver unnaturally and lunge for you out if the corner of your eye. The stains of blood upon the walls and floor must be hundreds of years old, and yet they still seem fresh. The wind through the shattered windows sounds like distant screaming, and the stained glass visage of The Kindly Judge now looks more like the rictus grin of a corpse.
[Entities not allied to The Dark Sovereign are treated as if under the effect of a Bane spell while within this location.]

Bingo. A profane location, with a simple mechanic which does not rely on alignment. Easy.




Again, even if detect evil were (anti)magically removed from the game, there are still plenty of benefits to having alignment around, Evil is not just a neon sign in the shape of a skull.



Law and Chaos have a much vaster pedigree than Good and Evil in terms of fiction and mythology alike. Lots of real-world religions have a fundamental law-vs.-chaos struggle in their mythology (can't give specific examples here, obviously) and while Moorcock's specific take on it was the closest inspiration for D&D there's plenty of other authors and series who delve into that conflict. If anything, the ethical axis is more important and influential than the moral one both at a personal scale ("Sure, you want to be the good guy, but what kind of good guy?") and a cosmic one, and if you put a gun to my head and forced me to ditch one of the two axes in my games I'd ditch Good and Evil and keep Law and Chaos.


This kinda leaves out how many stories in fiction say "law and chaos" but really it's just good and evil under new labels. "The land was a perfect and beautiful utopia of morally pure people until the God of Chaos showed up!" It's really common and is clearly not meaning the same thing as law and chaos mean in D&D.



Those "three arbitrary squares" are broad enough to contain literally the entire span of real-world moral and ethical philosophy and a broad variety of characters from fiction, mythology, and history can fit in each of those squares.

So can the two squares "human" and "not human."
That doesn't make the categories useful nor necessary, which is the thing you need to do here: show that these squares are a NECESSITY, since you asserted that any high fantasy campaign requires their inclusion.




If you were to describe the Blood War to your players, how would you do that? Would you, perchance, go into detail about how demons are power-hungry maniacs who give into every evil whim and want to carve up the multiverse into little fiefdoms for every demon prince while devils are cunning and strategic types who embody the evils of bureacracy and believe the multiverse must be placed under the Baatorian yoke and so on and so forth?

Congratulations, you've just reinvented the LE and CE labels, you've just gone out of your way not to use labels because they're bad or something.

So you admit I can forego the alignment and High Fantasy still works functionally the same? Great, we can be done.

And yeah, in my experience putting the stickers on things breeds a qualitatively different reaction from players and DMs.

Do you know what immediately solved all alignment squabbles at my table? Dumpstering it as a concept in favor of having a conversation during session 0 about our desired tone and regular check-ins. It has never been a problem since, and the quality of the roleplay has gone up since players worry less about "what does being Lawful Good mean I should do" and more about "What does my character WANT?"

The new players introduced since I began have more naturally flowed into the roleplaying than they did with alignment in place, since they see their character as a PERSON, and not an ALIGNMENT.

Turns out a lot of those growing pains into roleplay are quite artificial.




Like, seriously, Order and Chaos show up all over basically every mythological system (see e.g. here (https://www.encyclopedia.com/science-and-technology/astronomy-and-space-exploration/astronomy-general/cosmogony) and here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_(cosmogony)#Chaoskampf) for some examples), and Good and Evil has been doing the same thing since at least Zoroastrianism. I simply don't understand why applying near-universal symbolic mythical principles to a roleplaying game involving creatures, places, items, and plots from those same myths is such a controversial idea.

I'm not saying you can't. But I am saying you don't need to, and that insisting nobody can do high fantasy with mythological stakes without your sacred cow being involved is a laughable assertion.




Serious answer? Many character arcs that involve explicitly pre-planning things between the player and the GM are generally either very fragile or very capricious.
Who said I'm pre-planning? I'm working together with the player to see what makes sense as we go. You do know that it's allowed and even fun to play some things by ear, right?



Fragile, because unless you heavily railroad the party and you have a very cooperative group, the plot can go in totally unforeseen directions that require making drastic alterations to the plot arc or perhaps render the planned arc impossible, other players can do things that derail the arc either intentionally (e.g. they don't want to deal with a fall-and-redemption arc in the game so they sabotage it) or accidentally (e.g. a cleric PC saves an important NPC in the PC-to-fall's backstory who would otherwise have set them on their dark path), the player of the PC-to-fall can derail it themselves either accidentally (e.g. they realize that, whoops, after something that happened a few sessions ago they need to add in some epicycles so their arc still make sense) or intentionally (e.g. they come up with an awesome idea mid-campaign and want to take things in a different direction), and so on.

Since I'm not going to throw a hissyfit if my loosely defined plans go a bit pear-shaped and I *continue working with the player through this process, rather than a one and done, because I have a brain,* none of the above applies.



Capricious, because if there are no hard-and-fast rules for corruption then a GM has to issue rulings on a bunch of game elements, the GM and players might disagree how corrupting certain acts are (see: every player ever who wanted to play a Mace Windu-style "carefully walk the boundary between Light and Dark" Gray Jedi character in a Star Wars game run by a "one Dark Side act and you fall" GM), and so on.
Imagine not knowing that players are humans and you can talk to them to solve all these problems.

Talk to your players like reasonable humans. It works wonders.



And then there's the basic fact that a lot of games have uncertain schedules or varying group compositions or rotating GMs or are plot-less sandboxes or whatever, and pre-planning character arcs just doesn't make sense for logistical reasons either in- or out-of-game.

Again, not pre-planning it and making it an ongoing conversation solves these problems.



Having defined corruption mechanics puts everyone on the same page, ensures fairness and impartiality, removes the need to pre-plan character arcs while not preventing someone from planning them, and such. Plus, it allows for more organic "falling" scenarios, where there's a mechanic right in the book that says you can do X at the cost of Y and you hadn't planned for your character to take that step but y'know this boss is pretty hard and you could use a bit more oomph in your spells/Force powers/etc., so why not just dip a toe in the deep end of the morality pool...., adding spontaneity and character variety in the same way that wizards learning spells from scrolls instead of picking them at level-up, getting random treasure and incorporating that into your build, and the like can.

I can accomplish literally all of this by talking to my players as we go.

Amazing.




You're using very...interesting definitions of descriptive and prescriptive, here. When I used them, and pretty much every other time I've seen them used in alignment discussions, here's what it means: some people think alignment is prescriptive, where you put CG on your PC's character sheet and now you're a robot locked into some random CG personality until the end of time and if they act outside their alignment the DM says "You can't do that, you're CG!", while in fact it is descriptive, where you put CG on your PC's character sheet but can act however you feel your character would and if they act outside their alignment then their alignment changes to match.

Similarly, Dark Side points are descriptive, in that if you do Dark Side-y things you get Dark Side points and if you keep doing Dark Side-y things you keep getting Dark Side points until you fall off the moral cliff but if you try to atone you lose Dark Side points until you come back from the brink. A prescriptive corruption system would be a setup where, I dunno, as soon as you have a single Dark Side point you're not allowed to be polite to people and are obligated to kick one puppy per week, or something.

If I tell you that if you eat carrots I'll dye your hair blue, that's not exactly a Descriptive exchange, is it? The blue hair is less of a natural result of the thing happening and more like an outside entity determining the consequence, isn't it? Seems a bit more Prescriptive, when you look at what the exchange actually is. The prescription end is: "you did X, so now you are more evil and here are the consequences, regardless of if they make sense in context."




"High fantasy games really need an alignment system" does not at all imply "any game with an alignment system is automatically a high fantasy system," any more than "school buses need to have a flashing stop sign on them to comply with local laws" implies "putting flashing red lights on your car legally turns it into a school bus." :smallannoyed:
I mean, you've given no other requirements for me to work with, so if a system meets the requirements for High Fantasy then it must, therefore, be capable of achieving it as an aesthetic.



I pointed out the Paladin's Detect Evil ability not because it's some secret sauce that the alignment system requires to function, but because everyone who's against alignment has been focusing all their ire on detect evil as the primary sin of the alignment system for reasons I can't fathom, and then you turned around and held up Dungeon World, a game with an alignment system and Detect Evil, as a counterexample to D&D, that's all.


The core problem, however, remains:
You have yet to demonstrate why High Fantasy as an aesthetic, or the clash of Good and Evil as a theme, is IMPOSSIBLE without formalized alignment, as you previous asserted alignment systems are a "requirement" or "necessity" for High Fantasy campaigns, but have yet to tell me why I CANNOT achieve the same themes and aesthetic without the 3x3 grid.


This is why I don't take alignment seriously, especially as D&D does it. It doesn't add anything meaningful that I can't achieve with decent DM notes and talking. Nearly every other system DOES.

NigelWalmsley
2020-11-04, 04:12 PM
The chief objection by NigelWalmsley to everything I've said is that somehow, when explicitly using a particular moral philosophy and defining Good and Evil in its terms (keeping in mind plenty of real moral system have no problems using words "good" and "evil"), using the words "Good" a and "Evil" is obscurantism and artificially making the discussion harder.

Because that's literally and exactly the thing it is. Insisting on using a word that does not mean the thing you are talking about instead of a word that does is exactly obscurantism. It's practically definitionally obscurantism.


A lot of people don't like doing real moral philosophy because it quickly takes them to places they don't want to visit.

I get that. There's a real desire to just do hack and slash. And that's fine. But you know what Alignment does in that situation? It raises awkward questions about why you're the literally-and-explicitly Good guys if what you do is practically indistinguishable from violent robbery. If you want to sweep morality under the rug, absolutely the last thing you want to do is throw around Good and Evil (especially in a traditional fantasy setting).

Lord Raziere
2020-11-04, 04:36 PM
I get that. There's a real desire to just do hack and slash. And that's fine. But you know what Alignment does in that situation? It raises awkward questions about why you're the literally-and-explicitly Good guys if what you do is practically indistinguishable from violent robbery. If you want to sweep morality under the rug, absolutely the last thing you want to do is throw around Good and Evil (especially in a traditional fantasy setting).

Yeeeah, the only reason videogame rpgs get away with this "kleptomaniac killer" thing is gameplay and story segregation: most rpgs don't acknowledge the hero is going around stealing things from random containers, nor do they talk about random encounters all that much. the story often assumes they're moral people and focuses on the important fights they do rather questioning the morality of every single encounter. this is partly because the game needs mechanics to support a gameplay loop and there is only so much dialogue you can put in due to work

y'know, unless they're specifically pointing out how your not a good person for doing so in a post-modern or snarky manner.

Edit: so....yeah, DnD as always, has a bit of identity problem. its gameplay loop of going into dungeons, killing monsters and acquiring loot contradict its alignment system. why? because adventurers going around killing things in dungeons is actually the least effective way to solve things using objective morality. the logical moral conclusion of the alignment system is that evil should be redeemed, because killing them sends them to the lower planes where they lose all hope of redemption, empowering the lower planes. But the murderhobo style of play is so ingrained into DnD that it is the assumed default, with even a specific term for it and every videogame that has its roots in DnD being basically that very same playstyle just with the social mechanics replaced with cutscenes that contrast with what the player is actually doing, and people kill goblins and orcs in DnD all the time. Thus evil is slowly winning, according to such logic. except this is game that supposed to be about good winning, heroic fantasy which is a genre that supposed to be about Good winning. so the stated goal of the game and what is actually happening doesn't match. except without the gameplay/story segregation of a videogame you have to come up with a reason why they actually do and.....DnD does a poor job of that. in the sense that it doesn't have an explanation either. it just assumes you want to play random adventurers and kill things in combat......

.....when arguably the best way for good to win is to be a diplomat who maxes diplomacy who then proceeds to persuade all the nations to follow the edicts of the good gods or something, then uses their institutions to train a bunch of professionals to do all the adventuring work for you but instead of keeping it to themselves, takes what they find and figures out how they can be best used for the public good and have a bunch of procedures about whether or not some random ruin should be checked out because there is archaeological concerns about ruining artifacts that might be valuable information, and even then how the professionals should engage with the life forms in there, figuring out which ones should be fought at all before engaging and all that jazz, which would quickly become a procedural kind of thing that I don't think most people would like, no room for quirky adventurer characters when you all need to be stiff professionals following the necessary rules.

NigelWalmsley
2020-11-04, 05:55 PM
Yeeeah, the only reason videogame rpgs get away with this "kleptomaniac killer" thing is gameplay and story segregation: most rpgs don't acknowledge the hero is going around stealing things from random containers, nor do they talk about random encounters all that much. the story often assumes they're moral people and focuses on the important fights they do rather questioning the morality of every single encounter. this is partly because the game needs mechanics to support a gameplay loop and there is only so much dialogue you can put in due to work

You also shouldn't understate how bad of an idea calling one side explicitly "Good" is. It's a lot easier to avoid questioning your life choices in World of Warcraft or Fallout when you don't have "you are Good and Lawful for killing all those Orcs" shoved in your face. People can mind caulk a lot of you don't insist on drawing their attention to difficult questions. For the most part, of you want to do Hack 'n' Slash, you can just... do Hack 'n' Slash. Combat tends to be fun, and people are (perhaps disturbingly) willing to accept fairly minimal narrative connective tissue between fight scenes (see: most action movies).


Edit: so....yeah, DnD as always, has a bit of identity problem. its gameplay loop of going into dungeons, killing monsters and acquiring loot contradict its alignment system.

D&D's problem is that it's a weird mix of Iron Age, Medieval, and Age of Exploration tropes, which results in a moral setup that is... not well-aligned with the moral sentiments of most people. Layer the idea that the side of "basically conquistadors" is objectively Good on top of that and you get some real issues.


why? because adventurers going around killing things in dungeons is actually the least effective way to solve things using objective morality. the logical moral conclusion of the alignment system is that evil should be redeemed, because killing them sends them to the lower planes where they lose all hope of redemption, empowering the lower planes.

I'm not actually convinced that's true. The planes are supposed to be infinite, so it's not entirely clear if you can meaningfully increase or decrease their power. Insofar as D&D seems to abide by the "Gods Need Worship Badly" paradigm, it seems at least plausible that if you were to kill off all the mortal followers of Orcus, that might be a more effective anti-Orcus strategy than trying to persuade them to get on board with Pelor. Which doesn't really address the underlying "holy crap that's awful" of things, but I'm not convinced the overall thing is quite as bad as you say.

Lord Raziere
2020-11-04, 07:33 PM
I'm not actually convinced that's true. The planes are supposed to be infinite, so it's not entirely clear if you can meaningfully increase or decrease their power. Insofar as D&D seems to abide by the "Gods Need Worship Badly" paradigm, it seems at least plausible that if you were to kill off all the mortal followers of Orcus, that might be a more effective anti-Orcus strategy than trying to persuade them to get on board with Pelor. Which doesn't really address the underlying "holy crap that's awful" of things, but I'm not convinced the overall thing is quite as bad as you say.

Hey man, that is just what I've seen argued in response to my arguments how I don't like killing stuff for flimsy alignment reasons, by people on this very forum. I'm just repeating what others have said about DnD morality on that specific paragraph. while the murderhobo interpretation of DnD is common, on this forum there is a lot of people that try to argue for the redemption/morality play interpretation I just talked about, which I blame Book of Exalted Deeds for.

hamishspence
2020-11-05, 02:05 AM
*Unamused stare* Hamish if your going to argue that individualism and selfishness are fundamentally evil thus necessary evils, we're going to have problems because I don't believe that or being functional or vital for anything for a second.

Whether or not selfishness is evil in the real world, it's consistently portrayed as evil in D&D.

Vahnavoi
2020-11-05, 02:31 AM
Because that's literally and exactly the thing it is. Insisting on using a word that does not mean the thing you are talking about instead of a word that does is exactly obscurantism. It's practically definitionally obscurantism.

There's a standard procedure for when a work wants to use non-standard definition of a term. The rules fit it to the T; the constructions I've given you follow it to the T. That's not obscurantism, that's step one to avoiding it.

That you still keep harping about it, is no different to a medical doctor complaining to an electrician how they keep using "positive" and "negative" wrong. In natural language, words that are written and said the same sometimes still mean different things; most speakers of those languages cope with it just fine.

Lord Raziere
2020-11-05, 03:39 AM
Whether or not selfishness is evil in the real world, it's consistently portrayed as evil in D&D.

Is it?

Your talking about a wider world than you think. the game's protagonists entire goals are: acquiring material possessions and gaining power until they are level 20 through violence. that is Greed and ambition viewed as the default motivation for anyone playing, with long lists of potions, magic items, treasures, details of kind of features you gain as you level.

This tendency to do the acts of selfishness often remain even on Good characters. If literally acquiring anything material and immaterial to become more powerful and killing anyone in your way to do so isn't selfish, I don't know what is. its what the game is known for, its core gameplay loop

Ah! but here is where someone jumps in with "oh but its some alien form of good that doesn't match entirely to we want good to be". and somehow this makes it beyond criticism. It doesn't. Why? Because DnD is many things, but what it isn't, is a game successfully portraying an alien culture and morality. Its too shallow, all these reasonings that somehow its portraying an objective morality universe and a bunch of alien things that come with it and its tropes....are headcanons at best, giving the universe way too much credit.

The detect evil and smite good features that is harped on as being "vital" aren't even a universal ability- they are an ability specific to paladins or clerics. entire campaigns can be played without these abilities even coming up, because no one even has them because they are neither of these classes. if alignment were as important as everyone says it was, wouldn't more classes get the ability to discern and make use of it? you could replace the cleric's party role with a druid and it would serve just fine. its perfectly possible to play without the ability to discern alignment even in 3.5, and some players on this very forum have gone on record to state that they'd rather not play with a paladin because of their morality.

thus the level of focus on morality people in this thread speak of, has always been optional, at best. only clerics and paladins have ability to even play out this "use alignment as a tool for this or that" mentality being talked about, every other class needs to use more relatable moral decisions to make things work, and they are no less DnD or less moral for doing so. these spells and abilities of smiting and detect evil were never vital, they were just denoting a focus that one can easily ignore, and is ignored even now, more than ever. you aren't even morally penalized by the alignment system for not having them or not focusing on it. you can easily be good without involving such matters, as DnD itself admits. all these mechanics get you is extra damage and distrust/paranoia, the latter of which DnD players already have in spades from going through dungeons where literally anything might kill you.

hamishspence
2020-11-05, 03:46 AM
Is it?

Your talking about a wider world than you think. the game's protagonists entire goals are: acquiring material possessions and gaining power until they are level 20 through violence. that is Greed and ambition viewed as the default motivation for anyone playing, with long lists of potions, magic items, treasures, details of kind of features you gain as you level.

This tendency to do the acts of selfishness often remain even on Good characters.

Badly played Good ones, maybe. The "greedy and ambitious" PCs, given their alignments accurately, would be Neutral at best.

Evil alignment language consistently has lines about greed, "taking what you want" and so forth:


Lawful Evil, "Dominator"
A lawful evil villain methodically takes what he wants within the limits of his code of conduct without regard for whom it hurts.

Neutral Evil, "Malefactor"
A neutral evil villain does whatever she can get away with. She is out for herself, pure and simple.

Chaotic Evil, "Destroyer"
A chaotic evil character does whatever his greed, hatred, and lust for destruction drive him to do. He is hot-tempered, vicious, arbitrarily violent, and unpredictable. If he is simply out for whatever he can get, he is ruthless and brutal. If he is committed to the spread of evil and chaos, he is even worse.


Good alignment language is consistently about helping others and self-sacrifice, etc.


"Good" implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others.


Lawful Good, "Crusader"
A lawful good character acts as a good person is expected or required to act. She combines a commitment to oppose evil with the discipline to fight relentlessly. She tells the truth, keeps her word, helps those in need, and speaks out against injustice.


Neutral Good, "Benefactor"
A neutral good character does the best that a good person can do. He is devoted to helping others.

Chaotic Good, "Rebel"
A chaotic good character acts as his conscience directs him with little regard for what others expect of him. He makes his own way, but he’s kind and benevolent. He believes in goodness and right but has little use for laws and regulations.

Lord Raziere
2020-11-05, 04:41 AM
Yet you cannot deny that the level and wealth systems favor a selfish mindset, with numerous magic items to draw you into doing anything to get them, levels to grow stronger for your own benefit and so on, with no commentary on why a good character would seek these things out, and again only 2/11's of the classes actually interact with the alignment system in any meaningful way. what you list, are broad generalizations and don't comment on how the adventurers actually adventure. they provide very general moral guidelines, but they notedly keep away from actually examining or commenting on what this means for adventurers, the people your supposed to play. don't you find that a little odd? you'd think that after what, 40 years, DnD would have some section in the core specifically commenting on the morality of adventurers in relation to the alignment system and what ways they're recommended to be played out to advise people so it isn't misused- instead the alignment system has been downsized into being irrelevant, and the 5e DMG focuses on other things.

Which says how important alignment really is: not very. its a thing to concern people interested in the divine of DnD 3.5 and nothing more. DnD is driven by its content based nature, and if there is no core content discussing how Adventurers be moral or not be moral, then its not something DnD is normally worried about.

hamishspence
2020-11-05, 04:51 AM
only 2/11's of the classes actually interact with the alignment system in any meaningful way.

Clerics, Druids, Bards, Paladins, Barbarians, Monks - all have some kind of penalty for being "the wrong alignment" even if it's only "cannot take any more levels".

Lord Raziere
2020-11-05, 06:19 AM
Clerics, Druids, Bards, Paladins, Barbarians, Monks - all have some kind of penalty for being "the wrong alignment" even if it's only "cannot take any more levels".

except these restrictions aren't equal are they? Clerics can be literally any alignment, the rest is just making up a god to match it. you could throw out every single canonical pantheon in DnD and just make up whatever god you want.

For bards and barbarians their "restriction" is "any nonlawful". You might as well have given them a free adventuring ticket with no repercussions

Monk is "any Lawful" which ignores all the chaotic martial artists in fiction who are arrogant about their power and don't play the rules, not emulating their tropes properly at all to restrict monks to very a vague label, not really specifying much beyond that. now you could say they're living an ascetic existence or whatnot, but paladins literally have a more restrictive code of behavior than them, when you'd think they'd at least be equal.

Druid is oddly, limited to the five "neutral" alignments. Pure good. Pure Lawful. Pure Chaos. Pure Evil or Pure Neutral. honestly this never made sense to me. Nature abhors purity. Life itself wouldn't exist without mixing things, everything being a mix is completely natural. If all five major forces of the universe can describe a druids morality, then all alignments can, because guess what? the other four are mixes of the pure four! if you can have a druid that believes in Chaos and one that believes in Good, its not hard to have one that believes in both. Yet, the Ranger who also has nature magic if less, gets the "any" alignment choice. Inconsistent. what is further inconsistent, is that The Beastlands and Arborea, these planes of infinite nature are explicitly CG, placing nature on the chaotic side of the spectrum, yet neither Ranger nor Druid get "any nonlawful" as their alignment choices? Yet a barbarian does?

