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  1. - Top - End - #31
    Dwarf in the Playground
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    Default Re: So Heckin' DONE with Alignments

    Quote Originally Posted by An Enemy Spy View Post
    The thing about Alignments is people apply them backwards from how they should. Don't choose an alignment and then try to play a character who matches it, play the character the way you want to and then decide which alignment best applies to them. People get too hung up on alignments, they're highly malleable descriptions that have lots of overlap, not stone chiseled instructions with clear boundaries on how you have to behave.
    This.

    Have the players come up with a character. Some ways to do this is have them model their character after a character in a movie or have them choose 3 adjectives that describe how their character acts.

    Do not let the players choose alignment. You the DM chooses their alignment and there usually isn't much need to tell them what their alignment is.

  2. - Top - End - #32
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    Default Re: So Heckin' DONE with Alignments

    After much consideration over the years my current approach is to delete alignment from the game entirely.
    It ceases to exist.


    Some details on crunch
    Anything that uses alignment as a requirement (paladin, assassin, monk) no longer has that requirement.

    Anything that interacts with alignment is excised from the game. Try to do this as neatly possible leaving as much associated stuff intact as you can.

    e.g.
    cleric class features would no longer include an aura but also wouldn't have any restrictions on what spells can be cast. Also all clerics would permanently chose whether they want to turn or rebuke undead like a neutral cleric currently does.

    the spells protection from alignment would just read protection and no longer provide the first alignment based effect.

    spells like detect alignment and holy word would simply cease to exist.

    the pit fiend now has DR / silver, no longer has blasphemy or aligned attacks and has a slightly nerfed unholy aura.

    In the unlikely event that a particular option is losing so many toys that it is no longer playable and absolutely required for realising a build talk to the player in question and work out a suitable replacement.

    I can't think of any examples off the top of my head for this one.


    Some thoughts on fluff
    Once you get rid of any mechanical component to alignemnt adjust the world fluff to match. I suggest pushing things in a more traditional sword and sorcery direction. The kind of worlds imagined by the likes of Leiber, Howard and Vance.

    People call each other good and evil all the time, the universe doesn't weigh in on the subject.

    Maybe monsters are just misunderstood, tragic creatures that suffer a compulsion to kill. Maybe they just love the sweet taste of adventurer flesh.

    Yes, there are gods and people claim to know their minds. Maybe they even do, a lot of gods are quite human in their desires and motives.
    Whoever actually worships god x will tell you at length about how good and awesome said god is. If you don't like a god there is plenty of evidence to point to proving they are evil.

    There is an afterlife, a place of mist and shadow where not much happens. Almost everyone goes there.
    Please a god enough and you get to hang out in their palace.
    Piss off a god enough and you get to hang out in their dungeon.
    I am rel.

  3. - Top - End - #33
    Ogre in the Playground
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    Default Re: So Heckin' DONE with Alignments

    If people are playing their characters as stupid, enforce appropriate stats for the character. If the character is acting with below average intelligence give them 8 intelligence or 3. If the character isn't learning from their mistakes, they obviously have low wisdom. That and I outright tell the party that if they wish to separate from a character that is being a hindrance, we all do it irl anyway.

    Of course, one should talk with the person first to explain that they are playing way too extreme and it is taking away from everyone else's enjoyment. If all else fails you can always just have the character do random balance checks to see if they trip and fall on a stick that impales them through the eye.

  4. - Top - End - #34
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    Default Re: So Heckin' DONE with Alignments

    Yanking Law vs Chaos out is really easy. All those spells that refer to them vanish, and since they only ever reference each other, no harm.

    Slaadi and Modrons just become Neutral Outsiders (which I suggest making a Bane/Favored Enemy category covering the old lawful/chaotic ones). It would be nice to swap all Devil DR/silver to cold iron if you want to mix the fiendish races together. If you want to maintain the Blood War (or even older school Wind Dukes vs elemental Chaos), it becomes a matter of personal conflict between Asmodeus and Demogorgon, or whatever factions you care to focus on. As long as a player knows what metal to get and who is immune to what for what plane, it will be fine.