Paladin on the other hand for some reason ONLY gets lawful good AND a highly specific code on top of that- which is inconsistent again with the ranger, who gets an "any" alignment choice despite having a similar class set up and being a more combat-focused counterpart to a divine class. The Paladins morality is the most restrictive while also giving him LESS power than a cleric. At least if you don't count the variant codes, but if you include those then you just have the Druid alignment problem in reverse: the paladin is bound to four extremes of moral/ethical mixes of behavior. Thing is, these almost make sense. Almost. Tyranny and Freedom hold water, but Slaughter is where alignment code restrictions goes laughably stark raving mad nutjob stupid and starts insisting that a Chaotic Evil person, an alignment defined by having zero moral or ethical restrictions .....has a code that gives them moral restrictions. cartoonish ones at that. go home alignment, your drunk! :smallbiggrin:

Problem is, an adventurers life inherently skews towards the Chaotic alignment. Your traveling around meeting random people you don't know at first, to go on high risk ventures that may or may not be illegal, involving unsafe situations and violence, and probably taking things that belonged to other people no matter how selfless your reasons, and will probably run afoul of one authority figure or another no matter how good or evil they are. The entire lifestyle is basically a code death trap for default paladins. There basically no reason for a default paladin to become one and deal with a bunch of probably nonlawful yahoos they don't know who might have an evil person among them when they can join a legitimate military or knightly order instead. I've never heard of a bard or a barbarian having alignment problems, but a paladin having alignment problems because of a bad GM is pretty much a cliche at this point.

hamishspence
2020-11-05, 09:11 AM
except these restrictions aren't equal are they? Clerics can be literally any alignment, the rest is just making up a god to match it.

Yes - but if they change to an alignment disallowed by that god - they lose their powers, and they have to either atone or find a different god to worship.

Plus, in some settings, you don't get to "make up a god" or "make up an ideal to follow" - you have to use one of the existing ones.

Finding a different god to worship may involve getting an atonement spell, or a quest from another cleric of that god, to prove eagerness to worship the new one and convince them that they won't defect again.

Vahnavoi
2020-11-05, 09:25 AM
A more important point is that even if you make up a god for your character to worship, by the rules you are not playing your own god; it's your GM who plays their part and thus decides whether your cleric is succesfully following their code of conduct.

Trying to come up with a god that'd specifically let you get away with anything and everything you want to do would be a pretty blatant attempt at gaming the system and grounds for your GM to say "Haha no. Just use one of the established deities or be a conceptual cleric".

Being a cleic of concepts is the actual 3e loophole you want to use when no god would fit your purposes. Which is a great reason to to ban clerics of concepts. :smalltongue:

Lord Raziere
2020-11-05, 09:46 AM
Yes - but if they change to an alignment disallowed by that god - they lose their powers, and they have to either atone or find a different god to worship.

Plus, in some settings, you don't get to "make up a god" or "make up an ideal to follow" - you have to use one of the existing ones.

Finding a different god to worship may involve getting an atonement spell, or a quest from another cleric of that god, to prove eagerness to worship the new one and convince them that they won't defect again.

And?

If a player has a clear concept for a cleric in mind, why would they ever need to change? Its pointless. you choose a god made up or not, and just follow their beliefs, its a character with a lot of work already done for you, but without any actual restriction on what can be done with that character, because you've already decided what you want to do with them. any story involving a cleric losing and regaining their gods favor or changing to a different one would just negatively impact group effectiveness without any real consequence other than annoying other players. while any story of converting from one god to another like evil one to a good one can be left to an interesting backstory

now sure a GM could keep track of the clerics alignment and tenets and try to get rid of their powers when they start developing their character a certain way or when they fail to do something their god expects them to, but there are so many gods with so many different tenets and practices I honestly wouldn't expect a GM to remember them all amid so many other details of a world. Furthermore a player would be more likely to keep track of the tenets and stick to them rigidly because its the character they want to play....and thus the stick of alignment is meaningless, because most players if they want to play such a concept wouldn't really care about changing deities midway through anyways- the spell list will be for the most part the same and if they wanted to play something else, they would've chosen that instead. thus assuming no one is a jerk, the path of least narrative resistance unfolds: the GM not planning his campaign around whether or not a player loses his powers and the player not planning to lose his powers, the GM just describes the cleric slowly becoming their gods most favored worshipper or whatever and the character just ends up becoming a high priest of their religion because that is the safest option that doesn't get arguments over morality or complicated changes to one's character sheet.

Thus the cleric can do whatever they want, with "what they want" being something they decided well in advance and is incredibly consistent with the reasons for their behavior, like any good character.

and if your playing a shallow game where that characterization doesn't matter all that much.....why would you even care?

Vahnavoi
2020-11-05, 03:39 PM
Man is there a lot to unpack there. I realize you are replying to hamisphence, not me, but at this point hamisphence needs all help they can get.


And?
If a player has a clear concept for a cleric in mind, why would they ever need to change?

D&D is a dynamic game where what happens to your character is meant to be decided through your actions in the game. Approaching it with the mentality that your character is governed by an unchanging high concept, is an user error so severe, it escapes the rule set entirely. It is like choosing to play a strong character, while failing to acknowledge that there are diseases and curses which could make your character temporarily or permanently weak.

This said, Alignment doesn't exist to punish pious clerics. More on this below.


Its pointless. you choose a god made up or not, and just follow their beliefs, its a character with a lot of work already done for you, but without any actual restriction on what can be done with that character, because you've already decided what you want to do with them.

Playing according normal rules, a player cannot decide beforehand everything they want to do, because they do not know everything that can or will happen in the game. If you ever manage to preplay your character to that extent, you are not approaching the game like a normal player, you are approaching it as a robot executing preprogrammed algorithm. Why even play at that point, when you know everything that can happen?


any story involving a cleric losing and regaining their gods favor or changing to a different one would just negatively impact group effectiveness without any real consequence other than annoying other players. while any story of converting from one god to another like evil one to a good one can be left to an interesting backstory

The statement that "Alignment exists to facilitate a trope" (etc.) does not mean that trope is prescribed to happen in every game, for every game. "Negatively impacting group effectiveness" isn't even a consideration at this level; you might as well be worrying about a character dying. It's a possibility, not an eventuality.


now sure a GM could keep track of the clerics alignment and tenets and try to get rid of their powers when they start developing their character a certain way or when they fail to do something their god expects them to, but there are so many gods with so many different tenets and practices I honestly wouldn't expect a GM to remember them all amid so many other details of a world.

So you're assuming the GM won't be able to do the exact thing the rules say is the GM's job? This is the most blatant bad faith argument I've seen yet.


Furthermore a player would be more likely to keep track of the tenets and stick to them rigidly because its the character they want to play....and thus the stick of alignment is meaningless, because most players if they want to play such a concept wouldn't really care about changing deities midway through anyways- the spell list will be for the most part the same and if they wanted to play something else, they would've chosen that instead.

The "stick" of Alignment does not exist to punish pious clerics, nor players who are honestly interested in playing a pious clerics.

It exists for players who want to play through the redemption story. The sort who sees the "stick" and goes "Ooh! Kinky!" and then deliberately trigger the mechanics in an equivalent of screaming "Punish me harder, Daddy!" at the GM.

It exists for player who, during play, find themselves unable or unwilling to continue following their original pledge for their character, as a model of how losing divine favor and switching deities might work in a game.

It exists for players who don't keep track of and stick to tenets of their character's faith, because they only wanted mechanical power, and need the GM to remind them that those mechanical powers came with strings attached in the setting.


thus assuming no one is a jerk, the path of least narrative resistance unfolds: the GM not planning his campaign around whether or not a player loses his powers and the player not planning to lose his powers, the GM just describes the cleric slowly becoming their gods most favored worshipper or whatever and the character just ends up becoming a high priest of their religion because that is the safest option that doesn't get arguments over morality or complicated changes to one's character sheet.

Yes, that is what happens when a player succesfully plays a pious cleric. "Narrative resistance" doesn't enter to it. You are just assuming the cleric overcomes all of it. That's not something that can be decided "well in advance" ; even if the cleric never sways from their faith, they might get eaten by grue due to a mistake unrelated to their faith.

Jason
2020-11-05, 04:19 PM
except these restrictions aren't equal are they? Clerics can be literally any alignment, the rest is just making up a god to match it. you could throw out every single canonical pantheon in DnD and just make up whatever god you want.That depends on the campaign world. In some you can basically have yourself as your deity, or some ideal. In others you must pick a member of an existing pantheon.


For bards and barbarians their "restriction" is "any nonlawful". You might as well have given them a free adventuring ticket with no repercussionsBarbarians are all about unleashed fury and impulsive action. Lawful alignment includes self-discipline and restraint. That is why they are incompatible. Same issue with bards - wandering adventuring minstrels are supposed to be unpredictable and somewhat chaotic.


Monk is "any Lawful" which ignores all the chaotic martial artists in fiction who are arrogant about their power and don't play the rules, not emulating their tropes properly at all to restrict monks to very a vague label, not really specifying much beyond that. now you could say they're living an ascetic existence or whatnot, but paladins literally have a more restrictive code of behavior than them, when you'd think they'd at least be equal.Again, self-discipline and restraint are required to develop martial arts. Arrogance and playing by your own set of rules can be lawful evil if they are combined with discipline.


Druid is oddly, limited to the five "neutral" alignments. Pure good. Pure Lawful. Pure Chaos. Pure Evil or Pure Neutral. honestly this never made sense to me. Nature abhors purity. Life itself wouldn't exist without mixing things, everything being a mix is completely natural. If all five major forces of the universe can describe a druids morality, then all alignments can, because guess what? the other four are mixes of the pure four! if you can have a druid that believes in Chaos and one that believes in Good, its not hard to have one that believes in both. Yet, the Ranger who also has nature magic if less, gets the "any" alignment choice. Inconsistent. what is further inconsistent, is that The Beastlands and Arborea, these planes of infinite nature are explicitly CG, placing nature on the chaotic side of the spectrum, yet neither Ranger nor Druid get "any nonlawful" as their alignment choices? Yet a barbarian does?Druids and Rangers had more logical alignment restrictions in earlier editions, where druids were limited to only True Neutral and Rangers had to be good-aligned. The argument is that druids must be at least partially neutral in order to maintain the emotional detachment that the natural world requires, where survival often comes at the expense of other animals and ugly things happen to baby animals and such. Rangers, on the other hand, were the protectors of the weak against the more savage parts of nature, and so had to be good-aligned.


Paladin on the other hand for some reason ONLY gets lawful good AND a highly specific code on top of that- which is inconsistent again with the ranger, who gets an "any" alignment choice despite having a similar class set up and being a more combat-focused counterpart to a divine class. The Paladins morality is the most restrictive while also giving him LESS power than a cleric. Again, earlier editions of D&D make more sense, because a paladin in those editions clearly was more powerful than the other character classes. Greater power came with greater responsibility, in effect. There are players who like having a strict code of conduct.


Problem is, an adventurers life inherently skews towards the Chaotic alignment. Your traveling around meeting random people you don't know at first, to go on high risk ventures that may or may not be illegal, involving unsafe situations and violence, and probably taking things that belonged to other people no matter how selfless your reasons, and will probably run afoul of one authority figure or another no matter how good or evil they are. The entire lifestyle is basically a code death trap for default paladins. There basically no reason for a default paladin to become one and deal with a bunch of probably nonlawful yahoos they don't know who might have an evil person among them when they can join a legitimate military or knightly order instead. I've never heard of a bard or a barbarian having alignment problems, but a paladin having alignment problems because of a bad GM is pretty much a cliche at this point.It's a debatable point. What you're describing is a common style of play, but only one style of play, after all. Player groups often undertake missions on behalf of legal authorities, which is right up a paladin's alley, especially if they are also religious authorities. Games can be played where all the players are in fact an order of knights. And the type of alignment problems you describe can happen for clerics or druids just as easily as for paladins.

Barbarians also had very tough restrictions on their behavior when originally introduced in the original Unearthed Arcana, like not being able to associate with magic users or use magic items at low levels(!) The theory was that this helped to balance their extra class abilities.

Part of the perceived unfairness of alignment restrictions in later editions is because the designers kept some restrictions while dumping others. Usually if they loosened up restrictions they also reduced the power of the class, but it's been somewhat inconsistent, noticeably with the paladin.

Vahnavoi
2020-11-05, 05:18 PM
Regarding barbarians, there is another, deeper reason they aren't supposed to be Lawful:

Robert E. Howard.

You know, creator of Conan the Barbarian.

Trying to keep this brief, the whole reason why Conan is a barbarian is because in Howardian philosophy, barbarianism represent true, vital and natural state of humans, while civilization is for weak pencil-necked gormless nerds.

Law, in D&D, means being for the group. It means being for civilization. Neutral means being for nature and Chaos means being for the individual. So of course barbarians, being chiefly inspired by Conan and Norse berserkers, you know, fierce warriors famous for individual prowess in combat, would stand in opposition to Law.

Lord Raziere
2020-11-05, 08:38 PM
That depends on the campaign world. In some you can basically have yourself as your deity, or some ideal. In others you must pick a member of an existing pantheon.

Barbarians are all about unleashed fury and impulsive action. Lawful alignment includes self-discipline and restraint. That is why they are incompatible. Same issue with bards - wandering adventuring minstrels are supposed to be unpredictable and somewhat chaotic.

Again, self-discipline and restraint are required to develop martial arts. Arrogance and playing by your own set of rules can be lawful evil if they are combined with discipline.

Druids and Rangers had more logical alignment restrictions in earlier editions, where druids were limited to only True Neutral and Rangers had to be good-aligned. The argument is that druids must be at least partially neutral in order to maintain the emotional detachment that the natural world requires, where survival often comes at the expense of other animals and ugly things happen to baby animals and such. Rangers, on the other hand, were the protectors of the weak against the more savage parts of nature, and so had to be good-aligned.

Again, earlier editions of D&D make more sense, because a paladin in those editions clearly was more powerful than the other character classes. Greater power came with greater responsibility, in effect. There are players who like having a strict code of conduct.

It's a debatable point. What you're describing is a common style of play, but only one style of play, after all. Player groups often undertake missions on behalf of legal authorities, which is right up a paladin's alley, especially if they are also religious authorities. Games can be played where all the players are in fact an order of knights. And the type of alignment problems you describe can happen for clerics or druids just as easily as for paladins.

Barbarians also had very tough restrictions on their behavior when originally introduced in the original Unearthed Arcana, like not being able to associate with magic users or use magic items at low levels(!) The theory was that this helped to balance their extra class abilities.

Part of the perceived unfairness of alignment restrictions in later editions is because the designers kept some restrictions while dumping others. Usually if they loosened up restrictions they also reduced the power of the class, but it's been somewhat inconsistent, noticeably with the paladin.

Wow I'm glad that we've moved further away from that sort of nonsense over time. all those "more logical" restrictions again just sound like blindly holding to old nonsensical campy cliches. So twee. Like a ranger having to be good just because? what you never heard of poachers? nobles who hunt for sport? Hellooo?

Lawful Bard: Dirge Singers of the Dhakaani, diplomats, people who strongly believe in singing old traditional songs to maintain one's culture, a herald who has rule to always tell the truth when sharing the news, an educator or teacher, things like that

Lawful Barbarian: a culture that has a strong tradition of ritualistically entering a rage to protect the people around them and only do so when they decide it is needed having rules about when they do so, a warrior who masters a meditative state who becomes incredibly eerily calm and focused that emulates a rage, a warrior possessed by a spirit that gets enraged when the rules are violated, a warrior from a culture that sees becoming a barbarian as a form of sacrificial martyrdom surpassing the paladin taking upon the sin of raging so as to fight for the gods and thus embody the wrath of the gods and they expected to take out as much of the energy before they die themselves, thing slike that.

CG Druid: goes around rescuing animals from evil nobles who hunt or use them for sport/entertainment in arenas

LG Druid: campaigns to pass environment conservation laws when needed.

LE Druid: Takes over the world so as to control the population of sapient beings by culling them systematically to make sure they don't overtake the natural world, seeing them as nothing but species disrupting the ecological balance

CE: "Animals don't have rules. Neither do I!"

Neutral Good Paladin: "The Law abuses as much as it helps, I must be above rules or chaos in my compassion."

Lawful Neutral Paladin: "My Country, right or wrong."

Chaotic Neutral Paladin: a guy who flips a coin to determine to help someone or not, believing chance is the only fairness in the world

Neutral Evil Paladin: "Its all about me, due to the imperfection of perception I can't be sure anyone in the world except me truly exists therefore the most moral action I can take is to always benefit myself at the expense of things that may or may not be people"

True Neutral Paladin: "I fight for mortals against any extraplanar influence! Leave mortals alone, we deserve to make our own decisions rather than be pawns to one side or another."


like, why don't you make a princess class with skills in getting kidnapped while your at it? Always female always LG Princess, class features is getting kidnapped but summoning an always male LG heroic knight to save her. Vizier class, Any evil, has spells like suggestion to make their good king minion obey them. But why stop there? we need to have A Destined Hero class who is always secretly the rightful king, of course always LG and their class features revolve around the fact that they are one that fights the BBEG and no one else, they get a sword of destiny, things like that. maybe even a Dead Mentor class to die and pass on lessons to its student and name all its class features after Obi-Wan quotes.

Then after that, we make an always LG Superman class that has to obey the Comics Code. No not superhero, Superman specifically we can't have variance, depth or creativity, only the most flimsy cliche surface level concept as per DnD tradition, because that is how they're "supposed" to be. because DnD is apparently a cartoon made in the 80's and can't ever be anything else.

Possible forms of play do not equal probable forms of play. Again, random adventurers meeting in a tavern is as cliche as any other fantasy trope now, and again players often have certain character concepts in mind they want to play before finding a game and DM's know that disallowing character concepts to play a more focused game often has trouble attached to it as not everyone cares for that kind of focused game, and thus again assuming no one is a jerk the path of least narrative resistance forms: the random adventurers all meet in a tavern and the GM accepts them all as viable character concepts and all the players just silently agree to not start trouble (or at least not too much trouble) with each other as each one personally doesn't want their character to get into needless trouble by stirring the pot and making them waste time on needless conflict through character interaction when they get to the good stuff they are actually here for, forming an unspoken "if its my party member, I leave it alone" partiality mindset, but paladins are reported to break that social convention and start morally chastising other players and treating them like any other person in the world when it comes to their moral beliefs which quickly gets annoying and problematic. Again such a behavior is so common that its a cliche that people feel need to parody and point out.

Again, 9 out of 11 of the classes already do DnD just fine without the detect evil morality you profess to be vital, most games don't concern itself with going with the focuses on organizations you speak of, therefore its clearly optional and ignorable. and again, some people on this forum have outright said they'd rather play DnD with EVIL characters than a paladin because the paladin won't be impartial to the party. all your arguing for is your headcanon about DnD being some good portrayal of some objective morality heroic/high fantasy ideal, which isn't well supported. its certainly an attempt at it, thats undeniable, but its execution is incredibly lacking in many areas as I have already pointed out.

Rynjin
2020-11-05, 09:22 PM
Barbarians are all about unleashed fury and impulsive action. Lawful alignment includes self-discipline and restraint. That is why they are incompatible. Same issue with bards - wandering adventuring minstrels are supposed to be unpredictable and somewhat chaotic.

Again, self-discipline and restraint are required to develop martial arts. Arrogance and playing by your own set of rules can be lawful evil if they are combined with discipline.

I've always had a problem with all of these, at it precludes three quite common narrative archetypes.

For Barbarians, the "cold fury" often portrayed in stories, where the righteous anger of the character in question is not allowed to explode randomly, but is controlled and channeled to devastating effect.

The scholar and scientific musician for Bards, who understand the underlying theory of music and the tales they tell (which is possible in Pathfidner and I believe 5e, as they both dropped the silly Chaotic only restriction).

And for Monks, as subject near and dear to my heart, the "fighting prodigy" who gets by mostly on natural training and physicality. I've been re-reading History's Mightiest Disciple Kenichi again recently, and a character that always stands out is a guy nicknamed (ironically enough), Berserker. He's a martial artist like everyone else, but essentially just feels his way through combat with no formal training at first; even when he finds a master later, the focus is on honing his natural talents rather than drilling techniques into him, because that is the best way to bring out his full potential. To a broader extent is the difference between "Sei" (focused, calm, methodical) and "Dou" (explosive, powerful, energetic) martial arts, which you can see borne out in real life to an extent in both styles (the difference between hard and soft styles) and in individuals within those styles that just have different attitudes toward martial arts.

Alignment is at its absolute worst in these interactions, where they act as prescriptions and restrictions on what kind of character a person can make, rather than simple descriptors of what a character IS or BELIEVES.

NigelWalmsley
2020-11-05, 10:50 PM
The Bard thing specifically is just absurd. Certainly there are approaches to music that are "wild" or "disordered" or "rebellious" or whatever word you think Chaotic means. But equally there are approaches to music that are deeply rigorous and based on mathematics.


The argument is that druids must be at least partially neutral in order to maintain the emotional detachment that the natural world requires, where survival often comes at the expense of other animals and ugly things happen to baby animals and such.

That only makes sense for a pretty limited view of what a "Druid" can be. A villain who rants about "nature red in tooth and claw" and "the strong consume the weak" and "adapt or die" is pretty plausibly a Druid, but does not seem especially neutral on any meaningful axis. There are a lot of philosophies you can have that are "about nature", and not all of them require emotional detachment. It seems to me that what alignment is doing here is pointlessly curtailing the range of supportable characters.


Again, earlier editions of D&D make more sense, because a paladin in those editions clearly was more powerful than the other character classes. Greater power came with greater responsibility, in effect. There are players who like having a strict code of conduct.

A code of conduct is a thing that is different from (and much more reasonable than) alignment. There's nothing inherently Lawful or Good about having a code of conduct, it's just a set of principles your character abides by. "Never pay for something you can take by force" is not something I'd describe as "Lawful" or "Good", but you could stick that in a code of conduct just fine.

Jason
2020-11-05, 11:12 PM
The whole idea of having character classes is to play recognizable archetypes. The earlier editions of D&D simply had archetypes thst were a little less generic and a little more recognizable.

Laughing Dog
2020-11-05, 11:34 PM
Regarding the people equating 'Bard' with 'musician':
Stop. Please. You are focusing on a single part of the class, and missing the rest of it. The reason bards are non-lawful is not because the are musically inclined. They are such because the are wayfarers, wanderers, folks who oft have wanderlust in their hearts. I suggest you read Keith Taylor's Bard series. This, I suspect is where a good chunk of the class' inspiration came from. (Admittedly, it's been a while since I read any of the four books.)

If you wish to make a musically inclined class that is specifically lawful, go ahead. I don't think that'll be high priority for Wizards anytime soon.

@Lord Raziere: So the True Neutral Paladin is basically the Rilmani, but in mortal form (and more mortal issues)?

Rynjin
2020-11-05, 11:44 PM
They are such because the are wayfarers, wanderers, folks who oft have wanderlust in their hearts.

This describes literally every adventuring character, otherwise they would be staying at home grinding away at whatever their chosen profession is.

Lord Raziere
2020-11-06, 12:14 AM
Regarding the people equating 'Bard' with 'musician':
Stop. Please. You are focusing on a single part of the class, and missing the rest of it. The reason bards are non-lawful is not because the are musically inclined. They are such because the are wayfarers, wanderers, folks who oft have wanderlust in their hearts. I suggest you read Keith Taylor's Bard series. This, I suspect is where a good chunk of the class' inspiration came from. (Admittedly, it's been a while since I read any of the four books.)

If you wish to make a musically inclined class that is specifically lawful, go ahead. I don't think that'll be high priority for Wizards anytime soon.

@Lord Raziere: So the True Neutral Paladin is basically the Rilmani, but in mortal form (and more mortal issues)?

Well yeah, 5e. alignment restrictions are kind not a thing so...you can be lawful bard without needing a class to specifically be lawful bard. specific class ain't needed, because what is having two alignment exclusive yet similar classes going to do other than take up space? you might as well make them one class and get rid of the alignment restriction altogether. which is what they did, and which is what I'm for.

and here is the other thing: you claim the bard needs a specific book series no one has ever heard of to get, Jason claims the archetype as "recognizable". these two views contradict each other, as needing to read a specific book series is the opposite of recognizable- its referential and thus obscure. the bard is only recognizable in the sense of what people see in the media that comes AFTER DnD. namely that they're useless foppish comic relief for the most part.

No idea who the Rilmani are either. I'm just drawing inspiration from the 5e Paladin's Oath of the Watchers.

like if you think I'm going to go read some obscure thing just so I can "understand" something in a rpg, your wrong. I didn't do that for Exalted when its fans said to, I'm not going to do so for this. its a bad attitude of "well you'd get it if you read all these side materials no one ever talks about, why haven't you already?" except applied to entirely separate series that technically have nothing to actually do with the game in question. and yeah, as Rynjin said, the "bard" your talking about literally sounds like every adventurer ever to exist. it could describe a lot of characters in fantasy in general not just DnD or its derivatives and to get a picture of how wide that is: DnD has LOOOOT of derivatives, and I'm not just talking about tabletop stuff.

Laughing Dog
2020-11-06, 01:05 AM
Well yeah, 5e. alignment restrictions are kind not a thing so...you can be lawful bard without needing a class to specifically be lawful bard. specific class ain't needed, because what is having two alignment exclusive yet similar classes going to do other than take up space? you might as well make them one class and get rid of the alignment restriction altogether. which is what they did, and which is what I'm for.

and here is the other thing: you claim the bard needs a specific book series no one has ever heard of to get, Jason claims the archetype as "recognizable". these two views contradict each other, as needing to read a specific book series is the opposite of recognizable- its referential and thus obscure. the bard is only recognizable in the sense of what people see in the media that comes AFTER DnD. namely that they're useless foppish comic relief for the most part.

No idea who the Rilmani are either. I'm just drawing inspiration from the 5e Paladin's Oath of the Watchers.

like if you think I'm going to go read some obscure thing just so I can "understand" something in a rpg, your wrong. I didn't do that for Exalted when its fans said to, I'm not going to do so for this. its a bad attitude of "well you'd get it if you read all these side materials no one ever talks about, why haven't you already?" except applied to entirely separate series that technically have nothing to actually do with the game in question. and yeah, as Rynjin said, the "bard" your talking about literally sounds like every adventurer ever to exist. it could describe a lot of characters in fantasy in general not just DnD or its derivatives and to get a picture of how wide that is: DnD has LOOOOT of derivatives, and I'm not just talking about tabletop stuff.

First: I did not claim that it needed a specific book series to read to understand (also do I really count as no one?). Do not put words in my mouth. It is neither appreciated nor does it do you any credit. If anything it makes you look like a rude, petty person.
Second: Apologies, I tend to think more in 3.x edition, so I tend not to consider later editions when something comes up in D&D.
Third: The Rilmani are a group of outsiders that are Neutral in the 'oppose the other alignments' sense. I was attempting to make a small joke.
Fourth: I do not expect you to do anything. I merely gave a suggestion. Please stop reacting with unnecessary vitriol.

Finally: Regarding the every adventurer bit: No, I'd say a large number are more motivated by desire for wealth or power than wanderlust. I agree that I didn't make a fairly clear point, as I am notably bad at getting my point across. (No, that is not an excuse.)

Lord Raziere
2020-11-06, 01:25 AM
.....Okay

I'm sorry. I had a bad experience. I didn't mean anything by it, but regardless of my intention or what I meant you got hurt.

I'm not going to argue with you over whether my words were rude or not. But I don't feel comfortable discussing anything in this thread anymore if words like "vitriol" and "petty" such accusations towards me like that are being thrown around. I can already tell that won't end well. So I'm not going to post in this thread any more. Just in the future if your going to find people rude? Don't insult people in response with that kind of talk, its unnecessary and doesn't make you all that credible yourself, just FYI.

Vahnavoi
2020-11-06, 05:42 AM
So many goofy assumptions above. But hey, there's something I agree with Nigel for once, so let's get it out of the way. :smalltongue:


The Bard thing specifically is just absurd.

Yes. Bards were introduced in 1st Edition AD&D as an optional, prototypical prestige class sort of thing. They were extensions of the druid archetype, itself a special subclass of cleric, and their alignment restrictions made sense in that light (had to be some flavor of neutral). 2nd edition onward they were reinvented as a base class, but they've always suffered from "fifth wheel" syndrome where their class is just cobbled together from bits of other classes... plus music.

Of course their Alignment restrictions make no sense, the entire class makes no sense.

---


Wow I'm glad that we've moved further away from that sort of nonsense over time. all those "more logical" restrictions again just sound like blindly holding to old nonsensical campy cliches. So twee. Like a ranger having to be good just because? what you never heard of poachers? nobles who hunt for sport? Hellooo?

AD&D's concept of ranger came from Lord of the Rings. Poachers and evil nobles aren't rangers in that context. It shouldn't even matter to you, since playing poachers and evil nobles is fully possible in AD&D, just not as rangers. Ranger isn't catch-all word for "vaguely outdoorsy people". Anyone can do outdoors stuff in AD&D.


Other concepts possible without these alignment restrictions...

Law means standing for groups while Chaos means standing for the individual. Throughout this list, you switch to sillier "ChAoS meAnS No RuLEs!" to make your points, when if you consistently used the classic reading, you'd have no point at all. But what the heck, let's go through all of these.


Lawful Bard: Dirge Singers of the Dhakaani, diplomats, people who strongly believe in singing old traditional songs to maintain one's culture, a herald who has rule to always tell the truth when sharing the news, an educator or teacher, things like that

This character could just be a Lawful cleric. Nothing about this requires being a bard, because anyone else can sing. (In 1st Edition AD&D, a Lawful Neutral bard would be legal and habe exactly the role you describe.)


Lawful Barbarian: a culture that has a strong tradition of ritualistically entering a rage to protect the people around them and only do so when they decide it is needed having rules about when they do so, a warrior who masters a meditative state who becomes incredibly eerily calm and focused that emulates a rage, a warrior possessed by a spirit that gets enraged when the rules are violated, a warrior from a culture that sees becoming a barbarian as a form of sacrificial martyrdom surpassing the paladin taking upon the sin of raging so as to fight for the gods and thus embody the wrath of the gods and they expected to take out as much of the energy before they die themselves, thing slike that.

This is just a mess. Firstly, Rage, as a mechanic, is clearly meant to represent a berserk state where you're too mad to tie your shoelaces properly. It's not "eeriely calm" state or being possessed by an angry ghost, those have different mechanics, there's no need to place these characters in the barbarian class. Secondly, a Lawful culture can think whatever it likes about people consumed by Rage, this has no bearing on alignment of the people who do the actual raging. In summary, half of these concepts have no place being barbarians, and the half that do could just be Neutral Good, which is a legit Alignment for barbarians in 3rd edition.


CG Druid: goes around rescuing animals from evil nobles who hunt or use them for sport/entertainment in arenas

A True Neutral Druid has enough reason to rescue animals from evil nobles. You don't need to be Chaotic Good to do this concept. You're presuming a connection to Chaos and Good where there is no necessity for such.


LG Druid: campaigns to pass environment conservation laws when needed.

Your bog standard True Neutral druid is already invested in following rules to conserve the environment. You're presuming a connection to Law and Good where there is no necessity for such.


LE Druid: Takes over the world so as to control the population of sapient beings by culling them systematically to make sure they don't overtake the natural world, seeing them as nothing but species disrupting the ecological balance

That's again close to textbook TN druid. What do you think makes this character LE, specifically, instead of NE, which would be rules-legal in 3rd edition? They're explicitly placing ecological balance over well-being of any single group, after all.


CE [Druid, I presume] : "Animals don't have rules. Neither do I!"

Again, Law means being for the group while Chaos means being for the individual. Stating you have no rules doesn't really tell anything about how you relate to groups, especially not when you're comparing yourself to animals, who do occasionally form groups. Oh, and they also have rules - a druid, a character meant to know a thing or two about nature, ought to know this. I have no problem deeming that Chaotic Evil character expressing a strawman misunderstanding of animals as basis of their actions shouldn't be a druid.


Neutral Good Paladin: "The Law abuses as much as it helps, I must be above rules or chaos in my compassion."

What about this screams paladin? A Neutral Good holy warrior can just be a cleric, or fighter/cleric.


Lawful Neutral Paladin: "My Country, right or wrong."

That's a knight, which is full well modeled by basic fighter. (Or the redundant knight class. )


Chaotic Neutral Paladin: a guy who flips a coin to determine to help someone or not, believing chance is the only fairness in the world

You want to be Chaotic Neutral lol-random holy warrior, be a cleric or fighter/cleric of the god of gambling.


Neutral Evil Paladin: "Its all about me, due to the imperfection of perception I can't be sure anyone in the world except me truly exists therefore the most moral action I can take is to always benefit myself at the expense of things that may or may not be people"

Again... what about this concept screams paladin to you? Instead of Neutral Evil fighter?


True Neutral Paladin: "I fight for mortals against any extraplanar influence! Leave mortals alone, we deserve to make our own decisions rather than be pawns to one side or another."


That's a fighter. Why the Hell would you pick a class made to represent a supernatural champion to represent a character who wants for the supernatural to get out?

---

Tl;dr: a good portion of these concepts, which you imply couldn't be done under the restrictions, either would fit an exiting Alignment-Class-combination just fine, or aren't good examples of their class or Alignment to begin with and could be served better by another, trivially implemented combination.

NigelWalmsley
2020-11-06, 08:52 AM
The whole idea of having character classes is to play recognizable archetypes. The earlier editions of D&D simply had archetypes thst were a little less generic and a little more recognizable.

"Specifically Good Outdoorsman" isn't really a more recognizable archetype than "Outdoorsman", because there are plenty of outdoorsmen that aren't Good. It's a more specific archetype, I suppose, but by that logic you can justify any restriction on any class, as it will necessarily make that class more specific.


They are such because the are wayfarers, wanderers, folks who oft have wanderlust in their hearts.

So they're adventurers? There's nothing really inherently "chaotic" about that either.


If you wish to make a musically inclined class that is specifically lawful, go ahead. I don't think that'll be high priority for Wizards anytime soon.

The point is you shouldn't need to. The Bard is a music magic class. That's the core of it. You shouldn't need a separate Lawful music magic class, because that's (as you correctly deduce) a huge waste of space. You should just let the existing music mage be lawful, just as you should let the spider-mounted outriders of the Drow be Rangers (despite being Evil) and the black-clad templar of the Iron Spire be Paladins (despite being Evil). Concepts like "nature warrior", "music mage", "angry warrior", and "warrior devoted to a cause" aren't inherently aligned, and when you make them inherently aligned, you end up hacking around your system to reverse that (see: all the "Paladin, but doesn't have to be Lawful Good" PrCs, ACFs, and variants in 3e).

ImNotTrevor
2020-11-06, 09:28 AM
AD&D's concept of ranger came from Lord of the Rings. Poachers and evil nobles aren't rangers in that context. It shouldn't even matter to you, since playing poachers and evil nobles is fully possible in AD&D, just not as rangers. Ranger isn't catch-all word for "vaguely outdoorsy people". Anyone can do outdoors stuff in AD&D.

Everything from here forward is about as useful as telling people talking about some comaints from using Windows 10 how fix problems in MS-DOS. Like.... thanks, I guess, but we're a couple decades removed from there and AD&D has a similar relationship to modern D&D and modern play as MS-DOS has to Windows 10.




Law means standing for groups while Chaos means standing for the individual.
You are the final arbiter of what Law and Chaos mean? I'd have thought it was someone I'd heard of before.



Throughout this list, you switch to sillier "ChAoS meAnS No RuLEs!" to make your points, when if you consistently used the classic reading, you'd have no point at all. But what the heck, let's go through all of these.

I mean, I looked up Chaos and it means (generally):
complete disorder and confusion



This character could just be a Lawful cleric. Nothing about this requires being a bard, because anyone else can sing. (In 1st Edition AD&D, a Lawful Neutral bard would be legal and habe exactly the role you describe.)
Ok but if you want them to have the power of song and get some good mileage out of Charisma....



This is just a mess. Firstly, Rage, as a mechanic, is clearly meant to represent a berserk state where you're too mad to tie your shoelaces properly.
The gnoll statblock is clearly meant to represent a hyena person but I can change the name on it to "Ungodly Abomination" and have them be skinny, lamprey-headed monstrosities without problem. There's nothing the gnoll does that a creepy many-toothed worm head thing couldn't also do.

Flavor =/= Mechanics.

There is nothing preventing a barbarian's rage from having any aesthetic you want it to have, so long as the results are the same. Rage in real life doesn't only come in red hot varieties. It can also be ice cold. Consider yourself lucky you've not been on the recieving end of ice-cold rage. It rarely ends well.



It's not "eeriely calm" state or being possessed by an angry ghost, those have different mechanics,
>Looks at Ancestral Guardian Barbarian Subclass
You uh... you sure, my guy? 5e did the ghost thing, and in general there's no reason amother subclass couldn't have that flavor without the mechanics.

On "Eerily calm":
A man with a battleaxe screaming across the battlefield chopping up your allies in a screaming fury is one kind of scary.

A man with a battleaxe single-mindedly staring you down as he comes right for you, silently, killing everything in his path without breaking eye contact with you is a different kind of scary.

Both are scary, both are a rage state, both would use the same mechanics. Where's the problem?




there's no need to place these characters in the barbarian class. Secondly, a Lawful culture can think whatever it likes about people consumed by Rage, this has no bearing on alignment of the people who do the actual raging. In summary, half of these concepts have no place being barbarians, and the half that do could just be Neutral Good, which is a legit Alignment for barbarians in 3rd edition.

Wait so... "you are unpredictable/angry for 5 minutes a day" means you MUST be a chaotic alignment?

A Totem Warrior Barbarian with a quiet respect for nature and the natural order, part of a lawful tribe and who follows its tenets in his personal life very closely, and who has learned to channel the prkmal ferocity of the animals of the wild into a "rage" state of primal fury for a couple minutes per day (or if there's only a 3 round combat, 18 SECONDS) is... chaotic because of that handful of minutes/seconds as opposed to his behavior for the rest of the day?
Do you recognize how unreasonable that position is or should I demonstrate further?




A True Neutral Druid has enough reason to rescue animals from evil nobles. You don't need to be Chaotic Good to do this concept. You're presuming a connection to Chaos and Good where there is no necessity for such.
Sure. They don't need to be. Why CAN'T they be?



That's again close to textbook TN druid. What do you think makes this character LE, specifically, instead of NE, which would be rules-legal in 3rd edition? They're explicitly placing ecological balance over well-being of any single group, after all.

Again, Law means being for the group while Chaos means being for the individual. Stating you have no rules doesn't really tell anything about how you relate to groups, especially not when you're comparing yourself to animals, who do occasionally form groups. Oh, and they also have rules - a druid, a character meant to know a thing or two about nature, ought to know this. I have no problem deeming that Chaotic Evil character expressing a strawman misunderstanding of animals as basis of their actions shouldn't be a druid.


I don't recall many of these examples so... hell, I'll do a couple.

CE Druid:
Rot. Rot! Decay... the most beautiful form of nature. Everything should rot and fall apart. A world of pure decay, unending entropy... nature plays by rules but loves to break them and kill them. Nature is at its best when it is chaos and disorder, when expectations crumble and the cruelty of chance has its day. I shall bring rot to the ordered cities of man, tear down their precious walls and convert them to corpses. Let all of it rot. Burn away the forests, let decay take them. Death is the real beauty in nature.

Druid motivated by the allure of rot, decay, and entropy. Perhaps once a more normal druid, who slowly fell into his/her madness and never lost her powers. Would probably be a Circle of Spores druid.

LE Druid:
The fools of this Circle don't understand the threat that the kingdom poses to our wood. But I will show them. I'll play by their rules, do their rites, but I have my plans. They'll see in time. When the people of the kingdom burn and nature reigns supreme, they will finally understand.

Druid who believes in the rightful rulership of nature so much that they are willing to basically commit genocide to enforce that supremacy, and who is dedicated to his/her group such that he/she is unwilling to go openly against them but will indeed push them towards becoming more organized and more sympathetic to his/her efforts.

By many intepretations of Law/Chaos aside from your weirdly hyper-narrow view, these two characters fit these alignments just fine.



What about this screams paladin? A Neutral Good holy warrior can just be a cleric, or fighter/cleric.

Wrong question. Why CAN'T this concept work as a Paladin?



That's a knight, which is full well modeled by basic fighter. (Or the redundant knight class. )

And what if I want to play this concept as a paladin? Is it badwrongfun? So sorry. Gonna do it anyways.


You want to be Chaotic Neutral lol-random holy warrior, be a cleric or fighter/cleric of the god of gambling.




Again... what about this concept screams paladin to you? Instead of Neutral Evil fighter?

I wanna do it with smiting.



That's a fighter. Why the Hell would you pick a class made to represent a supernatural champion to represent a character who wants for the supernatural to get out?
>Be Paladin
>Wanna get the supernatural outta here
>channel supernatural smiting power into my sword swing.
>Supernatural.
>kill yourself
>Supernatural gtfo

This is stupid.






Tl;dr: a good portion of these concepts, which you imply couldn't be done under the restrictions, either would fit an exiting Alignment-Class-combination just fine, or aren't good examples of their class or Alignment to begin with and could be served better by another, trivially implemented combination.

Tl;DR
These concepts can also work just fine exactly as described regardless of your whining so...
Why should I care that I COULD do it another way?

I COULD build a "Druid" by playing a cleric who really likes trees and whose spell choices lean in that direction and who I flavor as nature-y. (When I heal someone, the wound is overgrown with flowers that quickly wilt and fall away, leaving healed flesh behind.)

Or I could just play a Druid. Sure, I COULD go the long way around, or I could just know what class I wanna llay and play that class.

If the point of bringing up AD&D is to somehow say it's more correct because older is just the Primacy fallacy.

Either way I remain unconvinced that alignment is a necessity.

Vahnavoi
2020-11-06, 10:18 AM
Everything from here forward is about as useful as telling people talking about some comaints from using Windows 10 how fix problems in MS-DOS. Like.... thanks, I guess, but we're a couple decades removed from there and AD&D has a similar relationship to modern D&D and modern play as MS-DOS has to Windows 10.

The different Alignment systems seen throughout D&D's history have less differences than even different version of MS-DOS. You're making a claim of progress that doesn't actually hold to scrutiny.


If the point of bringing up AD&D is to somehow say it's more correct because older is just the Primacy fallacy.

Nope. The point of bringing up AD&D was to make and answer specific points of why things are as they are. It's not "more correct" because it's older. Newer versions just fail to be appreciably better. Someone wanting to use Alignment in 5th edition would benefit from 1st Edition AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide about as much as any other guidebook.

Oh yes, that where you also find it clearly written that Law stands for groups and Chaos stands for the individual. The problem isn't whether you agree or disagree with those definitions; it's that if you've never seen it and don't know where it came from despite having played newer version of D&D, it's a clear sign that the newer versions omitted a perfectly clear definition for no reason. Or that you're arguing in bad faith.

MoiMagnus
2020-11-06, 10:51 AM
The problem isn't whether you agree or disagree with those definitions; it's that if you've never seen it and don't know where it came from despite having played newer version of D&D, it's a clear sign that the newer versions omitted a perfectly clear definition for no reason. Or that you're arguing in bad faith.

5e alignment system doesn't reference "Group vs Individual" directly. The nearest from that is the sentence

Alignment is a combination of two factors: one identifies morality (good, evil, or neutral), and the other describes attitudes toward society and order (lawful, chaotic, or neutral). Thus, nine distinct alignments define the possible combinations.

And in the remaining of the text describing every single alignment (see https://www.aidedd.org/en/rules/background/), it implicitly says that a character strictly following a personal code or a tradition based on individualistic values would still be Lawful. They paint more Law vs Chaos as "Strict codes VS Unrestricted behaviour" than Group vs Individual.

Vahnavoi
2020-11-06, 11:26 AM
@MoiMagnus: let's compare 1st Edition AD&D, Dungeon Master's Guide, page 23:

"Law and Chaos: the opposition here is between organized groups and individuals. That is, law dictates order and organization is necessary and desireable, while chaos holds the opposite view. Law generally supports the group as more important than the individual, while chaos promotes the individual over the group. "

JNAProductions
2020-11-06, 11:31 AM
@MoiMagnus: let's compare 1st Edition AD&D, Dungeon Master's Guide, page 23:

"Law and Chaos: the opposition here is between organized groups and individuals. That is, law dictates order and organization is necessary and desireable, while chaos holds the opposite view. Law generally supports the group as more important than the individual, while chaos promotes the individual over the group. "

That came out in 1979, correct?

So, while it's good to know the history of something, when it's more than four decades old, it may not apply anymore.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-11-06, 11:32 AM
That came out in 1979, correct?

So, while it's good to know the history of something, when it's more than four decades old, it may not apply anymore.

But history is destiny, right? Things never change, and only the original developer has any say in anything. Gygax is the god of D&D, right?

Vahnavoi
2020-11-06, 11:58 AM
That came out in 1979, correct?

So, while it's good to know the history of something, when it's more than four decades old, it may not apply anymore.

Do I need to repeat myself? Apparently I do.

Newer editions have different definitions. That doesn't mean they're better definitions.

That the above definition was given in 1979, doesn't mean it's non-functional today. You can take it and use it for any contemporary game that uses Law-Chaos-axis, and it will work just fine.

The reason I go back to it is not because it was put down by Gygax, it's because it's nice, clear and explicit in ways a lot of other definitions are not.

Old rules aren't always bugs that get fixed in later versions. Sometimes, they're features that get omitted.

JNAProductions
2020-11-06, 12:06 PM
Do I need to repeat myself? Apparently I do.

Newer editions have different definitions. That doesn't mean they're better definitions.

That the above definition was given in 1979, doesn't mean it's non-functional today. You can take it and use it for any contemporary game that uses Law-Chaos-axis, and it will work just fine.

The reason I go back to it is not because it was put down by Gygax, it's because it's nice, clear and explicit in ways a lot of other definitions are not.

Old rules aren't always bugs that get fixed in later versions. Sometimes, they're features that get omitted.

Alright-so is a gnoll warband, all gathered together under a demonically-infused prophet, Lawful because they all work as a group? Likewise, is an espionage agent sent by the crown to disrupt a tightly-knit squad of elites Chaotic, because they're working against a group?

Moreover, it kinda ignores the core thrust, which is (far as I can tell) "What's the benefit of alignment in general?" While better definitions of alignment CAN help it find a place, I share the opinion that alignment is something that shouldn't really matter to a game.