    Barbarians can feel great loyalty to tribe, totem, and religion. Bards can be trapped by the tragic conflicts of honor and courtly love. Monks can be wild hermits who shirk all restraints to transcend humanity (replace Ki strike lawful with extraplanar/spirit bane of some kind). Warlocks have still sold their soul to something horrific. Alignment restrictions don't mean much there. Deities can swap in alternate domains quite easily. Paladin codes can be bushido, chevalerie, or Jedi, as appropriate to your setting and cultures.

    Good vs Evil is a lot harder to carve out of the rules and setting. If you address the player issues as said by others above, the worse issues with GvE will fade. My solution is to emphasize that 80% of normal people are neutral, 5% are good and keep to themselves, 5% are evil and won't bother you, and the last 10% are fanatic enough to be a problem for others, no matter which side they are on.

  5. - Top - End - #35
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: So Heckin' DONE with Alignments

    Quote Originally Posted by D+1 View Post
    Even the game designers of every edition of D&D seemingly failed to REALLY grasp just what it is that alignment is best suited for and how to explain to DM's and players how to USE it to their advantage for better gaming rather than keep banging their heads against it as if it were a brick wall intended to keep them from having any fun.
    As it happens, when Gary Gygax had that problem, he wrote "The Village of Hommlett", with the clerics and druid and other NPCs intended to be rather blatant examples of the alignment, because on his sons just wasn't "getting it" with his PCs.
    Of course that pales next to the really heavy handed, hardwired into the background as well as DM "rules", method presented in Dragonlance.

    When alignment was first presented in D&D it had no explanation to accompany it whatsoever. It was just a cool idea taken from a few examples of the written fiction that Gygax drew upon as his inspiration for D&D. If you had not read those books of fiction or at least played D&D with those who HAD read those books, alignment was a complete non-sequitur. No explanation where it came from, what to use it for or especially HOW to use it. And even if you had read those books, it was likely you weren't overly keen on having a cosmology like that governing YOUR campaign setting.
    That is because most people inclined to be gamers at that time would have read all those books, and recognized the inferences. At most, the list of inspirational reading was to make the sources clear for those who might not have caught all the homages, and if they needed a quick list for newcomers.
    And do note, the original 3-alignment version is from The Eternal Champion series, which includes Elric. I think I was the last person among the people I knew in the late 70s and early 80s to read Elric, and I never bothered with any of the others. Back then if you were the type of person inclined to try a fantasy role-playing game, the odds were overwhelming that you had read that, and so recognizing Law versus Chaos would be no big thing.
    At worst, Gary overestimated how much gaming would continue to be an exclusive realm of hardcore sci-fi/fantasy nuts and wargamers. I certainly did years later, being horribly surprised at how little of the inspirational reading list most players had even heard of, never mind actually read.

    In 1E there was explanation and rules for alignment, but even Gygax wasn't very clear just how to use it except as a hammer to keep the more outrageous-behaving players and their characters in line. Every edition after that never really got down in the dirt to really figure out BETTER than Gygax had just what alignment should - and shouldn't - be used for in D&D, and how to have it make the game BETTER rather than continue to confuse players still trying to make sense of it.
    He was rather clear - pick an archetype and stick with it. If you cannot, you advance more slowly, or even go backwards, relative to the other players.
    The problem was not the intent, but the method. That kind of brute carrot and stick approach never really simply does not have the appeal he expected it would, particularly compounded by the training rules he kludged up for AD&D.
    The problem with later writers was generally a combination of not knowing the inspirational material as well, especially not as well Gary, along with not having a wargaming background for writing rules. They could write great background fluff for sure, but translating that into exception-based rules is way more difficult, and too many of them never really developed the skill - at least not until too late, which a few of them acknowledge.
    Not that any real set of rules can ever make a functional way to balance character abilities with fluff and codes of conduct, even if they manage to get a functional list of each alignment or equivalent.