Seto
2020-11-06, 01:26 PM
I mean... I'm sure you aware of that, but Detect Evil in 3.5 and Pathfinder already makes a difference between regular folk and creatures Evil by nature. A basic Commoner with the Evil alignment will not be detected. You have an Evil aura if you have 5 levels or more, which makes sense because those people are important. At level 5, you start to have faint cosmic significance. A strong soul, and magical forces take note. But even the lowliest Lemure or skeleton will detect on the radar.
By and large, your aura is linked to how reliable and useful an asset you are for those "forces" that constitute the universe. An Evil Priest is committed to Evil, and wields the power of an Evil God. They're players in the game, even at low level. A random adventurer is less reliable, but starts being a player when they're powerful enough, even if their Evil acts are coincidental to their nature.

EDIT: Apologies, I thought we were in the 3.5 forum. The point stands for this particular game and... most editions I know, I guess?

Vahnavoi
2020-11-06, 01:51 PM
Alright-so is a gnoll warband, all gathered together under a demonically-infused prophet, Lawful because they all work as a group?

"Demonic", in context, implies their prophet is in this for personal motive, or encouraging the rest to act on their personal motives. So this is likely a Chaotic prophet exploiting a Neutral or Lawful group, or a loose band of Chaotics temporarily acting in unison, each for their own individual interest.


Likewise, is an espionage agent sent by the crown to disrupt a tightly-knit squad of elites Chaotic, because they're working against a group?

No, probably Lawful, because they are serving their own king and country. They are still acting for a group despite acting against another.

These determinations might change with additional details - such as what the prophet's creed is, or whether the spy is being extorted to do their job. In a real game, I'd have more information, so I could make a stronger case. Any vagueness here doesn't come from definitions of terms, it comes from lack of empirical knowledge.


Moreover, it kinda ignores the core thrust, which is (far as I can tell) "What's the benefit of alignment in general?" While better definitions of alignment CAN help it find a place, I share the opinion that alignment is something that shouldn't really matter to a game.

I already answered that at the start of my involvement in this.



1) alignment serves as a pledge for what kind of character you're playing. "My character is Good" tells the GM "my character desires well-being of other creatures", "My character is Neutral" tells the GM "my character is indifferent to well-being of other creatures" and "My character is Evil" tells "my character desires suffering of other creatures". These give the GM a benchmark to evaluate your player decisions against and give them ideas of how other characters might react to them.

2) It gives the GM, who has to play a wide array of characters, ideas of how these characters differ in attitude, behaviour and response to player actions.

3) It can serve as a turning point for other mechanism. In D&D, this means which afterlife a character would go, which gods are for or against them, which spells and magic items they can use etc. It connects particular moral choices made by characters with discreet game mechanics, allowing them to change progress of a game in ways that a player can comprehend and plan for.

---

You can replace semantic content of "Good", "Neutral" and "Evil" with whatever you like, as long as they have a clear relationship the arguments hold. In fact, you can extend the same arguments to other dichtomous pairs, like "Human versus Machine", "Human versus Vampire", "Sane versus Insane" etc.. (Yes, from a perspective of mechanical design and game function, Cthulhu's sanity rules constitute an alignment system, as do WoD various virtue mechanics, Cyberpunk's empathy, corruption as found in many other game systems, etc.)

The only real argument against Good and Evil, specifically, is that some people clearly can't accept "Game Good isn't what I think is good in real life" and that a character following their real life idea of good might be Chaotic Evil (or whatever else) instead. If you think doing a search-and-replace with those terms and turning them into "Holy" and "Unholy", go ahead. It's actually a non-change, because it retains all the good parts of Alignment and fails to avoid this one bad thing (because people still have ideas of what is Holy or Unholy in real life).

That post's concerned with Good - Evil - axis because that was specifically being contested. But it applies equally to Law - Chaos - axis and it shouldn't be hard to figure out how.

Democratus
2020-11-06, 02:37 PM
Alignment is a tool. It can be used in many ways.

Giving an example of someone using an alignment system poorly, and saying that it makes alignments bad...is like stating that a hammer was used to kill someone and, therefore, hammers are bad.

Use the alignment system that works best for you. Or use none at all.

ImNotTrevor
2020-11-06, 07:23 PM
Alignment is a tool. It can be used in many ways.

Giving an example of someone using an alignment system poorly, and saying that it makes alignments bad...is like stating that a hammer was used to kill someone and, therefore, hammers are bad.

Use the alignment system that works best for you. Or use none at all.

Alignment is a tool in the same way a stick that you found on the ground outside Home Depot is a tool.

Like, sure. Technically. It doesn't achieve anything that can't be achieved by much easier means with better and readily available tools, but sure. Technically it's a tool.

My argument isn't that alignment gets used poorly sometimes. It's that the BEST examples of alignment use are 0% better than what I achieve without using it at all, and it's worst examples are infinitely worse. So with that spread, what on earth would compel me to use it?

I also wanna address this post because I missed it before and it's exactly the sort of post that proves my point.


Ask and ye shall receive. :smalltongue:

1) alignment serves as a pledge for what kind of character you're playing. "My character is Good" tells the GM "my character desires well-being of other creatures", "My character is Neutral" tells the GM "my character is indifferent to well-being of other creatures" and "My character is Evil" tells "my character desires suffering of other creatures". These give the GM a benchmark to evaluate your player decisions against and give them ideas of how other characters might react to them.

This does nothing not achieved by a brief tone conversation and, like.... having the NPCs react naturally to witnessed behavior.



2) It gives the GM, who has to play a wide array of characters, ideas of how these characters differ in attitude, behaviour and response to player actions.
Couldn't you do this better with 3-4 word personality notes, which will give better and more detailed information than alignment would?



3) It can serve as a turning point for other mechanism. In D&D, this means which afterlife a character would go, which gods are for or against them, which spells and magic items they can use etc. It connects particular moral choices made by characters with discreet game mechanics, allowing them to change progress of a game in ways that a player can comprehend and plan for.


Obsolete as of 5th edition. None of these mechanics exist. And with all of the other, better ways to implement these sorts of options, alignment is even less necessary than ever before.



So yeah, I STILL remain unconvinced that alignment is needed. I have yet to recieve any reason for its existence not done AS WELL or BETTER than a tone discussion during Session 0, talking to your players like grownups, and having a scrap of creativity. All things YOU SHOULD BE DOING ANYWAYS.

NigelWalmsley
2020-11-06, 09:04 PM
The idea that groups are Lawful and individuals are Chaotic isn't really born out by the rules. There are solitary monsters that are Lawful, and civilizations that are Chaotic. Moreover, that definition basically means that "Chaos" is the same as "being ineffective". Which isn't really a compelling ethical conflict to have. The fight between "people who work together to achieve their goals" and "people who don't do that" is certainly a fight you can have, but it's not really a particularly interesting fight. By definition, any organization you interact with is going to be composed of the "work together" side.

Law and Chaos is, if anything, somehow worse than Good and Evil as a set of descriptors. For all that "Good" is hard to nail down precisely, it's easy to nail down generally. Chaos doesn't even have that. About the only thing that Law and Chaos have going for them is that they are recognizable labels for villains. Mass Effect's Reapers, for example, are pretty clearly Law villains. But not all villains fall into one of those two categories. There are also Nature villains and Imperialist villains and all kinds of other forms of villainy. Which points to one of the big flaws with D&D's alignment system: these things aren't binary. There's certainly room for there to be factions in the game that people align themselves with. But those factions need to be defined in terms of what they are, not in terms of how they relate to other factions.

Vahnavoi
2020-11-07, 05:28 AM
My argument isn't that alignment gets used poorly sometimes. It's that the BEST examples of alignment use are 0% better than what I achieve without using it at all, and it's worst examples are infinitely worse. So with that spread, what on earth would compel me to use it?

My argument has never been about compelling you to use anything. If my standard for a succesful defense of Alignment was "convice ImNotTrevor they're compelled to use ", I'd go about this quite differently.

No, my standard is "prove Alignment has utility". That doesn't require proving it has utility to you, specifically, nor does it require proving Alignment is necessary.

Here, a brief list of things of things which I find to have utility, but will readily admit are not necessary for a working roleplaying game:

- a game master
- dice
- rulebooks
- pens & paper

Just for contrast. :smalltongue:


I also wanna address this post because I missed it before and it's exactly the sort of post that proves my point.

I will begin by noting that I find your demonstrations of how to do things "better" to be sadly lacking.


This does nothing not achieved by a brief tone conversation and, like.... having the NPCs react naturally to witnessed behavior.

A brief tone conversation, like maybe:

GM: most people in this setting are Good.
Player: okay, but my character is Evil.
GM: okay.

The Alignment system is not a replacement for a "tone conversation", it is an example of one.

Neither is it replacement or somehow antithetical to "having the NPCs react naturally to witnessed behavior" - it makes stamenents of what is intended behaviour for the PCs and what is natural reaction for the NPCs.


Couldn't you do this better with 3-4 word personality notes, which will give better and more detailed information than alignment would?

Alignment, using a hopping two words to describe a character, is already a part of this process. As I've said before and will have to reiterate again later in this post, D&D has always used additional descriptors of characters and personality. The Alignment system isn't antithetical to the practice you describe, it exists alongside it to provide additional information.


Obsolete as of 5th edition. None of these mechanics exist. And with all of the other, better ways to implement these sorts of options, alignment is even less necessary than ever before.

You have described a reason for why I'm going back to 1st Edition. To quote myself from another thread:


You should be quoting Gygax, because 1st edition AD&D had a better definion of the Alignment system than 5th edition has. Luckily for you, another person, Jason, already did. :smalltongue:

5th edition Alignment system is not any real improvement over 1st edition AD&D, anymore than 2nd edition was.

To recap some history:

1) 2e Alignment was screwed over by TSR's decision to market the game to kids [i]and appeal to moral guardians. They didn't really change the system, but they subtly changed the definitions so that Evil is what would make your mom angry and so is naughty-naughty, and even non-Good is pushing it. Players were heavily encouraged to play Good and "heroic" characters, but only in a way that adhered to contemporary PG-13 standards.

Notably, even people at TSR thought a lot of this was ridiculous, and if TSR had seriously stuck to their guns, things like Planescape, Dark Sun and Ravenloft probably wouldn't exist.

2) 5e Alignment was screwed over by WotC's crisis over 4e. They'd tried to kill or change many "sacred cows" of older editions in order to make a more functional game, including condensing Alignment to CE - E - Un - G - LG... only to find out that people actually liked those sacred cows and Paizo made a business for itself essentially selling a 3e retroclone.

So they had to walk it back, but at the same time, they were under crossfire from people who hated Alignment in earlier editions. As a result, 5e doesn't stand on its own. It's Alignment is vestigial lip service to older fans, with most of its features removed so it's easy to ignorr. Seriously. The most positive remarks I've heard of 5e Alignment come from people who hated it in 3e and love how the new version "doesn't get in the way". That's a case of damned by faint praise if there ever was one.

5th edition isn't particularly well-designed, Alignment-wise, because the authors purposefully half-assed it. Now, in the thread this quote is from, some other people made a short-but-decent defense of 5th Edition's Alignment system, specifically. I don't expect you to be convinced by that either, but it's there if you want to see it.

But yes, in context of my defense of Alignment, the third point is inapplicable or only weakly applicable. That's not the same as "obsolete". Other Alignment systems still exist for which the defense applies, they are usable today and didn't cease to function just because its 2020 and not 1979. It should be possible for a person to read my posts, agree with the third point, and then go back to 5th edition D&D and add in the missing mechanics.

---


The idea groups are Lawful and individuals are Chaotic isn't really born out by the rules. There are solitary monsters that are Lawful, and civilizations that are Chaotic.

You know full well that when attached to a single being, Alignment describes a creature's disposition towards groups, and whether it is temporally solitary or amidst others doesn't rebuke the system. A solitary creature following Lawful ethos will act differently than one following Chaotic ethos, and people in a generally Lawful civilization will act differently than those in a Chaotic one.


Moreover, that definition basically means that "Chaos" is the same as "being ineffective".

Said a Lawful person about the Chaotic.


Which isn't really a compelling ethical conflict to have. The fight between "people who work together to achieve their goals" and "people who don't do that" is certainly a fight you can have, but it's not really a particularly interesting fight.

Now you're back to stating play preferences as if they constitute a great criticism.


By definition, any organization you interact with is going to be composed of the "work together" side.

You are confusing organizations with people in them. There can be Chaotic characters within a group of Lawfuls, abusing it, exploiting it, struggling to get out etc.. There's a reason why the system makes these determinations on character basis.


Law and Chaos is, if anything, somehow worse than Good and Evil as a set of descriptors. For all that "Good" is hard to nail down precisely, it's easy to nail down generally. Chaos doesn't even have that. About the only thing that Law and Chaos have going for them is that they are recognizable labels for villains. Mass Effect's Reapers, for example, are pretty clearly Law villains. But not all villains fall into one of those two categories. There are also Nature villains and Imperialist villains and all kinds of other forms of villainy. Which points to one of the big flaws with D&D's alignment system: these things aren't binary. There's certainly room for there to be factions in the game that people align themselves with. But those factions need to be defined in terms of what they are, not in terms of how they relate to other factions.

Bolded part for emphasis. You have, once again, fallen back to critizing a system for a flaw it does not have. Not only does it admit "Neutral" between Law and Chaos (and has nine, not two, Alignments in total when combined with its other axis), D&D has always used other descriptors in addition to Alignment.

F. EX., Saying some villain is "Imperialist" and saying they're "Lawful Evil" are not mutually exlusive statements that never have been made and never can be made of the same character. On the contrary, you can examine why the villain is "Imperialist" and within the Alignment system determine if they're also Evil, which then allows you to make additional statements about them.

ImNotTrevor
2020-11-07, 11:31 AM
The forum decided to delete my post-in progress, so I might be particularly brief.



My argument has
never been about compelling you to use anything. If my standard for a succesful defense of Alignment was "convice ImNotTrevor they're compelled to use ", I'd go about this quite differently.

No, my standard is "prove Alignment has utility". That doesn't require proving it has utility to [i]you, specifically, nor does it require proving Alignment is necessary.

Alignment does have utility. I'd agree with that. But as I said, it has utility in the same way a stick yiu found outside of Home Depot has utility. Not nearly so much as the tools you'll find inside, but it does have some sort of utility.



Here, a brief list of things of things which I find to have utility, but will readily admit are not necessary for a working roleplaying game:

- a game master
- dice
- rulebooks
- pens & paper

Just for contrast. :smalltongue:

The difference here being that these things when included are either more likely to be good than bad, aren't easily emulated with something else, and/or their inclusion/exclusion is entirely neutral. Though for some, their lack might change the very nature of the game you're playing, where alignment does not have that level of influence.



I will begin by noting that I find your demonstrations of how to do things "better" to be sadly lacking.

Yeah, the other guy's examples tend to be lacking when you make up a strawman version of them and pretend that's what he's talking about. As seen here:



A brief tone conversation, like maybe:

GM: most people in this setting are Good.
Player: okay, but my character is Evil.
GM: okay.


Problems:
1. This is not a tone conversation. This is some random statement about the predominant Alignment of people in a setting which... Ok?

2. This is apparently not a session 0 since the player is already bringing a character

3. This GM hasn't established anything about the tone of the campaign and is just allowing the players to do what they want.

I can see how if this is what you call a Tone Conversation, it would accomplish nothing. Because nothing meaningful about tone was communicated, and nobody cared. Wow.

Here's some of my vaguely planned statements for the OPENING of a Tone Conversation that I will be having for a Hexcrawl.

"This hexcrawl will be focused on exploration and the growth of a colony. While this does mean that Colonization will be involved as a general theme, we are going to seriously avoid blanket conquest and mistreatment of natives. Let's not repeat the horrors of history and try to have things go a bit better this time. That obviously doesn't mean combat is forbidden, but I think you can tell where the line is between 'self defense' and 'genocide.' Overall I'd like the seriousness level to strike a 70/30 balance between playing it straight and having humor."

"The first characters to arrive will all be here in Ahmbra on special assignment from the Trovian Empire. Whether you are here by choice, by command, by obligation, or by punishment, your characters must have a vested interest in doing their assigned job of exploring the wild and helping the colony grow and flourish."

Bingo. THAT is a few starting seeds of a tone discussion. It is done thoughtfully, with an idea towards what the campaign will look like in broad strokes.



The Alignment system is not a replacement for a "tone conversation", it is an example of one.

Yes, just like your example. It's a "tone conversation" with quotes around it, because it doesn't achieve that goal at all.



Neither is it replacement or somehow antithetical to "having the NPCs react naturally to witnessed behavior" - it makes stamenents of what is intended behaviour for the PCs and what is natural reaction for the NPCs.
Ah, so alignment is prescriptive of how PCs should behave and how NPCs should react.

I hope you weren't one of the ones saying that Alignment is just descriptive.

Beyond that, I don't see how having only 9 kinds of NPCs helps me. If all my NG npcs should react in X way towards LE PC behavior, then why do I have more than the 9 NPCs? This isn't EXACTLY your argument, but you can probably see how predetermining reactions based on alignment will skew towards basically 9 personality types, yeah?




Alignment, using a hopping two words to describe a character, is already a part of this process. As I've said before and will have to reiterate again later in this post, D&D has always used additional descriptors of characters and personality. The Alignment system isn't antithetical to the practice you describe, it exists alongside it to provide additional information.


Consider the following character description:


She takes NO $#:+ from ANYONE. Cusses like a sailor. Will 100% kick your ass. Diana is a big believer in the chain of command. She is loyal to Mezzan, loyal to the people of Ambition, and deeply committed to her duties, to the detriment of her personal life.

She is good at her job and runs a tight ship. These special assignment boys and girls are being tolerated, not having the red carpet put out. Until they can prove themselves useful, they're just another bunch of ***holes sent by the beaurocracy.


Now tell me:
How does having "Lawful" somewhere give me more information than what is here without making her a caricature?

How does CE meaningfully give me more information than I can reasonably extrapolate from:
"Voracious, Cunning, Predatory, Brutal, Paranoid" and how does CE imply Voraciousness, Cunning, Paranoia or a Predatory nature? (Brutality is probably implied by CE to some degree, I suppose)

If I'm being totally honest, I find that a character's goals and wants are a far better indication of their reactions to things than their alignment is. For instance: A LG Paladin Dies. How does a LE Sorcerer respond?

Belrond is utilizing Varnus's good nature as a way to manipulate him, and Varnus has been getting all kinds of work done for Belrond without realizing it, allowing him to consolidate power in the region by toppling the lesser pretenders to the throne. How does he respond when Varnus is killed?

Even without knowing Belrond's specific sort of evil alignment we probably have a better idea of how he responds than we do for a generic LE Sorcerer, and adding "lawful evil" as a tag to Belrond doesn't really change much about his response nearly so much as the other way around.

So yeah, alignment is useful, kinda, sorta, but not so useful as to merit being held as something that makes a system better, and the potential costs/annoyances are pretty costly compared to that teeny tiny benefit.



5th edition isn't particularly well-designed, Alignment-wise, because the authors purposefully half-assed it.
They purposefully *minimized its importance.* They didn't want it to be any more important mechanically than hair color or eye color. They couldn't REMOVE it because brand identity, but if they could have, they would have.



But yes, in context of my defense of Alignment, the third point is inapplicable or only weakly applicable. That's not the same as "obsolete". Other Alignment systems still exist for which the defense applies, they are usable today and didn't cease to function just because its 2020 and not 1979. It should be possible for a person to read my posts, agree with the third point, and then go back to 5th edition D&D and add in the missing mechanics.


Obsolete, meaning "out of date, no longer current" or "no longer in use."

It is telling that alignment systems are rare among RPGs generally. D&D and Pathfinder use it. Corruption systems are a bit less rare, but... calling them "alignment" is a stretch, since it's less a statement of "how good or evil are you" and more a measurement of "how much has the evil goo/force/corruption
corrupted you" which is a different question entirely.

The majority of systems that pseudo-approximate alignment show a preference towards coherent individual factions rather than moralistic forces like Good and Evil, and characters have allegiance to them to some degree, but even this isn't truly quantified.

The fact of the matter is that once you stop giving brainspace to alignment, things get more creatively open, more fleshed-out, and generally higher quality.

Basically, if alignment is helpful for fleshing out characters, *why don't fantasy authors USE IT?* You can't give me the "Writing and TRPGs are different" here because we're talking about CHARACTERS, not storylines. A well-made character is well-made in both for the same reasons. So why is alignment as a quality-booster entirely ignored, if it has meaningful utility?

The answer is: it doesn't have meaningful and unique utility compared to every other tool in a writer's pocket. And if you use THOSE tools, your characters will be better than the 3x3 alignment puppets.

Vahnavoi
2020-11-07, 02:26 PM
The forum decided to delete my post-in progress, so I might be particularly brief.

You have odd standard for "brief".


Alignment does have utility. I'd agree with that. But as I said, it has utility in the same way a stick yiu found outside of Home Depot has utility. Not nearly so much as the tools you'll find inside, but it does have some sort of utility.

Dismissive bad faith analogy aside, that'd mean my job here is done, if you'd actually stopped here. :smalltongue:

More seriously, I'm fine with someone admitting Alignment has utility, just not enough for them to personally use. Anything past this point is no longer me arguing for something, it's about me arguing about how you argue.


The difference here being that these things when included are either more likely to be good than bad, aren't easily emulated with something else, and/or their inclusion/exclusion is entirely neutral. Though for some, their lack might change the very nature of the game you're playing, where alignment does not have that level of influence.

You can feel however you like about those things, point was to make you stop harping about compulsions and necessity when I wasn't using those as goalposts to begin with.


Yeah, the other guy's examples tend to be lacking when you make up a strawman version of them and pretend that's what he's talking about.

Oh, you mean like someone (not you, someone) repeatedly claiming Alignment is binary in places it is explicitly not? Now you know what it feels like!

But, snark aside, credit where it's due: the examples you gave me now are good demonstrations of what you're talking about. They aren't "sadly lacking".


Problems:
1. This is not a tone conversation. This is some random statement about the predominant Alignment of people in a setting which... Ok?

2. This is apparently not a session 0 since the player is already bringing a character

3. This GM hasn't established anything about the tone of the campaign and is just allowing the players to do what they want.

1 & 3. Compare and contrast:

GM: most characters in this setting are Good.
Player: okay, but my character is Evil.
GM: please change that, I don't want Evil player characters in my game.

This is a brief tone conversation, my original dialogue was a brief tone conversation, a GM "just allowing the players to do what they want" is a statement about tone of a campaign. The only way you can think no statements of tone are being made is if you are presuming Good and Evil have no meaning.

2. I will abstain from making much comment about "Session 0", because it's not clear to me there is any exact methodology behind that term, and I routinely find I can do all the things that are supposedly part of "Session 0" in less than a session, at the start of the first session.

Again, I'll note that maybe this all about you having an odd standard for "brief", because if we omit brevity, I can just have my players read through AD&D books and it will inform them of tone just fine. Again, the system makes its own statements on tone.

Continuing on the issue of brevity:



"This hexcrawl will be focused on exploration and the growth of a colony. While this does mean that Colonization will be involved as a general theme, we are going to seriously avoid blanket conquest and mistreatment of natives. Let's not repeat the horrors of history and try to have things go a bit better this time. That obviously doesn't mean combat is forbidden, but I think you can tell where the line is between 'self defense' and 'genocide.' Overall I'd like the seriousness level to strike a 70/30 balance between playing it straight and having humor."

"The first characters to arrive will all be here in Ahmbra on special assignment from the Trovian Empire. Whether you are here by choice, by command, by obligation, or by punishment, your characters must have a vested interest in doing their assigned job of exploring the wild and helping the colony grow and flourish."

"Exploration-focused hex-crawl campaign. Characters begin as Imperial agents in a periphery. Mostly dramatic with pinch of comedy. PG-13."

That's about how much I'd need to tell of this campaign pitch to my players. And it wouldn't be an opening of conversation, it would pretty much entirety of it, before actual start of the game.

It's not that yours is a bad pitch for tone - it's good. But as criticism of alignment? I could tag "System used is 1st Edition AD&D. No. Evil characters" and it would communicate a lot of information to my players, more than words like "Ahmbra" and "Trovian" because setting familiarity is its own kerfuffle aside from tone.


Ah, so alignment is prescriptive of how PCs should behave and how NPCs should react.

I hope you weren't one of the ones saying that Alignment is just descriptive.

Do I need to dig up my AD&D books up again and quote entire rule sections to you? Because the rules are perfectly clear that for PCs, actual behaviour is what determines alignment. Stated alignment is a pledge a player makes, that they then either succeed or fail to follow... with the consequence of changing Alignment if they fail, with possible associated mechanical penalty, before the game moves on.

A prescriptive element for NPCs does exist, but that's because the NPCs don't exist before being defined. They don't have any actual behaviour nor guidelines for behaviour before the GM sets something up.


Beyond that, I don't see how having only 9 kinds of NPCs helps me. If all my NG npcs should react in X way towards LE PC behavior, then why do I have more than the 9 NPCs? This isn't EXACTLY your argument, but you can probably see how predetermining reactions based on alignment will skew towards basically 9 personality types, yeah?

There aren't only nine types of personality, because Alignment isn't be-all-end-all of personality. There are nine basic moral characteristics and when we look at Alignment reactions towards each other, we get... how do I calculate this? 9x9=81 reaction sets? That's a decent amount to play through. However you choose to count it, it is a multiplicative, combinational exercise which nets you a large number of games.

Beyond that, we'll have to go back to counting how many real sets of basic moral characteristic there are, before deciding whether 9 is a small number. Because real factorial analysis regularly sorts real people into a fairly small number of groups. There likely isn't an unlimited amount of basic moralities and it's highly likely real people do skew towards just a few.


Consider the following character description:


She takes NO $#:+ from ANYONE. Cusses like a sailor. Will 100% kick your ass. Diana is a big believer in the chain of command. She is loyal to Mezzan, loyal to the people of Ambition, and deeply committed to her duties, to the detriment of her personal life.

She is good at her job and runs a tight ship. These special assignment boys and girls are being tolerated, not having the red carpet put out. Until they can prove themselves useful, they're just another bunch of ***holes sent by the beaurocracy.


Now tell me:
How does having "Lawful" somewhere give me more information than what is here without making her a caricature?

It doesn't; "Lawful" gives you most of the first paragraph in a condensed form. What you've given me is... is there a single English word for this...? uncondensed description of what being Lawful means for this single character. The rest is additional description the sort of which, again, D&D has always used alongside Alignment.


How does CE meaningfully give me more information than I can reasonably extrapolate from:
"Voracious, Cunning, Predatory, Brutal, Paranoid" and how does CE imply Voraciousness, Cunning, Paranoia or a Predatory nature? (Brutality is probably implied by CE to some degree, I suppose)

If you paid attention, you'd have noticed CE isn't there to give you any information about those. It's there to inform you that this creature relishes suffering (Evil) and targets other for its individual benefit (Chaotic).

So now if you add a term such as "predatory" after CE, you know now they are not preying on others for the sake of making the world better.


If I'm being totally honest, I find that a character's goals and wants are a far better indication of their reactions to things than their alignment is. For instance: A LG Paladin Dies. How does a LE Sorcerer respond?

With sadness if the Paladin was part of the same group, because that group has now suffered; with indifference or glee if the Paladin was not, because there's now one less of inferior people in the world.

Goals do help in determining reactions, but why are you bringing goals into discussion about a system that was never meant to describe totality of goals?


They purposefully *minimized its importance.* They didn't want it to be any more important mechanically than hair color or eye color. They couldn't REMOVE it because brand identity, but if they could have, they would have.

I know, that's what I said! :smalltongue: It doesn't make me have any more confidence in them.


Obsolete, meaning "out of date, no longer current" or "no longer in use."

People play 1st Edition (and 2nd Edition, and 3rd Edition...) today. You can play them today. They influence how 5th Edition is played today, because a lot of setting material predates 5th Edition and a lot of GMs were players of earlier editions. You can backport mechanics to a 5th edition game today.

Aligment didn't become obsolete with the advent of 5th Edition, anymore than Go has become obsolete by advent of videogaming.


It is telling that alignment systems are rare among RPGs generally. D&D and Pathfinder use it.

D&D and Pathfinder are top two most popular tabletop systems locally, perhaps globally, so what rules they use affects plurality, perhaps majority, of games actually being held. Counting by systems gives a wrong impression of how exposed people are to alignment and how much it is actually used.


Basically, if alignment is helpful for fleshing out characters, *why don't fantasy authors USE IT?* You can't give me the "Writing and TRPGs are different" here because we're talking about CHARACTERS, not storylines. A well-made character is well-made in both for the same reasons. So why is alignment as a quality-booster entirely ignored, if it has meaningful utility?

Did you forget that Alignment was inpired and copied over from literature? Or that a huge amount of contemporary fantasy fiction was directly inspired or even derived from D&D?

Raymond E. Feist, Margaret Weiss, Tracy Hickman, whoever made Records of Lodoss War, Nasuverse (seriously, FATE characters have or at least used to have D&D Alignments)... those are just the few well-known examples that immediately come to mind, without doing any serious research on this.

---

Apologies if I omitted something; at this point it's as likely to be because I botched editing this, as because I didn't have anything to say. I doubt anyone is going to get more use out of me dissecting posts like this, so this will be my last comment in this thread. If y'all consider attrition an acceptable debate tactic, consider ImNotTrevor the victor here.

NigelWalmsley
2020-11-07, 02:34 PM
You know full well

No, I don't. Different sources claim alignment means different things. I don't "know" what alignment means any more than I "know" what the hacking rules for Shadowrun are, or the the Polymorph rules for 3e D&D are, or the Skill Challenge rules for 4e D&D. There are a lot of possible answers, and that's before you get into the glosses individual players have produced to try to make things work in their games.


Bolded part for emphasis. You have, once again, fallen back to critizing a system for a flaw it does not have. Not only does it admit "Neutral" between Law and Chaos (and has nine, not two, Alignments in total when combined with its other axis), D&D has always used other descriptors in addition to Alignment.

Good/Evil and Law/Chaos are absolutely binaries. "Neutral" does not make them not binary, because "Neutral" is not a side people are on unless you're watching Futurama. Not making a binary choice does not make it not a binary choice.


F. EX., Saying some villain is "Imperialist" and saying they're "Lawful Evil" are not mutually exlusive statements that never have been made and never can be made of the same character. On the contrary, you can examine why the villain is "Imperialist" and within the Alignment system determine if they're also Evil, which then allows you to make additional statements about them.

Sure. You could also say that they were "Choleric" or "Fire" or "Green". You could describe them in terms of a nearly infinite number of sets of categories. You could group them by favorite food or astrological sign. The question is whether any particular grouping is worth the effort necessary to include it.

Jason
2020-11-07, 03:45 PM
No, I don't. Different sources claim alignment means different things. Which is one of the reasons there is a DM. Don't know if what you're about to do is evil? Ask the DM. His answer is what goes in his game.
If you're the DM, make a judgement. Just try to be reasonably consistent and it'll work out fine.


Good/Evil and Law/Chaos are absolutely binaries. "Neutral" does not make them not binary, because "Neutral" is not a side people are on unless you're watching Futurama. Not making a binary choice does not make it not a binary choice.Neutral is a choice. It's basically "the middle ground between the other two options" or "moderate" or "the refusal to consistently chose one side of the axis" whether law/chaos or good/evil, or both.

RedMage125
2020-11-07, 05:15 PM
No, I don't. Different sources claim alignment means different things.
What are considering "sources"? Because people on the internet sharing stories about what they think alignment means shouldn't really count.

Rules As Written from most editions of D&D that I have ever seen are fairly consistent, however.

They can be collectively paraphrased as "Alignment is an oversimplified summary of a given character or creature's general outlooks and beliefs. It is shaped by -and stems FROM- said creature's actions (intent and context matter here). It is not an absolute barometer of action nor affiliation."


I don't "know" what alignment means any more than I "know" what the hacking rules for Shadowrun are, or the the Polymorph rules for 3e D&D are, or the Skill Challenge rules for 4e D&D.
I look forward to quoting this the next time you argue about alignment OR 4e Skill Challenges.


There are a lot of possible answers, and that's before you get into the glosses individual players have produced to try to make things work in their games.

I mean, I know what I do to make it work. I set aside my own personal perspective on what Good/Evil/Law/Chaos mean, and use what the RAW says they mean. Why? Because it means my players can look to the same source material I will be using to make my adjudications.

This because I believe that any and ALL deviations from what is in the rule books should be made clear to the players up front.


Good/Evil and Law/Chaos are absolutely binaries. "Neutral" does not make them not binary, because "Neutral" is not a side people are on unless you're watching Futurama. Not making a binary choice does not make it not a binary choice.
The prefix "bi" means "two". Since there is a wide, and more importantly, distinct area of result between Good and Evil, or between Law and Chaos, the choice is not "binary", it is therefore "ternary".

So this is more of a linguistic nitpick, but you are wrong.



Sure. You could also say that they were "Choleric" or "Fire" or "Green". You could describe them in terms of a nearly infinite number of sets of categories. You could group them by favorite food or astrological sign. The question is whether any particular grouping is worth the effort necessary to include it.

It is when there are mechanics tied to those things. It's not as arbitrary as "choleric" or "green", those designations have mechanical impact. Your snide derision of alignment, and your lack of any kind of open mind on the topic, shows in the way you talk about it. You consider alignment an ineffective or even useless tool. Which is a fine opinion to have. But you couch your statements as if it were somehow "already a proven fact" that alignment is "useless and arbitrary".

But that is not a FACT. You're trying to say "given that alignment is useless, they could have used any old words instead of 'good/evil/etc'". But what you're not accepting, and what others are trying to tell you is that thing you're trying to act like is a "given"...isn't.

Xgya
2020-11-07, 07:47 PM
I was wondering how Detect Law and Chaos would work in your instance.

Also, your interpretation of alignments entirely leaves out alignment-based spells, or is a direct and rather significant nerf to spells like Holy Smite, that deal damage based on their targets' alignments.

After all, if Detect Holy works because a target is Holy, that would mean that Holy Smite only works better because the target is UNholy.

Else, it means that there's something the magic can identify when you cast Holy Smite, and some clever spellcaster (or deity) could create some form of magic to know in advance who the spell will be most effective against. And then call that spell Detect Evil.

ImNotTrevor
2020-11-07, 10:09 PM
You have odd standard for "brief".
I did say "might" be brief, not I "will" be brief.



Dismissive bad faith analogy aside, that'd mean my job here is done, if you'd actually stopped here. :smalltongue:

More seriously, I'm fine with someone admitting Alignment has utility, just not enough for them to personally use. Anything past this point is no longer me arguing for something, it's about me arguing about how you argue.

Fair enough. I tend to come across as abrasive.



You can feel however you like about those things, point was to make you stop harping about compulsions and necessity when I wasn't using those as goalposts to begin with.
Since you're referencing others here, I'll point you to where I was arguing with someone who declared that alignment is NECESSARY for high fantasy games. Hence why my contention is with the idea is a necessity or better than any given option.



Oh, you mean like someone (not you, someone) repeatedly claiming Alignment is binary in places it is explicitly not? Now you know what it feels like!

But, snark aside, credit where it's due: the examples you gave me now are good demonstrations of what you're talking about. They aren't "sadly lacking".
well thank you. It helps when I actually put specific examples.



1 & 3. Compare and contrast:

GM: most characters in this setting are Good.
Player: okay, but my character is Evil.
GM: please change that, I don't want Evil player characters in my game.

This is a brief tone conversation,
It's still not a tone conversation. It IS an alignment preference conversation, but implies nothing about tone.



my original dialogue was a brief tone conversation, a GM "just allowing the players to do what they want" is a statement about tone of a campaign. The only way you can think no statements of tone are being made is if you are presuming Good and Evil have no meaning.
Good and Evil have little to nothing to do with tone. This coming as an English teacher. They can be themes, or character descriptions, but they aren't tone.



2. I will abstain from making much comment about "Session 0", because it's not clear to me there is any exact methodology behind that term, and I routinely find I can do all the things that are supposedly part of "Session 0" in less than a session, at the start of the first session.


A Session 0 is generally where the campaign is laid out, discussed, and characters are made together so that bonds between characters can be firmly established, and any important setting info can be defined, and for me that is often done together with the players. If I don't have much to discuss, it could be half of a Session 1, but if I'm doing a long-term campaign there's stuff to hammer out.



Again, I'll note that maybe this all about you having an odd standard for "brief", because if we omit brevity, I can just have my players read through AD&D books and it will inform them of tone just fine. Again, the system makes its own statements on tone.
Often, the less time I have to prepare, the longer my writing is. I value specificity and clearness in my communication, so it can mean I run long so that I am well understood.



"Exploration-focused hex-crawl campaign. Characters begin as Imperial agents in a periphery. Mostly dramatic with pinch of comedy. PG-13."
This gives a very vague overview, but little workable information. My tone discussion needs to be workable and detailed info, not an elevator pitch. This is more or less how I pitched the idea.



That's about how much I'd need to tell of this campaign pitch to my players. And it wouldn't be an opening of conversation, it would pretty much entirety of it, before actual start of the game.
Again, as a pitch goes it's fine. This isn't a tone discussion, though.



It's not that yours is a bad pitch for tone - it's good. But as criticism of alignment? I could tag "System used is 1st Edition AD&D. No. Evil characters" and it would communicate a lot of information to my players, more than words like "Ahmbra" and "Trovian" because setting familiarity is its own kerfuffle aside from tone.
I'm building a lot of this setting in real time and giving information as we go. The campaign won't start for a few months, so we get to talk and build some simmering hype. They know the outline of those terms, and most of the specifics don't exist. We'll define them during our session 0.



Do I need to dig up my AD&D books up again and quote entire rule sections to you? Because the rules are perfectly clear that for PCs, actual behaviour is what determines alignment. Stated alignment is a pledge a player makes, that they then either succeed or fail to follow... with the consequence of changing Alignment if they fail, with possible associated mechanical penalty, before the game moves on.
Ah yes "figure out how your DM interprets alignment and fit that bill or suffer the consequences. Paladins? Walk on those eggshells."

I think we have enough horror stories on the ways that alignment is seriously abused to question its place.



A prescriptive element for NPCs does exist, but that's because the NPCs don't exist before being defined. They don't have any actual behaviour nor guidelines for behaviour before the GM sets something up.
Why not set up something substantial, then? Even the way Apocalypse World has NPCs constructed takes about 3 seconds in my head and gives me way more info than alignment does.



There aren't only nine types of personality, because Alignment isn't be-all-end-all of personality. There are nine basic moral characteristics and when we look at Alignment reactions towards each other, we get... how do I calculate this? 9x9=81 reaction sets? That's a decent amount to play through. However you choose to count it, it is a multiplicative, combinational exercise which nets you a large number of games.
I mean, I'm partial to Infinity as my lower limit. Just me.



Beyond that, we'll have to go back to counting how many real sets of basic moral characteristic there are, before deciding whether 9 is a small number. Because real factorial analysis regularly sorts real people into a fairly small number of groups. There likely isn't an unlimited amount of basic moralities and it's highly likely real people do skew towards just a few.
Depends on how broad the categories are.




It doesn't; "Lawful" gives you most of the first paragraph in a condensed form.
If condensed = vague, then sure. "Lawful" doesn't inform WHO she is loyal to, nor to what degree. (Most Lawful people aren't so much so that it intrudes into their personal life by definition.)



What you've given me is... is there a single English word for this...? uncondensed description of what being Lawful means for this single character. The rest is additional description the sort of which, again, D&D has always used alongside Alignment.

Isn't it objectively more useful to play this character, based on what Lawful means *specifically for them?* in which case, "Lawful" as a tag becomes little more than, at best, a pointer towards the rest of things.



If you paid attention, you'd have noticed CE isn't there to give you any information about those. It's there to inform you that this creature relishes suffering (Evil) and targets other for its individual benefit (Chaotic).
And the players are probably much less interested in its moral stance than the fact that it's trying to eat them.



So now if you add a term such as "predatory" after CE, you know now they are not preying on others for the sake of making the world better.





With sadness if the Paladin was part of the same group, because that group has now suffered; with indifference or glee if the Paladin was not, because there's now one less of inferior people in the world.
Wait, groups only ever feel sympathy for members of their own group? You had it NICE in highschool, my guy.



Goals do help in determining reactions, but why are you bringing goals into discussion about a system that was never meant to describe totality of goals?

Because goals accomplish the job alignment CLAIMS to be for, and more.




People play 1st Edition (and 2nd Edition, and 3rd Edition...) today. You can play them today. They influence how 5th Edition is played today, because a lot of setting material predates 5th Edition and a lot of GMs were players of earlier editions. You can backport mechanics to a 5th edition game today.

Wait, the plurality of games being D&D 5e counts when it supports your point, but suddenly it doesn't? Let's be consistent, here. Continue to play very old D&D editions is super niche and becoming MORE niche over time.



Aligment didn't become obsolete with the advent of 5th Edition, anymore than Go has become obsolete by advent of videogaming.
I mean, Go is still played, sure. But it's now a fairly niche game by comparison to videogames.

You seem to think "Obsolete" means it's never used anywhere. Well, records are widely considered an obsolete format, even though they are still produced.



D&D and Pathfinder are top two most popular tabletop systems locally, perhaps globally, so what rules they use affects plurality, perhaps majority, of games actually being held. Counting by systems gives a wrong impression of how exposed people are to alignment and how much it is actually used.

The most popular system right now is D&D 5e which has stripped alignment of most of its importance. Most players entering the hobby are doing so with alignment as a tertiary concern at best, and with more and more DMs ignoring it, possibly skipping it entirely. I don't think this helps your point as much as you'd like.



Did you forget that Alignment was inpired and copied over from literature? Or that a huge amount of contemporary fantasy fiction was directly inspired or even derived from D&D?
Please find me a fantasy novel that describes a character as Lawful Evil within its prose before you make the claim it was COPIED OVER from literature.

If you're referring to alignment paying reference to the common opposed sides of "Order vs Chaos" and "Good vs Evil," {Scrubbed} That doesn't mean Feist, Weiss, Hickman, and their contemporaries were busting out 3x3 charts.

I somehow doubt that even D&D licensed books make consistent reference to the alignment ends as anything other than mystical forces, rather than descriptive tags.



Raymond E. Feist, Margaret Weiss, Tracy Hickman, whoever made Records of Lodoss War, Nasuverse (seriously, FATE characters have or at least used to have D&D Alignments)... those are just the few well-known examples that immediately come to mind, without doing any serious research on this.
I can't help but feel like D&D alignment probably didn't come into the equation for any of these people. I'm not a PROFESSIONAL writer, but I somehow can't help but feel like pulling out the old 3x3 grid won't push me towards publication.

---


Apologies if I omitted something; at this point it's as likely to be because I botched editing this, as because I didn't have anything to say. I doubt anyone is going to get more use out of me dissecting posts like this, so this will be my last comment in this thread. If y'all consider attrition an acceptable debate tactic, consider ImNotTrevor the victor here.

WEEEEEEE.

Nah, I get it. People have busy lives. But I will state that I still remain unconvinced that Alignment has enough utility that I'd ever use or recommend it over other options.

That's obviously an opinion, and I'm open about that being the case. But the value proposition of Alignment simply does not hold enough value to outweigh its potential and definite costs.

ImNotTrevor
2020-11-07, 10:34 PM
What are considering "sources"? Because people on the internet sharing stories about what they think alignment means shouldn't really count.

Rules As Written from most editions of D&D that I have ever seen are fairly consistent, however.
Do you....
Do you not know why lawyers exist?
Do you not know why judges exist?
If something as vitally important as LAWS don't always have crystal clear interpretations, what on Earth makes you think the way you read the (very vague) RAW on alignment is *the objectively correct interpretation?*

That's some incredible confidence, my guy.



They can be collectively paraphrased as "Alignment is an oversimplified summary of a given character or creature's general outlooks and beliefs. It is shaped by -and stems FROM- said creature's actions (intent and context matter here). It is not an absolute barometer of action nor affiliation."
Remember that here you're claiming alignment is DESCRIPTIVE and NOT PRESCRIPTIVE.
Remember this sword, because you kill your own point with it below.



I mean, I know what I do to make it work. I set aside my own personal perspective on what Good/Evil/Law/Chaos mean, and use what the RAW says they mean. Why? Because it means my players can look to the same source material I will be using to make my adjudications.

I just toss the whole thing out the window and save my players on the reading.



This because I believe that any and ALL deviations from what is in the rule books should be made clear to the players up front.
I do agree with this. Hence why I always say "Alignment is for Lame-O's and I don't care about it" when talking to my players about it.



It is when there are mechanics tied to those things. It's not as arbitrary as "choleric" or "green", those designations have mechanical impact.
Remember that sword? Note that A SIGNIFICANT PORTION of Alignment mechanics are DEEPLY PRESCRIPTIVE. Your character MUST behave this way or they are WRONG and GET PUNISHED.

Alignment is descriptive... until it isn't. You can't have it both ways. You cannot say "Alignment only describes your character" on one hand and on the other say "and if you do something I consider out-of-alignment you will get punished."

Alignment is very much prescriptive. It might be prescriptive in a way you agree with, but it's still prescriptive.

ALSO, to a point made below:
You do realize this argument is basically "alignment is useful when you use a system that forces it to be useful." {Scrubbed}Would putting Alignment into another system improve that system? 99% of the time, no.

Does putting Apocalypse World's Fronts into a system improve it? It has every time I've done it. It's just a flat-out useful GMing tool.

That's the key difference we're talking about.




Your snide derision of alignment, and your lack of any kind of open mind on the topic, shows in the way you talk about it. You consider alignment an ineffective or even useless tool. Which is a fine opinion to have. But you couch your statements as if it were somehow "already a proven fact" that alignment is "useless and arbitrary".
I'm hella snide by default so you can't really take it personal in my case.

I wouldn't say that alignment is USELESS. Just... not as good at accomplishing its own goals as most other alternatives to it.



But that is not a FACT. You're trying to say "given that alignment is useless, they could have used any old words instead of 'good/evil/etc'". But what you're not accepting, and what others are trying to tell you is that thing you're trying to act like is a "given"...isn't.

I mean, your counterargument, as I said, is "in systems where alignment is forced to be important, it's important."

Yes. I agree. Because of course that would be true.