  6. - Top - End - #36
    Firbolg in the Playground
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    Default Re: So Heckin' DONE with Alignments

    The thing you get rid of by not having alignments is alignment discussions.

    Players will do as they do, but if there isn't moralizing about alignment ideals to fall back on then its easier to cut straight to the point - if some behavior is unacceptable at a given table, then that needs to be made clear as an out of game discussion, not reframed in terms of in-game rules or worse, carrots and sticks. It feels easier to tell someone not to torture an NPC because they're NG, but that's an error - it invites the idea that justification is possible that would permit that behavior after all (arguing about examples of good-aligned characters in the books using torture, ravages, offering to change their character's alignment to match, etc)

    Rather, one should just clearly say 'I will not run torture scenes - if you want to play that kind of content you need to find a GM who will'. Own the decision and make it clear that it's an table culture issue and not a rules issue.

  7. - Top - End - #37
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    Default Re: So Heckin' DONE with Alignments

    Quote Originally Posted by NichG View Post
    The thing you get rid of by not having alignments is alignment discussions.

    Players will do as they do, but if there isn't moralizing about alignment ideals to fall back on then its easier to cut straight to the point - if some behavior is unacceptable at a given table, then that needs to be made clear as an out of game discussion, not reframed in terms of in-game rules or worse, carrots and sticks. It feels easier to tell someone not to torture an NPC because they're NG, but that's an error - it invites the idea that justification is possible that would permit that behavior after all (arguing about examples of good-aligned characters in the books using torture, ravages, offering to change their character's alignment to match, etc)

    Rather, one should just clearly say 'I will not run torture scenes - if you want to play that kind of content you need to find a GM who will'. Own the decision and make it clear that it's an table culture issue and not a rules issue.
    Yeah, that's pretty much the rub. Alignment has some utility in helping to nail down a character's morality and ideals, but its combination of being vague and highly deterministic provokes arguments and misinterpretations, as well as being really easy to abuse by bad faith players. Its benefits (such as they are) simply don't stack up to the downsides. There are methods of defining your character's morality and ideals that just plain work better.
    Last edited by Morty; 2020-01-21 at 08:55 AM.
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  8. - Top - End - #38
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    Default Re: So Heckin' DONE with Alignments

    I think that there are a couple of times when alignment would "matter" in an average game. That's generally when a character is getting their powers from an entity other than themselves, and that entity cares how the character acts. So basically, your Clerics. It would kind of break immersion for a Cleric of St. Cuthbert to go around casting Chaos Hammer. Seems like the god might have a problem with that, if St. Cuthbert's actually the one providing the spells. (Note that there are settings like Eberron where even that isn't as big of a deal).

    For Paladins, I completely re-write the fluff. Paladins are the "active" servants of the deity, as opposed to the more "contemplative" Clerics. (I also houserule away DMM abuse, and Divine Power is a War Domain only spell). For both Clerics and Paladins, I work with the players before the game starts to set up a code of conduct that they're expected to follow. Paladins in particular are expected to be paragons of their deity or philosophy, whether it's a deity like Pelor or something more like Nerull. Positive and Negative energy are still there, and some Clerics (of "neutral" deities) still have to pick between which variety they channel.
    Last edited by Telonius; 2020-01-21 at 09:28 AM.

  9. - Top - End - #39
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    Default Re: So Heckin' DONE with Alignments

    Quote Originally Posted by An Enemy Spy View Post
    The thing about Alignments is people apply them backwards from how they should. Don't choose an alignment and then try to play a character who matches it, play the character the way you want to and then decide which alignment best applies to them. People get too hung up on alignments, they're highly malleable descriptions that have lots of overlap, not stone chiseled instructions with clear boundaries on how you have to behave.
    While this is nominally true, this is also a bit too simple. Alignment is certainly the end result of a character's organic actions, but it's also useful as an aspiration for a character that guides those actions. "I want my character to be a Chaotic Good freedom fighter" is useful as a quick overall summary of a character's outlook, and something they can return to whenever deciding what that character will or won't do/tolerate in a conflict. In other words, I don't view considering overall alignment first and then deciding what action to take as necessarily being "backwards" - rather, a character's actions and motivations can flow in both directions, and wanting to keep the two letters on their character sheet from changing can be just as much a driver for the player as anything else they do.