But if I sit down to play a game of 5e D&D, the question nobody can answer is:
WHAT GOES SO HORRIBLY WRONG IF I ENTIRELY IGNORE THE EXISTENCE OF ALIGNMENT AS A FORMAL SYSTEM?

Nobody can give me a half decent answer. Because the FACT is that... nothing changes, except one Pixie ability stops working. [Quick change: it now detects hostile intent instead of alignment. Done.]

Oh no. Please. Help. Save me.

So yeah, alignment is useful when the system demands that it be very important. But then again Jellybeans could be important if your system demands they be important. You'd not see me arguing that knowing where every character lies on a 1-20 scale of Bravery-Cowardice is useful because the Pendragon RPG exists. That would be... super weird.

Lord Raziere
2020-11-07, 11:45 PM
Decided to come back.

Very well, I shall stop tearing down another system, and try to demonstrate why I consider Divine Sense and Divine strike to be better models of objective morality. In my opinion as of course, is if it needed to be pointed out.

A mortal or humanoid, that is any being from the prime material plane shouldn't be anything like an extraplanar being or outsider whatever you want to call them. They are fundamentally physical beings bound by the same laws humanity is. This makes them morally the same as humans. Thus free to choose their path and thus their morality is bound by choices, good and evil are acts they do, not something they are. The moral state of their soul is a private matter, strictly between them and the universe/god/whatever and no one else. They are free to do acts to demonstrate what their state of soul is like giving to charity or kicking a puppy, but fundamentally having the ability to check on someone's soul would be an invasion of privacy. Much like reading minds, if a persons innermost thoughts and makeup aren't safe from scrutiny, what is? Therefore every mortals soul is a private matter.

Outsiders like celestials and fiends are a different case. They are fundamentally different beings embodying certain metaphysical/abstract concepts. These abstract beings of ideas therefore are not bound by physical laws and are therefore not humanoid. Their entire being is a concept, what they are thinking and deciding is inextricable and indistinguishable from their identity: an angel doesn't decide to be kind or just, they ARE kindness and justice. They have a fundamental nature that makes them different from a person free to be who they are. Once a demon is made, they will always be a demon, the mortal moral state of moral flux able to change and thus determine the fate of the universe settles into a pattern that can no longer be altered. Thus this reveals what they will be like for all eternity. This fits with their new place in the universe as mortal concerns are no longer theirs, but the concerns of the planes are instead for they now live among them, whether as angel, devil or whatever else.

Thus the mortal state has a certain sanctity and importance, it alone holding the power to change the universes direction one way or another but its moral state kept hidden and secret. This makes mortals cosmic wild cards compared to outsiders. They are not meant to make decisions based upon reasons like "it will get me into this heaven" or "if I do this my soul will turn a different color" but because the actual reasons around them to do this or that. Someone doesn't be good because it will make some soul thingy turn shiny, one does it so that people are helped and the world is improved. Labels are a distraction from what is truly important in doing good. and thus Divine Sense can't pick up on anything mortal because they are fundamentally free and important in a way that other beings are not. instead of knowing the distributions of alignment for sure, you are left with room for doubt and uncertainty (and its one less thing the DM has to track for NPC's). uncertainty that can destroyed with a single stabbing of an innocent if need be.

Thus Divine Sense, senses what is truly important: the beings you know are morally set in stone not the unreliable flux of mortals. It also allows one to sense undead which are weapons of evil and the lower planes, thus it relies on far more reliable indicators of big evil afoot, as undead are often made by necromancers of great power and demons are often summoned through magic, as well as find the angelic beings you know are good in a way that no mortal is. what a mortal chooses to to become morality-wise is their decision and their decision alone anyways, and what importance do things like modrons or slaads even have in the cosmic battle? none, they are basically meaningless, so they aren't even considered. Divine Sense is simply incredibly efficient and multi-purpose. So why would I, some Oath of Ancients or Devotion or Redemption paladin even need to know such a thing about someone's soul? Whether or not I knew it, it would still be evil to force my values onto them and thus I can only act as inspiration and hope for them, thus there is no point to knowing it as what their alignment is unneeded as the most important thing is that they are a person first and foremost and I thus engage them as person first and foremost, which is fundamentally good.

While Divine Smite makes sense, because its radiant energy not really good or holy its just light. why would goodness want a specific energy to harm anything anyways? Its Good. It wants people safe, healed, redeemed. Causing more suffering is just counterproductive. Radiant energy is really just all divine energy in general, so it makes sense for a divine class to wield without morality attached to it with mortals being able to wield it on anyone. any Angel that actually tries to play out the old "holy wrath" kind of thing isn't Good at all anyways, an extremist form of Lawful Evil that makes them a fallen angel who embodies the fact that Light is Not Good. Besides something like a vampire is weak to getting stabbed in the heart by wooden stake does that make all wooden stakes fundamentally good? just because a creature is evil and has a weakness to a certain form of energy doesn't necessarily mean that the energy itself has to be goodness itself, just that somehow it has weakness in its design that good people can use to get rid of it, which requires more smarts and knowledge, thus playing into DnD's tendency for proper preparation and knowledge of the foes you face.

As for WHY divine classes get light as such an attack type even though it has nothing to do with morality? Its simple: belief. While not always associated with goodness, light is associated with power and the divine, whether it be the sun, fire or lightning. Therefore divine classes get radiant damage because people believe that is what the gods should be able to grant. Nothing more. you can still be the smiting crusader for good, only killing evil with it but the onus in you to make sure of that, as it should be. These features of 5e, make it so that you have to earn the knowledge of evil for you to use them on. After all, evil will use any means to hide, why make it easy? Justice is a pursuit, and a meaningful pursuit is one that requires you to figure things out, not the universe. Its Judgment is reserved until after you die, so until you do so its not your concern. The best most just protagonists are Detectives like Batman and whatnot, who need to investigate and figure out what the right thing to do with the pursuit of knowledge instead of being given knowledge just because.

and if I wanted to kill evil on sight instead without any room for doubt? I would simply play an angel and adventure on the outer planes. Its not as if any demons or devils I find there would be hidden or anything. I'll know my allies and enemies by sight. No mortal uncertainties. Not that I feel any particular desire to play that way, mortals are generally more interesting for not being certain.

NigelWalmsley
2020-11-08, 01:01 AM
Which is one of the reasons there is a DM. Don't know if what you're about to do is evil? Ask the DM. His answer is what goes in his game.

Yes, I understand that you would like the DM to enforce a single "correct" ethics. The question is why do you want that. What's the benefit to insisting that people dedicated to the righteous cause of "a code of ethics slightly different from their DM's" can't be Paladins? If you want to hold to a strong moral code, it seems to me that it is entirely adequate for that to simply be some defined moral code that does not rely on the whim of the DM at all. Indeed, such a thing would seem to make things easier both for players (as they would not periodically get told that the thing that their Righteous Code of Goodness says to do makes them lose the powers they nominally got for having a Righteous Code of Goodness) and for DMs (as they would not have to make moral judgements about every action Paladins take). I understand the position you're taking, but you don't seem willing or able to explain why that position is substantively useful.


Neutral is a choice. It's basically "the middle ground between the other two options" or "moderate" or "the refusal to consistently chose one side of the axis" whether law/chaos or good/evil, or both.

Neutral is a choice, but it's not a side. If you're not proposing some actionable alternative to "Law v Chaos" or "Good v Evil", it's still a binary. But as soon as you do propose an alternative, the system collapses. At best, alignment shoves every option that isn't "whatever you think Chaos means" or "whatever you think Law means" into a single bucket it treats as interchangeable. At worst, it ignores those distinctions entirely.


Also, your interpretation of alignments entirely leaves out alignment-based spells, or is a direct and rather significant nerf to spells like Holy Smite, that deal damage based on their targets' alignments.

I don't think anyone is proposing "ditch alignment, keep Holy Smite". That said, you don't need to bring ethics into the equation to have spells with variable effectiveness. Consider Fireball. It deals more damage to you if you are vulnerable to Fire (perhaps because you are a White Dragon). It deals less damage to you if you are resistant or immune to Fire (perhaps because you are a Salamander). If you are neither of those things -- you might say "Neutral on the Fire Axis of Alignment" if you were using the same stupid terminology for everything -- you take normal damage. Substantively, that's the exact same thing Holy Smite does, just for "Fire" rather than "Good".


I mean, your counterargument, as I said, is "in systems where alignment is forced to be important, it's important."

{Scrubbed}


Outsiders like celestials and fiends are a different case. They are fundamentally different beings embodying certain metaphysical/abstract concepts. These abstract beings of ideas therefore are not bound by physical laws and are therefore not humanoid. Their entire being is a concept, what they are thinking and deciding is inextricable and indistinguishable from their identity: an angel doesn't decide to be kind or just, they ARE kindness and justice.

I think alignment is a lot more justifiable as a thing for outsiders to be than it is as a thing that everyone has. You can imagine how an angel could be created as an "embodiment of mercy" or a demon as an "embodiment of carnage" where it might make sense to talk about those things as "fundamentally Evil". But at the same time, you've got things like the Elementals, which are "made of Earth" or "made of Fire" in the same way you'd claim demons are "made of Evil". Which suggests that whatever "Evil" means in this context is rather different from what it means in ethical arguments, or perhaps that the alignment system as presented is incomplete. The elementals are neutral on the "Good/Evil" and "Law/Chaos" axes, but they're definitely not neutral on the "Water/Fire" and "Earth/Air" axes. But then, that also undermines the argument for equating whatever the difference between eladrin and demons is with morality in the abstract.

Jason
2020-11-08, 04:07 AM
Yes, I understand that you would like the DM to enforce a single "correct" ethics. The question is why do you want that. Well, its kind of necessary in any RPG that players and GMs have an agreement on the types of stories they want to tell. If you have a group that thinks playing a group of amoral criminals is great escapist fun when it's all just pretend people being hurt but the GM thought he was telling stories about altruistic heroes then there will be problems. A basic understanding of what will be considered right or wrong in the game is therefore necessary, and alignment can be useful shorthand for that.


If you want to hold to a strong moral code, it seems to me that it is entirely adequate for that to simply be some defined moral code that does not rely on the whim of the DM at all. The GM has to have some say in whether he thinks you are following your moral code or not because the GM is the world and everyone in it except the other PCs. You can't play a character with a moral code that isn't more than backstory fluff without involving the GM and having him present you with situations that allow you to use it or question it..


Neutral is a choice, but it's not a side. If you're not proposing some actionable alternative to "Law v Chaos" or "Good v Evil", it's still a binary. But as soon as you do propose an alternative, the system collapses. At best, alignment shoves every option that isn't "whatever you think Chaos means" or "whatever you think Law means" into a single bucket it treats as interchangeable. At worst, it ignores those distinctions entirely. They are all broad categories, even good and evil. In D&D neutral is a side. A very inclusive side covering a lot of ground and in some ways not very well defined and overlapping the other sides, but all the alignments are like that. They have to be to fit everything into nine categories. It's still useful and more simple to have nine broad categories.

Morty
2020-11-08, 05:53 AM
For the record, the morality system in The One Ring, the most modern LotR RPG I'm familiar with works like this:
1. Each player Calling (sort of their character class) has a Shadow Weakness which represents the path they would follow if they fail to resist the Shadow's influence. Scholars have the Lure of Secrets, Slayers have the Curse of Vengeance, Treasure Hunters have Dragon-sickness, Wanderers have Wandering-madness, and Wardens and Leaders have the Lure of Power.
2. Players gain Shadow Points from several potential sources: experiencing distressing events, directly confronting more powerful beings of the shadow (like Ringwraiths), crossing or dwelling in areas tainted by the Shadow, committing despicable or dishonorable actions ("regardless of the end they sought to achieve"), or taking possession of a cursed or tainted item or treasure.
3. Players regularly use Hope points to power their abilities and make difficult rolls. Players become Miserable when they have more Shadow Points than their current Hope score. If they roll an Eye of Sauron on their feat die (a 1 in 12 chance with every roll) while Miserable then they are subject to a Bout of Madness where the Loremaster (GM) takes control of their character for a limited time and makes them do something they will regret later. Like trying to take the Ring from Frodo.
4. A Bout of Madness resets the player's Shadow Points to 0 but also gives them a permanent Shadow Point and a Flaw that the Loremaster may invoke at appropriate times in the future to force a player to roll two Feat dice and take the lower result (Disadvantage, basically).
5. A character who already has all four Flaws for his Calling and succumbs to another Bout of Madness becomes an NPC permanently. Elves lose interest in Middle-Earth and return to Valinor, while Men, Hobbits, or Dwarves either kill themselves in despair, threaten others to the point they have to be killed, or "starves to death in some solitary place, forsaken by men and animals."
6. Temporary Shadow Points may be removed in a limited fashion by downtime activities between adventure phases, usually by practicing some creative craft. Permanent Shadow Points are, as the name implies, permanent.

The alignment system in The One Ring therefore doubles as a sort of Sanity system, since you can get corruption for misdeeds but also take corruption hits for confronting powerful enemies or witnessing distressing events. Misdeeds that earn Shadow Points include (in escalating order) violent threats, lying purposefully or subtly manipulating the will of others, cowardice, theft and plunder, unprovoked aggression, abusing own authority to influence or dominate, torment and torture, or murder.

The system is very different from D&D in many aspects. Aside from the game mechanics there are no PC spellcasters in Middle-Earth. PCs can gain some abilities that are obviously magical, but there is no spell casting system, and Gandalf, Saruman and Radagast are all powerful NPCs with abilities that are mostly up to the Loremaster to define. Combat tends to be short and rather deadly, with players only able to take a few hits. Travel rules are also a big part of the system, and all the printed adventures involve traveling extensively.

I ran a whole year-long campaign in the game and my group and I enjoyed it quite a bit. Cubicle 7 also, sadly, lost the license, so its now out of print. A second edition from a different publisher is planned.

Thanks for detailing it. It is indeed a different "alignment" system than D&D's and superior in all ways, in my opinion. It actually serves the purpose of the game: there's some kind of supernatural evil that can corrupt you. And for all LotR is brought up as an example of people fighting against Morgoth/Sauron but facing temptation and corruption.

ImNotTrevor
2020-11-08, 01:24 PM
Well, its kind of necessary in any RPG that players and GMs have an agreement on the types of stories they want to tell. If you have a group that thinks playing a group of amoral criminals is great escapist fun when it's all just pretend people being hurt but the GM thought he was telling stories about altruistic heroes then there will be problems. A basic understanding of what will be considered right or wrong in the game is therefore necessary, and alignment can be useful shorthand for that.

Why can't I just, as a GM, explain what tone I'm trying to have and make sure players make their characters together and have backstories and personalities in line with the tone?

Having alignment doesn't prevent what you're talking about in any way. I know this because when I had alignment without that conversation, this problem still happened. Alignment made no difference.



The GM has to have some say in whether he thinks you are following your moral code or not because the GM is the world and everyone in it except the other PCs. You can't play a character with a moral code that isn't more than backstory fluff without involving the GM and having him present you with situations that allow you to use it or question it.
I will generally agree that the moral code needs to be a subject open to discussion as it comes up. But there is a fine line between "presenting opportunities to question one's code" and "trying to set up GOTCHA moments because the only interesting thing I can think of to do with Paladins is make them fall."



They are all broad categories, even good and evil. In D&D neutral is a side. A very inclusive side covering a lot of ground and in some ways not very well defined and overlapping the other sides, but all the alignments are like that. They have to be to fit everything into nine categories. It's still useful and more simple to have nine broad categories.
It's even more useful to have NO categories and have each PC and NPC considered individually, since alignment almost never makes up for its cost.

Lord Raziere
2020-11-08, 02:40 PM
Well, its kind of necessary in any RPG that players and GMs have an agreement on the types of stories they want to tell. If you have a group that thinks playing a group of amoral criminals is great escapist fun when it's all just pretend people being hurt but the GM thought he was telling stories about altruistic heroes then there will be problems. A basic understanding of what will be considered right or wrong in the game is therefore necessary, and alignment can be useful shorthand for that.


Very well, if shorthand is so useful, then tell me do you know what tone I'm thinking about when I say: Chaotic Good?

After all you don't need any more information as you claim right? That should be all you need to know.

NigelWalmsley
2020-11-08, 02:47 PM
Well, its kind of necessary in any RPG that players and GMs have an agreement on the types of stories they want to tell.

In that case, why is "Good" a decision coming down from the DM, rather than a consensus coming from the group? If the goal is to get everyone to agree to something, giving one person the power to dictate terms isn't helpful. Moreover, while it is true that you want to agree to a broad tone for a campaign, there's generally plenty of room for there to be multiple notions of "Good" while telling the same type of story. If you go read half a dozen Epic Fantasy stories (or whatever genre), you'll see a range of different ethical stances from protagonists, antagonists, and supporting characters.


A basic understanding of what will be considered right or wrong in the game is therefore necessary, and alignment can be useful shorthand for that.

No, they aren't. "Good" isn't a "useful shorthand", because it's too vague. "Good" just means "things that are right". It doesn't represent any particular set of things that could be considered right, and as such is not useful as shorthand. You can define it, and then use it as shorthand, but at that point it's no better than any other term.


The GM has to have some say in whether he thinks you are following your moral code or not because the GM is the world and everyone in it except the other PCs. You can't play a character with a moral code that isn't more than backstory fluff without involving the GM and having him present you with situations that allow you to use it or question it..

First: what's wrong with just having your code be backstory fluff? Lots of classes have elements that are backstory fluff. A Sorcerer could have his draconic heritage be a big issue on which the campaign turns, or he could have it be a fluff detail about his magic. There's nothing wrong with having a campaign where you play a righteous warrior who does righteous stuff and does not have to make hard moral choices.

Second: that doesn't require that your GM have any say in what your code is. Your GM can create situations where your code is challenged without having to be able to say "ha!, you fell because the Good thing to do was to let the villagers stand on their own against Evil, rather than helping them relocate". In fact, I would say that the first thing is what people who play characters with moral codes want, and the second thing is the cause of roughly every bad experience people had with Paladins.


They have to be to fit everything into nine categories. It's still useful and more simple to have nine broad categories.

Why nine categories? Why not six categories or fifteen categories? Why "Good/Evil" and "Law/Chaos"? Why not "Fire/Water" and "Earth/Air"? You're performing a slight of hand here. You're saying "it's good to have categories that provide guides to behavior", then claiming that this makes D&D's alignment system desirable. But it doesn't. It just means that some system for doing that is useful. What you have to do is demonstrate why Good/Evil and Law/Chaos makes a better alignment system than Planar Alignment or Philosophical Alignment or Organizational Alignment or Color Wheel Alignment.


It's even more useful to have NO categories and have each PC and NPC considered individually, since alignment almost never makes up for its cost.

I don't think that's the case. I think having categories is a useful tool. D&D alignment falls apart in three ways. First, it's universal. The reality is that some, even many, characters should simply not have an alignment. The average peasant doesn't need to fit into a particular side of a generalized moral conflict. Second, it's finite. Alignments are factions, and there's no particular reason to insist that your world has exactly nine factions (or exactly four factions or exactly sixty seven factions). Just write up some factions, and let people align with them if they want. Then when you add new stuff, you can just add additional factions. Third, the terminology is broken. "Good" is simply not a useful name for a faction, because every faction is going to declare itself to be "Good", since that's how people use the word. But in principle, having sets of principles that people in the world have, and factions that they align with is fine, and that's something that you could reasonably call "alignment". You genuinely don't want to have to think about the individual moral perspectives of every character the PCs interact with.

Jason
2020-11-08, 03:37 PM
Very well, if shorthand is so useful, then tell me do you know what tone I'm thinking about when I say: Chaotic Good?

After all you don't need any more information as you claim right? That should be all you need to know.

People who are basically good but willing to challenge authority and will probably approach each situation as if it is unique rather than using the same methods each time. Stuff like torture will be off limits, but unorthodox solutions will be fine.

It's not an all-inclusive "now I know everything that will be in this campaign" shorthand, more like a genre category, "you're rebels fighting against an oppressive Empire. I'm thinking chaotic good alignments."

Genre is in fact a pretty good comparison. Genres can be very broad, but do have limits. If you're in a genre western you can be reasonably sure aliens aren't going to show up. Same idea.

Lord Raziere
2020-11-08, 04:05 PM
People who are basically good but willing to challenge authority and will probably approach each situation as if it is unique rather than using the same methods each time. Stuff like torture will be off limits, but unorthodox solutions will be fine.

It's not an all-inclusive "now I know everything that will be in this campaign" shorthand, more like a genre category, "you're rebels fighting against an oppressive Empire. I'm thinking chaotic good alignments."

Genre is in fact a pretty good comparison. Genres can be very broad, but do have limits. If you're in a genre western you can be reasonably sure aliens aren't going to show up. Same idea.

Wrong. :smallamused:

I wasn't thinking of any tone. You just brought your own subjective assumptions into it. A person can be any alignment in any situation, the only difference is how that alignment is treated in that situation, nothing more. Choice of alignment implies nothing about the "genre" as I can find reasons why "rebels against oppressive empire" can be Lawful Good, Neutral Good, Chaotic Neutral, Neutral Evil and Chaotic Evil as well, and how all these people can work together despite their disagreements to overthrow it. Its not as if they have the luxury of choosing their allies. And why would the universe make them coincidentally Chaotic Good for no reason? its far more realistic and interesting that people are varied, because the clash of moralities and ideas is a more interesting story than any agreement. tone is not needed, whatever is made is made, arising naturally from the interactions people want to have rather than the interactions you try to make them have.

Jason
2020-11-08, 04:42 PM
In that case, why is "Good" a decision coming down from the DM, rather than a consensus coming from the group? To some degree it is both, but it is primarily up to the GM to enforce the rules.


If the goal is to get everyone to agree to something, giving one person the power to dictate terms isn't helpful. It's how RPGs work. One person is the world and everyone except the PCs. One person generally decides what plot points will be used next and preps the adventures that involve them. Multiple GMs can work, but it's usually still really one person acting as GM at a time. If a person gets their abilities from following a code, it will be primarily the GM who decides when they go away because of a broken code.


Moreover, while it is true that you want to agree to a broad tone for a campaign, there's generally plenty of room for there to be multiple notions of "Good" while telling the same type of story.Of course. I've already said many times that alignments are broad categories. D&D has at least three flavors of good built into the rules.


No, they aren't. "Good" isn't a "useful shorthand", because it's too vague. "Good" just means "things that are right". It doesn't represent any particular set of things that could be considered right, and as such is not useful as shorthand. You can define it, and then use it as shorthand, but at that point it's no better than any other term.It's distinct enough to be useful but vague enough to not be a straightjacket, and there are lists of what is considered good and evil in many versions of D&D. It works better than labelling them after primary colors or something, something that wouldn't be descriptive at all.


First: what's wrong with just having your code be backstory fluff? A code of behavior isn't actually a code of behavior if you don't attempt to follow it. If it never comes up in game and is just part of your backstory ("fluff") it isn't really something that guides your character's behavior, is it?


Second: that doesn't require that your GM have any say in what your code is.No, I meant more that you have to have a mutual understanding of what it is, which requires GM input. It's not so the GM can have gotcha moments, it is so the GM can engage with the player and make meaningful conflicts and stories for him to encounter. Players tend to like it when their backstory becomes important.