    This is even more important for classes, abilities or other features that do require you to maintain one or both components of the character's alignment to maintain access to that class. "I want to stay a paladin" is a motivation and can help the player decide between two or more options.
    Quote Originally Posted by The Giant View Post
    But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?
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  10. - Top - End - #40
    Ettin in the Playground
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    Default Re: So Heckin' DONE with Alignments

    Obligatory quote from the Arcana Unearthed:
    No Alignments

    There are no alignments in Arcana Unearthed into which you must shoehorn your character's outlook. This rulebook does not attempt to define good or evil, nor does it address law or chaos. Characters should decide for themselves what is good and what is evil, the way real people do. There are no spells that reveal whether a character is evil or good - his actions and the perspectives of those around him determine that. No (or at least very few) characters think of themselves as evil. The truth is, such concepts are relative.

    Yet even without alignments, villains still do terrible things to further their own goals. Heroes still make great sacrifices to stop them. The classic conflicts all remain. But now there are even more. Two noble and altruistic characters might oppose each other. Their personal ideologies might even cause each of them to define the other as "evil."

    Characters with a conscience still act responsibly, and those with a code of conduct still adhere to it: having no alignment is not an excuse for all characters to act wantonly. As in the real world, things are much more interesting if there are not nine alignments but, in fact, an infinite number of them - each character becomes his own alignment.

  11. - Top - End - #41
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    Default Re: So Heckin' DONE with Alignments

    Quote Originally Posted by ShurikVch View Post
    Obligatory quote from the Arcana Unearthed:
    I have to say, I find these sorts of "This game is so awesome for not using alignments!" snippets to be smarmy at best and misguided in general.

    There are no alignments in Arcana Unearthed into which you must shoehorn your character's outlook.
    I could understand the complaints about "shoehorning your character's outlook" if the available alignments were something like the four Hogwarts houses, where they basically map to Protagonist House, Antagonist House, Nerd House, and Other and your allegiance determines your personality to a nontrivial extent, but c'mon guys, two axes of three broad and overarching categories each do not a shoehorn require.

    This rulebook does not attempt to define good or evil, nor does it address law or chaos. Characters should decide for themselves what is good and what is evil, the way real people do.
    Funnily enough, just like alignments, real people can also have external labels assigned to their value systems even if they themselves don't really think about it or don't really agree with those labels, also known as "the entire field of moral philosophy"...which just so happens to divide most real-world ethical systems into the broad categories of deontological, aretological, and consequentialist ethics, which just so happen to map fairly nicely to lawful, neutral, and chaotic alignments.

    And real people can aspire to act in accordance with certain values even if they're not always successful, like Psyren said about aiming to be CG even if you don't always succeed at that, so "deciding for themselves" can very well mean "choosing an alignment to attempt to emulate."

    There are no spells that reveal whether a character is evil or good - his actions and the perspectives of those around him determine that. No (or at least very few) characters think of themselves as evil. The truth is, such concepts are relative.
    In the real world, sure, but the idea appears over and over and over and over in fantasy that capital-E Evil is a tangible force that has its own powers, home base, physical effects on its followers/users, and, occasionally, sapience. Gandalf can detect the presence of evil in palantirs and possessed kings, Luke can sense the Dark Side in Vader and the cave on Dagobah, Rand can sense the True Power in the Forsaken and the taint of Shadar Logoth, and on and on. And Melkor, Darth Bane, and Demandred definitely think of themselves as Evil, again with the capital E, and positively revel in it.

    Phrasing it as "In this setting, no forces of evil stir in the dark places of the world and corrupt servants to their will, the only evil that exists is that which is in the hearts of humanoid beings" is one thing, but the existing phrasing is overly general and comes off as "Well that's just, like, your opinion, man."

    Yet even without alignments, villains still do terrible things to further their own goals. Heroes still make great sacrifices to stop them. The classic conflicts all remain. But now there are even more. Two noble and altruistic characters might oppose each other. Their personal ideologies might even cause each of them to define the other as "evil."
    "Chancellor Palpatine is evil!"
    "By my point of view, the Jedi are evil!"




    Look, alignment is a tool, like any other mechanic. If you're playing a high fantasy campaign with Forces of Light and Darkness and other Capitalized Highbrow Concepts, alignment is an excellent--and, dare I say, essential--tool for incorporating those tropes into the game in a mechanical way. If you're playing a swords-and-sorcery campaign with lots of shades of gray, you don't need it...but it's rarely going to hurt you to have it, as even the famously-amoral Song of Ice and Fire series has the designated "these guys are so capital-E Evil the rest of you squabbling minibosses should unite against them" villains in the Others. Not using any form of alignment in a D&D-derived game is perfectly fine, but going out of your way to pooh-pooh alignment (and doing it badly) is just a jerkish thing to do.
    Last edited by PairO'Dice Lost; 2020-01-21 at 04:25 PM.
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  12. - Top - End - #42

    Default Re: So Heckin' DONE with Alignments

    All RAW alignment is really good for is dividing the world into "people you can stab" and "people you shouldn't stab". Anything more nuanced than that, and the notion that you can cleanly label one side as "good" and the other side as "evil" falls apart. But that's all most people actually want out of D&D. The average player does not want to have a complicated discussion about questions like "what happens to the goblin civilians after we kill the goblin warriors" or "is it ethical to invade another kingdom and replace their religious, social, and political hierarchies with our own just because they sacrifice goats to Hextor and we sacrifice sheep to Pelor" or "would we do more good by using our powers to provide people with clean water and reliable healthcare than by going into ruins and stabbing the inhabitants in the face". They want to go into a dungeon, fight some orcs, and get some loot.

    If you want something like alignment, you're far better off with (as was suggested earlier) something like the MTG color wheel. It provides the same level of character prompting, and sidesteps all the messy questions about real-world values. No one has real, serious ideas about what it means to be "Red" that you will offend by adopting MTG's views on the matter. The same cannot be said for "Good" and D&D.

  13. - Top - End - #43
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    Default Re: So Heckin' DONE with Alignments

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    No one has real, serious ideas about what it means to be "Red" that you will offend by adopting MTG's views on the matter. The same cannot be said for "Good" and D&D.
    But the same can not be said of white and black. When one color is associated with being the elemental force that creates angels and the other for demons, people draw parallels. Not to mention the stigma that already lies in dnd; healing magic is seen as good and life draining or necromancy is seen as bad. Changing the titles to white and black magic schools isn't going to change that.

  14. - Top - End - #44
    Ettin in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: So Heckin' DONE with Alignments

    Quote Originally Posted by PairO'Dice Lost View Post
    "Chancellor Palpatine is evil!"
    "By my point of view, the Jedi are evil!"

    Yes, but at least Obi-Wan had the moral high ground.

  15. - Top - End - #45
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    Default Re: So Heckin' DONE with Alignments