Why nine categories? Why not six categories or fifteen categories? Why "Good/Evil" and "Law/Chaos"? Why not "Fire/Water" and "Earth/Air"? You're performing a slight of hand here. You're saying "it's good to have categories that provide guides to behavior", then claiming that this makes D&D's alignment system desirable. But it doesn't. It just means that some system for doing that is useful. What you have to do is demonstrate why Good/Evil and Law/Chaos makes a better alignment system than Planar Alignment or Philosophical Alignment or Organizational Alignment or Color Wheel Alignment.
No slight of hand intended. Yes, you may indeed say that my arguments merely say that some alignment system is desirable or at least useful for the sorts of stories that we often tell with RPGs, and that it doesn't have to be the nine alignment system used by D&D. But it is the system we've mostly been talking about.
If I argued at length about the system used in The One Ring most people wouldn't a) know what I'm talking about, and b) it is a system that is intended for a much more narrow application than D&D's, being designed with a specific campaign world in mind.
Using moral terms also makes more sense than something like Air/Earth/Fire/Water, because you can draw real-world associations to help guide what should go in each alignment. Legend of the Five Rings uses the Five elemental Rings as groups for character traits, and it can take some time for new players to remember that for instance Strength goes under Water while Intelligence goes under Fire.
Also, as I said earlier, it's product identity for D&D. Different systems have been tried, especially in 4th edition, and the fans seem to like the nine alignment version best.


Alignments are factions, and there's no particular reason to insist that your world has exactly nine factions (or exactly four factions or exactly sixty seven factions). Alignments are not factions.

This is not to say that groups of similarly aligned creatures cannot be opposed or even mortal enemies. Two nations, for example, with rulers of lawful good alignment can be at war. Bands of orcs can hate each other. But the former would possibly cease their war to oppose a massive invasion of orcs, just as the latter would make common cause against the lawful good men.
Compatible moral philosophies <> natural allies, except when faced with a greater threat that is less compatible.


"Good" is simply not a useful name for a faction, because every faction is going to declare itself to be "Good", since that's how people use the word. You're right, if alignments were just faction names it would not be useful to label one "good". Witness all the "democratic republics" in the world that are anything but.
But alignments in D&D are not merely factions. They are game terms describing the game reality and allowing other bits of game rules to key off of them, and not merely in-game opinions or names. They are as real as hit points or armor class.

NigelWalmsley
2020-11-08, 05:40 PM
If a person gets their abilities from following a code, it will be primarily the GM who decides when they go away because of a broken code.

And why does this require the DM to define "Good"? How much adjudication does a restriction like "don't use poison" actually need? It's not like there's some deep philosophical debate about what things count as poisons.


It's distinct enough to be useful but vague enough to not be a straightjacket, and there are lists of what is considered good and evil in many versions of D&D. It works better than labelling them after primary colors or something, something that wouldn't be descriptive at all.

Neither is alignment. "Good" just means "things we like". "Red" is better precisely because it has no inherent meaning. When you talk about "Good", people make assumptions, and those assumptions lead to conflict. When you talk about "Red", people don't make any assumptions, because no one in the real world identifies as "morally Red". An alignment system should either be entirely made up so you can define things as convenient (e.g. Color Wheel Alignment, Planar Alignment) or should use terms with definitions that can be generally agreed upon as having specific meaning (e.g. Philosophical Alignment). D&D's current system lives in an awkward middle ground where it evokes general assumptions without providing enough specific information to avoid conflicts.


A code of behavior isn't actually a code of behavior if you don't attempt to follow it. If it never comes up in game and is just part of your backstory ("fluff") it isn't really something that guides your character's behavior, is it?

Sure it is. You probably think that murder is bad. This view guides your behavior. But you've probably never been in a situation where you were tempted to violate your "don't murder people" code of behavior. You certainly can have a game where the Paladin has to make difficult moral choices and grapple with her code. But you can also have a game where the Paladin just kicks demon butt and takes demon names. Both of those are acceptable games, just as both the game where the demon the Warlock made a pact with for power tries to collect and the game where that demon never shows up are acceptable games.


No slight of hand intended. Yes, you may indeed say that my arguments merely say that some alignment system is desirable or at least useful for the sorts of stories that we often tell with RPGs, and that it doesn't have to be the nine alignment system used by D&D. But it is the system we've mostly been talking about.

Yes, that is the system you have been defending and other people have been criticizing. The notion that it is not ideal and should be replaced by something else is what we have been talking about.


Also, as I said earlier, it's product identity for D&D. Different systems have been tried, especially in 4th edition, and the fans seem to like the nine alignment version best.

Which is why 5e has one of the strongest and most mechanically-relevant versions of alignment ever released. Wait, no, opposite. To say nothing of the suspect logic of looking at the massive changes between editions and asserting that this thing you really like is super definitely the reason why those editions did well or poorly. That's a bad argument when people make it about balance, and it's a bad argument when you make it about alignment.


Alignments are not factions.

Distinction without a difference. A shared moral philosophy may not be a political alliance, but it is substantively similar in that it is expected to predict behavior. Moreover, the degree to which you claim that hairs are split within alignments instead of between them is the degree to which you implicitly accept that alignment is not actually sufficient for solving the problems you are using it for, and should therefore be removed to make room for a system that is.


They are game terms describing the game reality and allowing other bits of game rules to key off of them, and not merely in-game opinions or names. They are as real as hit points or armor class.

Again, Anal Circumference. Your argument is, fundamentally, circular. Alignment is important because it has mechanics associated with it, so we should have mechanics that key off alignment because it is important. But what if alignment wasn't important? What if Paladins swore to uphold personal ideals, rather than the abstract notion of Goodness? What if things hurt demons more because they were anti-demon, rather than because they were anti-"everyone who isn't whatever moral system your DM likes"?

sdevdutt41
2020-11-09, 06:05 AM
I've never yet had anyone give me a unique and meaningful reason for alignment to exist beyond "it's part of the brand." In an old interview I watched shortly after the 5e release even the developers of 5e admitted that the only thing keeping Alignment in the system was its association with the D&D brand making it obligatory. Hence why alignment has NO mechanical effect in 5e.

Democratus
2020-11-09, 09:09 AM
My argument isn't that alignment gets used poorly sometimes. It's that the BEST examples of alignment use are 0% better than what I achieve without using it at all, and it's worst examples are infinitely worse. So with that spread, what on earth would compel me to use it?

Wow.

This presumes that:
1) You know every use of alignment that has ever existed at any table.
2) Your games are somehow better than every other game on earth that uses alignment

Forgive me if the grain of salt needed with your "argument" exceeds my encumbrance rating. :smallsigh:

Xervous
2020-11-09, 10:08 AM
____ can be used to frame a game. Some people enjoy it, I personally don’t, I wouldn’t run it because it doesn’t let me deliver the sort of experience I typically aim for but I’m not going to liken it to FATAL or RaHoWa.

I can place alignment in there, among other things, niche but not necessary. If D&D continues striving to be fast food gaming for the masses I don’t see a path forward that brings alignment back to higher importance.

Jason
2020-11-09, 10:22 AM
I must admit that I am a bit surprised by the vehemence of the arguments I'm seeing against the alignment system. I begin to wonder if it's simply an insistence that to label any behavior good or evil, even in a role-playing game involving entirely fictional people, is itself (somewhat paradoxically) evil?

It seems similar to the idea I find equally baffling that to say entirely fictional orcs in this game I play are "usually evil" will somehow lead an increase in real-life racism.


I have yet to see any good argument for why alignment should be ditched.

"It would be simpler" doesn't cut it. It is already simpler to have only nine categories rather than one for each and every NPC encountered by the players. I suppose you could make an argument for reducing the number of alignments to seven or five or even three, but nobody seems to be arguing that.

"It wouldn't give players another excuse to play murder hobos" doesn't make the grade either. The type of players who play murder-hobos don't screen everyone they meet with detect evil before killing them. Alignment is largely irrelevant to such players.

"The labels are imprecise" is kind of missing the point of having broad categories, and I have no problem labelling things like murder and slavery "evil" in the real world, let alone in an RPG.

"I don't want the DM deciding what is good and evil" seems like another way of saying "I don't want the DM to restrict my character's behavior." Obviously there are DMs who restrict player character behavior too much, but that's not due to the alignment system. Removing the alignment system will not make such people into good DMs. And saying "remove alignment so no DM can use it to abuse a player," is like saying "hammers can be used to hit people on the head, so no one should be allowed to have hammers in their toolbox."

"You can do fine without it." Well, you can play fine games without character classes, attributes that go from 3-18, armor classes, pseudo-Vancian magic, hit points, etc. But then you won't really be playing D&D anymore, will you? People often play D&D because they like those things, and it's remained if not the then one of the most popular RPGs since its creation in part because of them.

Did I miss any other arguments?

NigelWalmsley
2020-11-09, 10:22 AM
"Fast food gaming" doesn't really have much to do with it. 4e was trying to move away from alignment too. The reality is that it's been over a decade since D&D made alignment a major party of the game. With all the MTG crossovers they're doing, I wouldn't be surprised if 6e just goes straight to Color Wheel Alignment.


1) You know every use of alignment that has ever existed at any table.

It seems fairly obvious he's talking about the examples he's seen. Rather than expressing incredulity, could you try to provide an example you think rebuts his point?

ImNotTrevor
2020-11-09, 10:38 AM
Wow.

This presumes that:
1) You know every use of alignment that has ever existed at any table.
2) Your games are somehow better than every other game on earth that uses alignment

Forgive me if the grain of salt needed with your "argument" exceeds my encumbrance rating. :smallsigh:

If you read more into it than what I'm saying, it sure would seem that way. I might be hyperbolic in my presentation (slightly) but the most ideal situation for alignment I've ever seen DESCRIBED that was within realistic bounds has never sounded any better than what I ACTUALLY achieve without it.

And the worst that I've seen and experienced of the ways alignment can chuck a wrench in the works are much worse than what I achieve without it.

So, again, if I've never had an advantage of alignment described to me that sounded like something I don't already achieve without it, and I have seen and heard the ways alignment can make stuff worse in a game, why would I use it?

The value proposition is "alignment does what you already do without it, and has a chance of creating messes you don't currently deal with" vs. "Playing without alignment does exactly what you're already doing with no new problems."

HMMMMM.
I WONDER WHICH ONE I'LL TAKE.

Would you rather cook your food in a Microwave, or a Microwave with a 5% chance of turning your food rancid, which would you choose to use?

That's the basic value proposition.

NOTE:
None of this is a statement on overall campaign quality unless you're obviously trying to paint me as a hyper-arrogant spanner. I'm only talking about the things ALIGNMENT SPECIFICALLY ACHIEVES. If you really think Alignment is THE SOLE DIFFERENCE between a poorly run alignment-free campaign and a well-run alignment-using campaign, I can't help you.

ImNotTrevor
2020-11-09, 11:24 AM
Did I miss any other arguments?

"Alignment is an active stumbling block for new players trying to get a grip on roleplaying."
In my experience with introducing new players I find that they do much better in systems/campaigns where alignment is minimized or removed. They stop worrying about Alignment's OBVIOUSLY PRESCRIPTIVE NATURE as found in 3.5 and just come up with a character they find interesting without needing to either:
1. Do as 3.5 demands and make a personality for their character that fits the nebulous and unclear alignment boundaries as required for their class. (A very common concern for my new players back in 3.5, barely a concern at all in 5e, not a concern EVER when I just skip it.)

2. Retroactively interpret their character into a box that they're not certain how important it is unless the DM tells them, and does so accurately. (This is more common in 5e, but now I just skip it entirely and none of my newbies notice and if they do I just say "I don't use that, it's not needed.")


"You can't have alignment arguments or alignment drama if there is no alignment."
Self-explanatory.

"Alignment rarely achieves its own goals and often hinders itself in achieving them."

Alignment is meant to be a sort of "unifying moral compass" for the system and setting, but it is inconsistent and often contradictory. Alignment paradoxes are common, and since part of declaring one side as "good guys" is that the audience (players) need to buy into that, alignment can sometimes shoot itself in a foot and destroy its own verisimilitude and buy-in.

"On top of the above, Alignment doesn't bring anything genuinely unique to the table that offsets its downsides."
Kinda what it says on the tin.

"Deleting alignment from the books would save a LOT of paper, and its effect on the game would be negligible. It's very eco-friendly."
Hurr hurr.

These are the reasons why I don't use it, based on experiencing it both ways.
I'm not gonna come to your house and rip out the pages from your book, nor will I call the Fun Police and have you locked up. But I don't have to do either of those things to be convinced that most games would be, at best, improved by alignment's removal or, at worst, largely unaffected by alignment's removal.

I think the D&D guys picked the best available middle ground:
D&D still *technically* has alignment. It's iconic, so it's there...
But it's as relevant to the mechanics as hair color.

I think that's an acceptable state. I just choose to take that next step and pretend it doesn't exist at all.

Jason
2020-11-09, 12:23 PM
"Alignment is an active stumbling block for new players trying to get a grip on roleplaying."
Mmmm, maybe some people would object to it. But I would think that there are plenty of other stumbling blocks for new players in D&D. Understanding player jargon is probably the biggest one. I don't see a reason to single out alignment as a particularly significant stumbling block compared to other parts of D&D. I've had more people object to how the magic system works ("why do I forget my spells when I cast them?"). To me, archetypical things like classes and alignment ("we're the good guys - it says so right on our character sheet") seem more helpful than harmful in acclimating new players.


"You can't have alignment arguments or alignment drama if there is no alignment."
Self-explanatory.A possible point. But won't the people who like to argue about alignment just argue about whatever replaces it, or some other game mechanic they have a problem with? Players spending their time getting into arguments seems the problem there, not alignment specifically.


"Alignment rarely achieves its own goals and often hinders itself in achieving them."
Alignment is meant to be a sort of "unifying moral compass" for the system and setting, but it is inconsistent and often contradictory. Alignment paradoxes are common, and since part of declaring one side as "good guys" is that the audience (players) need to buy into that, alignment can sometimes shoot itself in a foot and destroy its own verisimilitude and buy-in.I don't think alignment is meant to be a "unifying moral compass". It's meant to be a set of nine drawers you can organize things like creatures in for easy reference. They give you something to go on when the PCs unexpectedly decide to talk to the monster you thought they were just going to kill out of hand.
I don't find alignment paradoxes to be at all common in my games either. If what you mean by "alignment paradox" is what I think you mean, that is.


"On top of the above, Alignment doesn't bring anything genuinely unique to the table that offsets its downsides."That seems to be your personal judgement, not an argument.


"Deleting alignment from the books would save a LOT of paper, and its effect on the game would be negligible. It's very eco-friendly."
Hurr hurr.Yeah, okay. To take the idea seriously for a moment, you might save 3-4 pages in the PHB and DMG. You wouldn't save many pages anywhere else, because alignment is only one shared line in most monster entries.


These are the reasons why I don't use it, based on experiencing it both ways.
I'm not gonna come to your house and rip out the pages from your book, nor will I call the Fun Police and have you locked up. But I don't have to do either of those things to be convinced that most games would be, at best, improved by alignment's removal or, at worst, largely unaffected by alignment's removal.Fair enough. You game your way and I'll game mine. The way 5th edition treats it you certainly can just ignore it with little problem, especially if you're only playing your own home-brew adventures.

Xervous
2020-11-09, 12:25 PM
"Fast food gaming" doesn't really have much to do with it. 4e was trying to move away from alignment too. The reality is that it's been over a decade since D&D made alignment a major party of the game. With all the MTG crossovers they're doing, I wouldn't be surprised if 6e just goes straight to Color Wheel Alignment.



It seems fairly obvious he's talking about the examples he's seen. Rather than expressing incredulity, could you try to provide an example you think rebuts his point?

4e was an adjustment driven by imperfect market analysis. They asked what the product should do rather than inquiring about the problem that needed solving. 4e’s alignment implementation was strangely more choked and rigid. I wonder what writing prompts the developers worked off of to produce that single axis.

5e on the other hand clearly did its research and struck broad, general appeal and mass consumption. Less rules and rigidity everywhere, be it alignment, skills, or the upcoming race customization. For a game that wants to sell itself, committing to niche functionality like alignment or Shadowrun essence loss writes your system into a smaller box. Can’t very well claim to be a broad, versatile system if you’re baking in such lore assumptions.

Lord Raziere
2020-11-09, 01:57 PM
"Fast food gaming" doesn't really have much to do with it. 4e was trying to move away from alignment too. The reality is that it's been over a decade since D&D made alignment a major party of the game. With all the MTG crossovers they're doing, I wouldn't be surprised if 6e just goes straight to Color Wheel Alignment.


And if it does, I wouldn't mind it all that much.

the color wheel isn't linear, it provides more interesting conflicts than just two things and given how people tend to naturally think they will gravitate towards White being good and Black being evil anyways. even though none of the colors are actually technically any alignment. Red, Blue and Green make for more interesting sides than Neutral anyways, because you actually know what those three value and thus what they are likely to set as goals, rather than being this weird category that is "I'm meh on everything" "I'm meh but I like things orderly" or "I'm unpredictable".

like if someone is Neutral? who cares, they're a null. but someone is Red color? oh boy you got SPICE! That means this person is emotional, impulsive. it means they got enemies in Blue and White that have nothing to do with morality. there is potential to tell a story from that, in more ways than one. it means that they can make mistakes from not thinking things through, it means they got two enemies that could disagree on how to deal with them due to their own philosophies, things like that. best of all, White isn't actually good and Black isn't actually evil-there is potential for both of those colors to have internal conflicts over expressing their respective philosophies in a moderate sane way that everyone can live with or in extreme ways that no one can.

RedMage125
2020-11-09, 01:58 PM
ImNotTrevor, you seem to have taken a lot of what I was saying to NigelWalmsley, and acted liek I was responding to YOU. And you're real quick to get all defensive.

Do you....
Do you not know why lawyers exist?
Do you not know why judges exist?
If something as vitally important as LAWS don't always have crystal clear interpretations, what on Earth makes you think the way you read the (very vague) RAW on alignment is *the objectively correct interpretation?*

That's some incredible confidence, my guy.
Again, I was talking to nigel, and his claim that "different sources claim alignment mean different things". When the RAW are actually all pretty consistent. There's been some changes as far as what a few specific alignments mean over the years*, but what Alignment itself is hasn't changed all that much.

*2e, for example, True Neutral had to "always side with the underdog, even if it means switching sides in the middle of a battle". And Chaotic Neutral was "literally crazy. Just as likely to jump off a bridge as cross is". These have now changed drastically.


Remember that here you're claiming alignment is DESCRIPTIVE and NOT PRESCRIPTIVE.
Remember this sword, because you kill your own point with it below.
No, I am quite consistent, as I will illustrate below.



I just toss the whole thing out the window and save my players on the reading.
What you do based on your preferences is fine for your group. But that's entirely non-sequitur to the point, which was about what Nigel said about "the glosses individual players have produced to try to make things work in their games."

You don't like alignment. Your opinion has been noted. Do you have anything of substance to SAY about it?



I do agree with this. Hence why I always say "Alignment is for Lame-O's and I don't care about it" when talking to my players about it.

Again, your opinion has been noted.



Remember that sword? Note that A SIGNIFICANT PORTION of Alignment mechanics are DEEPLY PRESCRIPTIVE. Your character MUST behave this way or they are WRONG and GET PUNISHED.

Alignment is descriptive... until it isn't. You can't have it both ways. You cannot say "Alignment only describes your character" on one hand and on the other say "and if you do something I consider out-of-alignment you will get punished."

Alignment is very much prescriptive. It might be prescriptive in a way you agree with, but it's still prescriptive.

LMAO.

Literally NOTHING you have said has anything to do with alignment being "prescriptive".

For alignment to be "prescriptive" it would mean: "Your alignment is X, therefore you cannot take Y action". That is what is means for something to PRESCRIBE.

Saying "there is a consequence for taking Y action" does not mean you cannot take it. Ergo, your entire claim is null and void.

FURTHERMORE, you are WAY off-base in regards to what I was even saying with the quote you responded to. A being with an Evil alignment takes more damage from a Holy sword (and would have 2 negative levels when trying to wield it). They can be detected with spells. They are affected differently by the various X Word spells, and so on. Those are mechanics that have impact, and why the appellations of "good/evil/etc" are not so arbitrary and interchangeable that they could be exchanged for "choleric" or "green".



ALSO, to a point made below:
You do realize this argument is basically "alignment is useful when you use a system that forces it to be useful." Like... DUH. We're talking in general, my guy.
No, the point is "alignment is neither as restrictive nor as arbitrary as [Nigel's] points claim it is".


Would putting Alignment into another system improve that system? 99% of the time, no.
What does that have to do with anything? I haven't made any claim to that extent, {Scrubbed}



That's the key difference we're talking about.
WE weren't talking about anything.



I'm hella snide by default so you can't really take it personal in my case.
Once again, I was responding to Nigel, not you.

{Scrubbed}




I wouldn't say that alignment is USELESS. Just... not as good at accomplishing its own goals as most other alternatives to it.

[QUOTE=ImNotTrevor;24791223]
I mean, your counterargument, as I said, is "in systems where alignment is forced to be important, it's important."
No, you actually completely missed the thrust of my argument, namely because you took everything I was saying to Nigel about his claims as if I had said it to you.


But if I sit down to play a game of 5e D&D, the question nobody can answer is:
WHAT GOES SO HORRIBLY WRONG IF I ENTIRELY IGNORE THE EXISTENCE OF ALIGNMENT AS A FORMAL SYSTEM?

Nobody can give me a half decent answer. Because the FACT is that... nothing changes, except one Pixie ability stops working. [Quick change: it now detects hostile intent instead of alignment. Done.]

Nothing. And I quite like 5e. They delivered on their promise that alignment mechanics would be be musch less deeply-ingrained and impactful than they were in 3e.

My point has never been "you need to change your OPINION on alignment", and if you think it was, it's because the chip on your shoulder is too deeply embedded that any time you face a counter argument, your only response is to assume I am tell you "you're playing wrong".

Fact is, I believe D&D thrives on house rules and customization. The only "wrong way to play" is a manner in which the people at your table are not having fun.

HOWEVER, when discussing the rules on the forum, all house rules are impossible to account for. Ergo, none of them are accounted for (excepting threads specifically for addressing such). Therefore for the purposes of discussion only what is in the RAW is "true" or "fact". Any of us can verify cited sources to double-check the validity of any argument couched as "fact".

And Nigel frequently couches his statements as "fact". Like I closed my post with, his post could be paraphrased as "given that alignment is useless, they could have used any old words instead of 'good/evil/etc'". But will not accept that his "given" is just his opinion, and believes he is stating facts, ones with a value judgement, no less. Because while you seem to accept that some people like alignment and derive value from it, Nigel actually insists his way is better for everyone.



Neutral is a choice, but it's not a side. If you're not proposing some actionable alternative to "Law v Chaos" or "Good v Evil", it's still a binary. But as soon as you do propose an alternative, the system collapses.
For your benefit, I have bolded your incorrect statements.

There are alignments which are Neutral on both "Good/Evil" axis and "Law/Chaos" axis. There are entire PLANES on the Great Wheel that are Neutral with respect to those. There's even one Outer Plane that is Neutral with respect to ALL of them.