    Quote Originally Posted by PairO'Dice Lost View Post
    Look, alignment is a tool, like any other mechanic. If you're playing a high fantasy campaign with Forces of Light and Darkness and other Capitalized Highbrow Concepts, alignment is an excellent--and, dare I say, essential--tool for incorporating those tropes into the game in a mechanical way. If you're playing a swords-and-sorcery campaign with lots of shades of gray, you don't need it...but it's rarely going to hurt you to have it, as even the famously-amoral Song of Ice and Fire series has the designated "these guys are so capital-E Evil the rest of you squabbling minibosses should unite against them" villains in the Others. Not using any form of alignment in a D&D-derived game is perfectly fine, but going out of your way to pooh-pooh alignment (and doing it badly) is just a jerkish thing to do.
    People have written stories about dark villains and noble heroes without alignment since pretty much forever, so I wouldn't say they're actually useful for it, much less "essential". We don't need a big, red "EVIL" label to know that Voldemort and his pals are irredeemable and can't be reasoned with; their actions speak for themselves. Meanwhile, if you do try for some moral nuance, alignment does nothing but get in the way.
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  16. - Top - End - #46
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    Default Re: So Heckin' DONE with Alignments

    Quote Originally Posted by Morty View Post
    People have written stories about dark villains and noble heroes without alignment since pretty much forever, so I wouldn't say they're actually useful for it, much less "essential". We don't need a big, red "EVIL" label to know that Voldemort and his pals are irredeemable and can't be reasoned with; their actions speak for themselves. Meanwhile, if you do try for some moral nuance, alignment does nothing but get in the way.
    I said that alignment is essential "for incorporating those tropes into the game in a mechanical way," not for telling those stories at all. You don't have to have an alignment tag to point out that Voldemort & Co. are bad guys for constantly throwing Dark magic around to kill and torture innocents, but if you want to put mechanics to things like Dark Detectors, murders damaging your soul, good guys having difficulty casting Unforgivables and bad guys having difficulty casting Patronuses, and so forth, you need some kind of [Evil Thingy] tag to hang those on. Similarly, in a Star Wars game you can handle the whole Dark Side issue purely through narrative, but if you want to put mechanics to being tempted to the Dark Side, sensing Dark Side locations and Force-users, needing to be sufficiently Dark-Side-y to use Force Lightning, and so forth, you're gonna need some kind of [Dark Side] alignment tag.

    Whether you want to handle things mechanically by default, non-mechanically by default, or somewhere in between is an entirely separate question, of course. But the concept of characters in high fantasy being able to sense/protect against/power spells with/etc. the powers of capitalized Good and Evil--and corresponding abilities like "can sense evil" and "can shoot bolts of evilness at people" being given roughly the same narrative weight as "can sense invisible things" and "can shoot bolts of fire at people" when they show up--is common enough that rants about how attaching mechanics to those things is nonsensical and badwrongfun generally seem more out-of-touch than well-considered.


    As far as moral nuance, well, if you feel that alignment gets in the way of dealing with personal moral dilemmas or the like--which I don't, as I've yet to see an example of such that wasn't either a misuse/misunderstanding of alignment à la "alignments are prescriptive straitjackets" or a contrived scenario à la "your paladin has to choose between killing a dozen babies or letting a demon prince conquer the world," but if you do feel that way--that's not necessarily an argument for dismissing alignments as useless and getting rid of them entirely.

    You can ditch them, if you want to, but alignment rants like the one quoted tend to position that as the obvious and obviously-superior option, when you can quite easily do things like e.g. restrict alignment tags to supernatural forces, as I believe was suggested upthread, so archons and paladins are Lawful Good and blocked by protection from good while demons and cultists are Chaotic Evil and ping on detect evil-dar, but normal nice people and bad people either are treated as True Neutral for everything or are lowercase lawful good and chaotic evil and merely use those as aspirational roleplaying prompts without interacting with those spells, which may work better for the game you want to play.
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  17. - Top - End - #47
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    Default Re: So Heckin' DONE with Alignments

    Quote Originally Posted by PairO'Dice Lost View Post
    You can ditch them, if you want to, but alignment rants like the one quoted tend to position that as the obvious and obviously-superior option, when you can quite easily do things like e.g. restrict alignment tags to supernatural forces, as I believe was suggested upthread, so archons and paladins are Lawful Good and blocked by protection from good while demons and cultists are Chaotic Evil and ping on detect evil-dar, but normal nice people and bad people either are treated as True Neutral for everything or are lowercase lawful good and chaotic evil and merely use those as aspirational roleplaying prompts without interacting with those spells, which may work better for the game you want to play.
    So much this. I usually tend to dislike alignments, but significant number of in-game problems and probably more than half of internet arguments comes specifically from treating mundane and supernatural evil the same.