So, once again, since you refused to respond:
The prefix "bi" means "two". Since there is a wide, and more importantly, distinct area of result between Good and Evil, or between Law and Chaos, the choice is not "binary", it is therefore "ternary".

So this is more of a linguistic nitpick, but you are wrong.



At best, alignment shoves every option that isn't "whatever you think Chaos means" or "whatever you think Law means" into a single bucket it treats as interchangeable. At worst, it ignores those distinctions entirely.
Or, you know...third option...you're wrong.

Neutral isn't "interchangeable"...it is neither Lawful nor Chaotic.



RedMage does that a lot. He seems to think "your argument is not a fact" is a rebuttal to an argument, instead of something that is obvious to everyone having the argument. As a result, he gets angry and splutters about "not understanding the difference between your opinion and objective law" and "straw man", but doesn't actually say anything that substantively rebuts the arguments presented.
When you present your opinions as if they were facts, and especially when you either imply or explicitly say that your preference is somehow "superior", or that anyone who uses alignment is somehow "playing on a lower level" than you, you're incredibly offensive. And you take n accountability for how you come across.

And I actually DO "substantially rebut the arguments presented". In our last thread, I even cited RAW sources that explicitly say your statements were incorrect. Furthermore, showcasing that everything you said was just a statement of preference, and is not fact is, in fact a rebuttal.

Your failure to present a well-supported case with facts and citations is not you being "persecuted" by me. And my continual highlighting OF that failure is not a "failure to rebut" what you call "arguments".


{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

{Scrubbed}

ImNotTrevor
2020-11-09, 02:21 PM
Mmmm, maybe some people would object to it. But I would think that there are plenty of other stumbling blocks for new players in D&D. Understanding player jargon is probably the biggest one. I don't see a reason to single out alignment as a particularly significant stumbling block compared to other parts of D&D. I've had more people object to how the magic system works ("why do I forget my spells when I cast them?"). To me, archetypical things like classes and alignment ("we're the good guys - it says so right on our character sheet") seem more helpful than harmful in acclimating new players.
Except you have to explain what alignment is and what it means, and when you describe what it is and what it means they take it prescriptively (most things in D&D are, so I can't blame them, and if you're still playing 3.5 it absolutely IS prescriptive.) And now they feel a need to BE CHAOTIC GOOD rather than BE ILDAR GREENLEAF. If I skip alignment, they have no problems. And I have seen no increased benefit to having NG on a sheet above and beyond saying "You guys will be playing as heroic adventurers." That usually sets that up for everyone at once.



A possible point. But won't the people who like to argue about alignment just argue about whatever replaces it, or some other game mechanic they have a problem with? Players spending their time getting into arguments seems the problem there, not alignment specifically.
Who said I replace alignment? I just get rid of it.

And in my experience, the ones arguing about alignment stuff are perfectly fine once I remove it.



I don't think alignment is meant to be a "unifying moral compass". It's meant to be a set of nine drawers you can organize things like creatures in for easy reference. They give you something to go on when the PCs unexpectedly decide to talk to the monster you thought they were just going to kill out of hand.
Organized based on their morals.

Alignment is supposed to say "this is what Good is." It's used to help navigate D&D's morality, like... like one of those... oh, what are they, they point north?



I don't find alignment paradoxes to be at all common in my games either. If what you mean by "alignment paradox" is what I think you mean, that is.
Alignment Paradoxes, Alignment Disagreements, Miscommunications about alignment, stick it all in there.
"Technically, killing a surrendering demon is still Good because Demons are Evil."
"Technically, killing a baby red dragon is still good because it's born evil."



That seems to be your personal judgement, not an argument.
It is certainly a claim no one has ever satifactorily debunked for me.



Yeah, okay. To take the idea seriously for a moment, you might save 3-4 pages in the PHB and DMG. You wouldn't save many pages anywhere else, because alignment is only one shared line in most monster entries.
Assuming we save 3 pages per PHB, and the WOTC report of 12 million new players so far is accurate and let's say 80% of them purchased a PHB, so 9.6 million sold. 3 pages per book is 28,800,00 sheets of paper. In terms of trees, one tree produces around 8,33p sheets of paper. So removing alignment would save 3,456 trees, or 57 acres of healthy forest.



Fair enough. You game your way and I'll game mine. The way 5th edition treats it you certainly can just ignore it with little problem, especially if you're only playing your own home-brew adventures.
I used to ignore it in 3.5, too. Never really made much difference at the table.

But yeah, ULTIMATELY it's a preference thing.

My opinion is still objectively correct tho. :D

NigelWalmsley
2020-11-09, 03:18 PM
4e was an adjustment driven by imperfect market analysis. They asked what the product should do rather than inquiring about the problem that needed solving. 4e’s alignment implementation was strangely more choked and rigid. I wonder what writing prompts the developers worked off of to produce that single axis.

4e's linear alignment system was a reaction to the fact that, in practice, people treat Lawful Good as "more Good" than the other Goods and Chaotic Evil as "more Evil" than the other Evils.

Morty
2020-11-09, 03:21 PM
4e's linear alignment system was a reaction to the fact that, in practice, people treat Lawful Good as "more Good" than the other Goods and Chaotic Evil as "more Evil" than the other Evils.

Also that the ultimate purpose of alignment is to slap an "EVIL" label on things that it's okay to fight and kill; everything else is just window dressing. It was refreshingly honest in a way, but I'd still rather just not have it.

Jason
2020-11-09, 03:28 PM
Except you have to explain what alignment is and what it means, and when you describe what it is and what it means they take it prescriptively (most things in D&D are, so I can't blame them, and if you're still playing 3.5 it absolutely IS prescriptive.) And now they feel a need to BE CHAOTIC GOOD rather than BE ILDAR GREENLEAF. If I skip alignment, they have no problems. And I have seen no increased benefit to having NG on a sheet above and beyond saying "You guys will be playing as heroic adventurers." That usually sets that up for everyone at once.You have to describe what "fighter" means too, and the same players are just as likely to say "I'm a fighter, I have to fight everything now" as to say "I have to be Chaotic Good rather than be Ildar Greenleaf." I don't really see it as much of an issue.


Alignment Paradoxes, Alignment Disagreements, Miscommunications about alignment, stick it all in there.
"Technically, killing a surrendering demon is still Good because Demons are Evil."
"Technically, killing a baby red dragon is still good because it's born evil."
My solution to such things is pretty simple. "I the DM says killing that surrendering demon while it's helpless is evil, because killing an enemy while they are helpless and trying to surrender is evil. I the DM says that killing a baby dragon is an evil action because it's evil to kill babies (at least the ones that will grow up to be sentient beings)." It's the alignments of the action and the person that is contemplating the action that are important, not the alignment of the target of the action.

Really, I don't see arguments like that very often at all. Much more on internet forums than in actual play. My players leave the orc babies with their mothers, who they have also spared, and accept the surrender of a demon while watching carefully for treachery.


Assuming we save 3 pages per PHB, and the WOTC report of 12 million new players so far is accurate and let's say 80% of them purchased a PHB, so 9.6 million sold. 3 pages per book is 28,800,00 sheets of paper. In terms of trees, one tree produces around 8,33p sheets of paper. So removing alignment would save 3,456 trees, or 57 acres of healthy forest.80% of the players purchase a PHB? I don't think so. Not in this digital age. I'm old-school, so I loves me some real books, but my players hardly ever pull out a hardcopy. It's all D&D Beyond on their tablets, laptops, and phones. Not a paper character sheet to be found. They're starting to not even bring real dice to their games, the heretics.

Plus how much of those books is recycled paper?

ImNotTrevor
2020-11-09, 04:05 PM
ImNotTrevor, you seem to have taken a lot of what I was saying to NigelWalmsley, and acted liek I was responding to YOU.

Hi! Welcome to the Forum. It's a public, open discussion, where anyone can respond to you.

GitP also has the option of Personal Messages. If you would like to have a conversation with just one person, please use those.

Coming at me for responding on a public forum seems... a bit silly, don't you agree?



Again, I was talking to nigel, and his claim that "different sources claim alignment mean different things". When the RAW are actually all pretty consistent. There's been some changes as far as what a few specific alignments mean over the years*, but what Alignment itself is hasn't changed all that much.
I believe we can easily assume that Nigel has a functioning mind and didn't assume the definition for what the entire concept of Alignment means has changed dramatically per edition (it changed pretty significantly at least once)



*2e, for example, True Neutral had to "always side with the underdog, even if it means switching sides in the middle of a battle".
Considering the comments about prescriptive alignment, the bolded "Had to" is telling. I'll expand my thoughts later.



And Chaotic Neutral was "literally crazy. Just as likely to jump off a bridge as cross is". These have now changed drastically.
Praise Tiamat, because both of these are stuper dumb.



What you do based on your preferences is fine for your group. But that's entirely non-sequitur to the point, which was about what Nigel said about "the glosses individual players have produced to try to make things work in their games."
Yes, over time there has been shifts and changes across alignment and how it is worded. How people interpret that wording is not consistent nor has an objectively correct reading. Meaning that since that's just how, like, language and communication work, Nigel is speaking about something obviously factual, if you've played at more than 1 table in the last 20 years, at least.



You don't like alignment. Your opinion has been noted. Do you have anything of substance to SAY about it?

I've said plenty. Go read it if you wanna know.



LMAO.

:)



Literally NOTHING you have said has anything to do with alignment being "prescriptive".

For alignment to be "prescriptive" it would mean: "Your alignment is X, therefore you cannot take Y action". That is what is means for something to PRESCRIBE.
Oof, sorry. That's not accurate. That would make alignment OBLIGATORY or NON-NEGOTIABLE.

Here's what Prescriptive means:
"that prescribes; giving directions or injunctions."

Injunctions are commands, orders, or admonitions.

"Do x or recieve a punishment" is indeed a command, order, admonition, or direction.

I'm sorry, guy, but by definition, 3.5 alignment is prescriptive. It tells you what to do, and lists the punishment if you don't. (Bards MUST be chaotic is a Prescribed Rule about Bards, not a description of Bards)

The problem with your counter is that, by this definition of Prescriptive, NOTHING is prescriptive except maybe physical laws. And since there's an entire discussion in linguistics about Prescriptive vs. Descriptive Grammar, and the Prescriptive Grammar is the one that says "This is the correct way to English" and Descriptive says "Wow, look at all these neat dialects" I'm guessing that when D&D says "This is the correct way to Bard," it has more in common with the Prescriptive end than the Descriptive end.

So... no, my dude. Just no.



Saying "there is a consequence for taking Y action" does not mean you cannot take it. Ergo, your entire claim is null and void.
LMAO

Yeah, if Prescriptive meant something totally different, you'd be right.



FURTHERMORE, you are WAY off-base in regards to what I was even saying with the quote you responded to. A being with an Evil alignment takes more damage from a Holy sword (and would have 2 negative levels when trying to wield it). They can be detected with spells. They are affected differently by the various X Word spells, and so on. Those are mechanics that have impact, and why the appellations of "good/evil/etc" are not so arbitrary and interchangeable that they could be exchanged for "choleric" or "green".
Like I said, alignment does have impact... WHEN THE SYSTEM MAKES IT HAVE IMPACT. We can agree there. What Nigel and I are talking about is "Generally speaking, is Alignment worth keeping around?" We've both been here since page 1 talking about that topic, which now that I think about it, makes your comment about me butting in EVEN FUNNIER.



No, the point is "alignment is neither as restrictive nor as arbitrary as [Nigel's] points claim it is".
Neutral and Chaotic Neutral in 2e certainly sound deeply arbitrary, and Neutral in that edition is pretty restrictive.

3.5 says that if you're not chaotic, you can't be a Bard and lose all class features if you swap alignments later. (This, again, is definitionally prescriptive. Not OBLIGATORY, but prescriptive. It tells you what to do.)



What does that have to do with anything? I haven't made any claim to that extent, and trying to pretend that I did is absurd.
In stark contrast to your belief that I'm upset rather than deeply, deeply amused, I can't even remember what this is in reference to and I don't care enough to check.



WE weren't talking about anything.


"We" meaning Nigel and I. *facepalm*



Once again, I was responding to Nigel, not you.

But feel free to jump into the conversation, act like I was talking to you, and be offended, as if I insulted you. It's par for the course by the current zeitgeist, is it not?
I'm not sure how you read anger in my tone, except maybe the All-caps. But FYI, I use All-caps because I post from my phone, and doing the formatting is usually a bit of a pain so I try to save it for where it matters.



Nothing. And I quite like 5e. They delivered on their promise that alignment mechanics would be be musch less deeply-ingrained and impactful than they were in 3e.

My point has never been "you need to change your OPINION on alignment", and if you think it was, it's because the chip on your shoulder is too deeply embedded that any time you face a counter argument, your only response is to assume I am tell you "you're playing wrong".

I mean, the entire thread is about "Is alignment (as a concept) worth it/useful?" Since we (referring to the people in the thread) are having that broader discussion, it makes sense that I would make reference to that wider discussion.

I don't think that accusing me of being "SEW ANGERY" is helpful, even if I am snarky.



HOWEVER, when discussing the rules on the forum, all house rules are impossible to account for. Ergo, none of them are accounted for (excepting threads specifically for addressing such). Therefore for the purposes of discussion only what is in the RAW is "true" or "fact". Any of us can verify cited sources to double-check the validity of any argument couched as "fact".
In reference to my previous post, you do know that there are disagreements about what some points of RAW mean, yes?



And Nigel frequently couches his statements as "fact". Like I closed my post with, his post could be paraphrased as "given that alignment is useless, they could have used any old words instead of 'good/evil/etc'". But will not accept that his "given" is just his opinion, and believes he is stating facts, ones with a value judgement, no less. Because while you seem to accept that some people like alignment and derive value from it, Nigel actually insists his way is better for everyone.
I mean, I DO think alignment free would be better for everyone involved, accepting that systems which ingrain it deeply would have to be left by the wayside or extensively modified.

See, I can have that opinion without kicking your door down and telling you how to play. And so can Nigel. Now, he has you on block so I'm not seeing much else coming from him, and I'm not really interesting in making him change that policy

NigelWalmsley
2020-11-09, 04:09 PM
Also that the ultimate purpose of alignment is to slap an "EVIL" label on things that it's okay to fight and kill; everything else is just window dressing. It was refreshingly honest in a way, but I'd still rather just not have it.

Yeah. Honestly that's probably the strongest argument for alignment. It's certainly the number one usage I've seen of it in practice. But even that has problems. The big ones are that "the Orcs are Evil, so it is okay to kill them" is a claim that evokes some... troubling comparisons from the real world, and that it's largely unnecessary. If the demon cultists are going to sacrifice their kidnapped victims to summon a Balor, you don't need the game to pause and say "hey, these guys are Evil, so it's cool if you fight them". You could already figure that out from the whole "human sacrifice" thing.

ImNotTrevor
2020-11-09, 10:19 PM
You have to describe what "fighter" means too, and the same players are just as likely to say "I'm a fighter, I have to fight everything now" as to say "I have to be Chaotic Good rather than be Ildar Greenleaf." I don't really see it as much of an issue.
My experience tells me otherwise. Granted, I have generally moved away from D&D as a first system, even for those who tell me they want to play D&D. But I've seen players who roleplay just fine without the strictures of alignment get hung up on those in particular without being particularly bothered by class archetypes. I feel like Class doesn't shape behavior or paradigm as much as alignment does. You can be a Fighter and be many different things, or a Cleric and be many different things.



My solution to such things is pretty simple. "I the DM says killing that surrendering demon while it's helpless is evil, because killing an enemy while they are helpless and trying to surrender is evil. I the DM says that killing a baby dragon is an evil action because it's evil to kill babies (at least the ones that will grow up to be sentient beings)." It's the alignments of the action and the person that is contemplating the action that are important, not the alignment of the target of the action.
I get the same benefit by just... not bringing up alignment and its quirks.



Really, I don't see arguments like that very often at all. Much more on internet forums than in actual play. My players leave the orc babies with their mothers, who they have also spared, and accept the surrender of a demon while watching carefully for treachery.
Every game? Nah. Has it come up? Yes. Is the RAW clear? Kiiiinda?
I'd rather not have to pretend that certain bits of alignment lore don't exist and have to fix the quirks. Just chuck it and move on.



80% of the players purchase a PHB? I don't think so. Not in this digital age. I'm old-school, so I loves me some real books, but my players hardly ever pull out a hardcopy. It's all D&D Beyond on their tablets, laptops, and phones. Not a paper character sheet to be found. They're starting to not even bring real dice to their games, the heretics.

Plus how much of those books is recycled paper?
I MEAN,
This is mostly a joke point. But even if 20% buy the physical book (probably an underguesstimate, but WotC doesn't release specific sales figures, near as I can tell so I'm without a paddle at the moment) there'd be some measurable benefit to the Dryads.

I'm just sayin: when the Ents rise again, they'll leave me alone when they see my post.

Jason
2020-11-09, 11:29 PM
I'm just sayin: when the Ents rise again, they'll leave me alone when they see my post.
Oh they'll take one look at my bookshelves, call me a tree murderer, and decide to step on me. But I'll explain the joy of books made of real paper, the smell of new print as I crack them open for the first time, the delight it gives me to see a row of gaming supplements all lined up on shelves, the lovely rustling whisper of the pages as i turn them, the proper care and feeding of the paperback, and the secrets of how the dead can speak again through letters and the ents will nod and say "it was worth it. Go and cut down more of our trees to make these wondrous books. Any tree would be honored to be used as paper for a book."

MoiMagnus
2020-11-10, 08:13 AM
Yeah. Honestly that's probably the strongest argument for alignment. It's certainly the number one usage I've seen of it in practice. But even that has problems. The big ones are that "the Orcs are Evil, so it is okay to kill them" is a claim that evokes some... troubling comparisons from the real world, and that it's largely unnecessary. If the demon cultists are going to sacrifice their kidnapped victims to summon a Balor, you don't need the game to pause and say "hey, these guys are Evil, so it's cool if you fight them". You could already figure that out from the whole "human sacrifice" thing.

The advantage of binary alignment systems (GOOD vs EVIL) is precisely to not have to describe what are the Evil they do.

You don't need have to think about whatever horrible thing they could do, what kind of abuse they do to their prisoners, etc. All of that are displeasing thoughs to have. You just say "They're EVIL", and let everyone imagine whatever they want about their behaviour if they really want to. And since they have the EVIL tag, you don't need to start considering difficult moral questions like "when should we stop killing the enemies and ask for surrender", and continue attacking the enemies until the DM says that the combat encounter is finished.

The whole point of putting EVIL tags on creatures is to say to the players "it is OK if you completely ignore any kind of empathy toward them, that's part of the game, they are literally punching balls with abilities and spells, not actual real life sentient beings or anything similar".

The whole point of putting GOOD tags on creatures is to say to the players "Those are good guys, please behave kindly with them, as you should with real life peoples. If you end up fighting them, chances are that there is a pacific solution to this conflict."

D&D's does not restrict itself to GOOD vs EVIL, mostly because a huge part of D&D players actually care about moral dilemmas, and the interesting plots that follows from them. The 9 alignment system feels to me like an unstable compromise between peoples that want to play "I want to play the hero that do good and mercilessly killing anybody evil in his sight in order to save the world" and peoples who want more subtleties and real life morality questions.

Jason
2020-11-10, 09:24 AM
Star Wars becomes a lot less fun if you imagine the widows and orphans all of those stormtroopers and imperial officers were supporting with their government salaries before the "heroes" killed them. And then they toppled the government to, so there go the pensions and death benefits. Sorry, orphans, your dad (or mom in the sequels) was part of an evil regime. You get nothing. Even the life insurance policies probably won't be honored.

NigelWalmsley
2020-11-10, 10:10 AM
The advantage of binary alignment systems (GOOD vs EVIL) is precisely to not have to describe what are the Evil they do.

Sure. And I think that probably is the best defense of alignment out there. But I don't think it's perfect. Because if you just assert that the Bad Guys are Bad Guys because they're Bad Guys, and don't actually describe how they practice recreational puppy-kicking or whatever, that means you don't really have an answer if people start asking why it's okay to kill them. Which means that such an alignment system is only really adequate for a Hack 'n' Slash adventure where you're going into the Evil Temple to kill the Evil Cultists before they do their Evil Ritual. But if all you want is uncritical Hack 'n' Slash, do you really need a mechanically explicitly alignment system? If all you want to do is fight the bad guys, and you don't want to think about the morality of it, why do you need a morality system at all?

Lord Raziere
2020-11-10, 10:18 AM
Sure. And I think that probably is the best defense of alignment out there. But I don't think it's perfect. Because if you just assert that the Bad Guys are Bad Guys because they're Bad Guys, and don't actually describe how they practice recreational puppy-kicking or whatever, that means you don't really have an answer if people start asking why it's okay to kill them. Which means that such an alignment system is only really adequate for a Hack 'n' Slash adventure where you're going into the Evil Temple to kill the Evil Cultists before they do their Evil Ritual. But if all you want is uncritical Hack 'n' Slash, do you really need a mechanically explicitly alignment system? If all you want to do is fight the bad guys, and you don't want to think about the morality of it, why do you need a morality system at all?

Indeed. If you don't want to think about it, why be good guys and bad guys at all? Why put in terms where a difference has to be demonstrated? Alignment wouldn't be important in such an adventure, because its not as if your going to encounter a variance in your moral situation, as the response is all the same: fight!

that and Chaotic Neutral is the more likely alignment for your PCs in a such an adventure than any actual measure of good:
"Any places where we can go around killing and fighting and not feel bad for it? That old temple over there filled with bad thing you don't want to specify? Great! BLOOD FOR THE LEEROY WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHH!!!"

your real goal is not the destruction of evil, but fighting for the sake of fighting without being held to the consequences. Your not Superman, Your Goku.

Democratus
2020-11-10, 10:55 AM
If you read more into it than what I'm saying, it sure would seem that way. I might be hyperbolic in my presentation (slightly) but the most ideal situation for alignment I've ever seen DESCRIBED that was within realistic bounds has never sounded any better than what I ACTUALLY achieve without it.

And the worst that I've seen and experienced of the ways alignment can chuck a wrench in the works are much worse than what I achieve without it.

So, again, if I've never had an advantage of alignment described to me that sounded like something I don't already achieve without it, and I have seen and heard the ways alignment can make stuff worse in a game, why would I use it?

I never said you had to use it. I pointed out that you made statements that were overreaching in scope and impossible to actually apply.

"It doesn't work for me" is perfectly acceptable, defensible, and reasonable.

"The best of all other options ever used at other tables is worse than what I use", is hyperbolic at best and inflammatory at worst - in either case it is useless as an argument.

There's a lot of honest exchange of ideas in the thread. A shame to taint it with such intellectually dishonest posting.

Xervous
2020-11-10, 11:16 AM
I never said you had to use it. I pointed out that you made statements that were overreaching in scope and impossible to actually apply.

"It doesn't work for me" is perfectly acceptable, defensible, and reasonable.

"The best of all other options ever used at other tables is worse than what I use", is hyperbolic at best and inflammatory at worst - in either case it is useless as an argument.

There's a lot of honest exchange of ideas in the thread. A shame to taint it with such intellectually dishonest posting.

Perhaps it’s being delivered in a similar light as “crit fumbles are not healthy for the default assumptions of what role the game structure should serve” without fully clarifying what default assumptions are being referenced?