    I am not well-versed in SW canon but in Middle-Earth you definitely cannot equate every sort of selfishness cruelty and whatnot with Morgot's influence.
    Last edited by Saint-Just; 2020-01-22 at 04:22 PM.

  18. - Top - End - #48

    Default Re: So Heckin' DONE with Alignments

    Quote Originally Posted by Buufreak View Post
    But the same can not be said of white and black. When one color is associated with being the elemental force that creates angels and the other for demons, people draw parallels. Not to mention the stigma that already lies in dnd; healing magic is seen as good and life draining or necromancy is seen as bad. Changing the titles to white and black magic schools isn't going to change that.
    I think insofar as this is true, it is an admission that it is impossible to have an alignment system that doesn't boil down to Good and Evil. Your game is going to have angels and demons in it, and those things are going to be on teams. If you assume that people are going to treat "the team with angels" as "good" and "the team with demons" as "evil", then it's impossible to get away from good and evil.

    But I don't think that's actually true. MTG has done a fairly good job (particularly more recently) of making Black and White more than Evil and Good. There are White villains (Elesh Norn, Heliod), and Black heroes (Liliana, Toshiro). Both Black and White have values that are good in moderation, but can become harmful taken to extremes. There probably would be some amount of bias, but its a lot easier to work with "this guy is ambitious and looks out for his own interests" than "this guy is literally and explicitly Evil with a capital E". Particularly if you do some world-building work to establish ethical lines that are orthogonal to the color lines.

  19. - Top - End - #49
    Ogre in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: So Heckin' DONE with Alignments

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    words
    You aren't wrong in that mtg has gotten far less polarized with it in the past decade, hell, Augustine was an absolute rules lawyer jackass that almost destroyed the guild pact out of greed. Heliod literally made a champion just to kill her when the job was done. Elsh Norn... eh, shotty example. Not to say **** isn't bat**** evil, but she comes from a warped plane where so is everyone else. Thanks Phyrexia.

    But citing Liliana as a hero is somewhat short sighted. Developing a conscience at the last moment after being the definition of a selfish **** for eons doesn't make you a hero or good, capital or otherwise. It just means that eventually you found a limitation to what you are willing to do. Brother turned into zombie? No problem. Sold soul to 4 demon lords and an elder dragon for power and immortality? Chill. Watching all of your friends getting brutally murdered so said elder dragon can ascend to godhood at their expense, and being pissy that you were a pawn in this the entire time?

    Which is funny, because that, too, isn't being a hero. Go read literally any guide or write up on being evil in a party of non evil. They all have almost the exact same sentence. "Be a ****, but not to your party." Her party started to die at her expense, and she flipped. That isn't heroism. That isn't goodness. It is a mix of guilt and selfishness. Liliana is a scathing pile of trash and I can't wait for her to actually be written out of the story, right next to Chad Chadwick Chadington.

    ... but then again, I've been wanting all walkers to bugger off for quite some time, from a story and meta stand point.

    Also, fun meta sidenote. Has OP touched back yet, or did he rant, dip, and we've been repeating ourselves to a wall for 5 days?

  20. - Top - End - #50
    Barbarian in the Playground
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    Default Re: So Heckin' DONE with Alignments

    You could go back to basics and use alignment to mean, well, alignment rather than morality.

    Is a character from one of the outer planes or somehow pledged to outer planar forces? Then you get an alignment. Otherwise you're unaligned. So a priest of a LG deity is going to ping LG even if they're a bit of an *******. Demons and possibly undead ping evil but a random murderer doesn't. Keeps the spells working fine and takes away the BS.

  21. - Top - End - #51
    Ettin in the Playground
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    Default Re: So Heckin' DONE with Alignments

    Note: D20 Modern already doesn't have "Alignment" - just "Allegiance", which very well may not include any of "Chaos", "Evil", "Good", or "Law" (and, in certain cases, may be just "none")

    "See No Evil" article (Dragon #323):
    Divine spellcasters possess a multitude of powers, from turning undead and heating the wounded to taking on the form of animals. Deities and other primal forces grant these abilities both in the form of continuous powers and magical spells. Higher-level spoils often manipulate life and death, but clerics all too often overlook one of their most useful low-level spells: detect evil.
    The power to know a person's soul creates more questions and moral dilemmas than it solves, however. What does a spell caster do when he detects evil in someone who's not performing an evil act, for example? Doss the spellkaster draw a weapon and murder the person before she hurts someone else? A great burden and awesome power comes with peering into another person's soul.
    Like a smudge of dirt, evil appears on people and things bearing its taint. Yet even non-evil people perform acts of questionable morality. Tracking down such a person proves difficult if you can only cast detect evil. A spellcaster must specialize in a particular form of detection in order to hunt down such individuals. This article provides spells to help in such hunts. Use them in addition to detect evil or pick one to replace that spell to play a more morally ambiguous game.
    The spells in this article are:
    Detect Attitude (Bard/Cleric/Paladin 1) Reveals target's attitude.
    Detect Guilt (Cleric/Paladin 1) Reveals how much guilt target feels.
    Detect Heresy (Cleric 3, Paladin 2) Reveals heretical thoughts or actions in target's recent past.
    Detect Violence (Cleric/Paladin/Ranger 1) Reveals violence done in the area within recent past.


    Quote Originally Posted by PairO'Dice Lost View Post
    And Melkor ... definitely think of themselves as Evil, again with the capital E, and positively revel in it.
    Are you sure?
    From the Melkor's PoV, it's (probably) Manwë and Tulkas who're Evil (presuming Melkor even used such categories in the first place)

    Quote Originally Posted by PairO'Dice Lost View Post
    "Chancellor Palpatine is evil!"
    "By my point of view, the Jedi are evil!"

    It's funny you're mentioned it:
    Reasons Why the Jedi are the Villains in Star Wars
    6 Reasons The Jedi Would Be The Villain In Any Sane Movie
    15 Reasons Why The Jedi Are Bad Guys
    The Jedi Are Actually The Biggest Villains In Star Wars, And They Don't Even Try To Hide It

  22. - Top - End - #52
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: So Heckin' DONE with Alignments

    Alignment doesn't really prevent you from using any specific types of enemies because they happen to be of the same alignment as the players. Two good forces can be pitted against each other when their ideologies clash.
    An example that always comes to mind is when I was with a party of four good characters and came to fight a lich, who had only become a lich to prevent a devil who screwed him over from getting his hands on the wizard's soul and to gain enough power to take revenge on the devil. We had already destroyed his phylactery before learning of his goals and motivations, and in the grand scheme of things we were trying to hunt down and kill this devil ourselves. Two of the people in the party saw an undead abomination who had committed unspeakable acts that needed to be put down. The other two saw someone who had been backed into a corner with potential to be redeemed, and suggested he might cooperate in exchange for our protection and assistance in hunting the devil. On top of that, killing the lich at this point would only empower the devil we were after and make the final fight more difficult. While we were debating, an NPC cleric who had been minutes behind us burst through the door and engaged the lich in combat, pulling us into the fight with him. Two of us decided to try incapacitating the cleric on the lich's side, while the other two tried to destroy the lich with the cleric. The bulk of the fight consisted not only of good-aligned characters, but players themselves fighting for their own particular idea of what the Good-est course of action should be in the situation.
    And so this particular exmple shows that having a certain alignment neither restricts the potential alignments of enemies within a game, nor does it railroad players into making a single definite decision. All it means is that you need to be a bit more creative in your narrative and create more interesting motivations for your characters to get away with using good characters as villains.

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