"But alignment is only "a barrier to rp" because you make it out to be one."
No, I have to actively fight against it being one. It's a constant cause of fights because one person or another has an attitude about what it means. Part of my job involves running D&D games, so I see a wide range of people, and it adds to my workload to have to deal with it all the time. That's even when all of the documentation says up front that we won't be using it. If they at least labeled it an optional rule, this might not be such an issue. I get a lot of 'I know we're not using alignment, but he shouldn't have his character do that because..."
"If you use alignment, like any other feature on your character sheet, in conjuction with other elements (personality traits, bonds, ideals, flaws), then it should help you get a better sense of your character, and you should be able to RP them better." The same is served by using personality traits, bonds, ideals, and flaws without alignment.
"However, if you use alignment and only alignment to dictate your characters actions, or describe what someones personality MUST be with no exeptions, then yes, it will be barrier to RP. But as I have said, alignment is their to be a part of your character, and not everything about it." Yeah, but I've had to explain that to people for two and a half decades now, so I'd rather it just not be in the book.
It's a guideline for players who have difficulty roleplaying. Why do people keep wanting to remove guidelines that make things easier?
Because they don't actually make things easier. Alignment has never been well enough defined to actually help. The main use for alignment is for people who don't want to roleplay, they just want to classify creatures as "kill" or "don't kill".
Why do your players know the alignment of your monsters?
And making them well-defined WOULD then make them a barrier because then you would need to follow the definition rather than "my character wants to help others/is indifferent/wants to help himself at the detriment of others." You define it based on your character and then try to stick to it. It is a useful tool.
I think they should add that, but alignment is really classic and important to the dnd system
In 1999, people said that about THAC0.
The omission of the THAC0 system made the game simpler and faster. Alignment is hardly complicated and you do not have to use it, if you do not want to. There are lots of people who choose not to use alignment. I believe even Citical Role campaigns have left alignment out.
But even if you do not like player characters to use alignment, it is useful for monsters. If you think about it, what sets demons and devils apart is their attitude towards law and order. I also find it easier to role play NPCs, when I know their alignment.
So here's the solution for everyone. You like it, use it. You don't like it, don't use it. Having it in the rules, just gives people that like it the opportunity to use it, nothing more. Some people choose not to use feats in their games, this does not mean that feats should be taken out of the game.
I think they should add that, but alignment is really classic and important to the dnd system
In 1999, people said that about THAC0.
The omission of the THAC0 system made the game simpler and faster. Alignment is hardly complicated and you do not have to use it, if you do not want to. There are lots of people who choose not to use alignment. I believe even Citical Role campaigns have left alignment out.
But even if you do not like player characters to use alignment, it is useful for monsters. If you think about it, what sets demons and devils apart is their attitude towards law and order. I also find it easier to role play NPCs, when I know their alignment.
So here's the solution for everyone. You like it, use it. You don't like it, don't use it. Having it in the rules, just gives people that like it the opportunity to use it, nothing more. Some people choose not to use feats in their games, this does not mean that feats should be taken out of the game.
Up through 3rd Edition, alignment actually had mechanical effects on the game: some classes had alignment restrictions and there were spells and abilities that had effects that were based off the alignment of the target. THAC0 and Alignment were both sacred cows that at one point were considered indispensable parts of the game but one's been gone for 20 years and the other's been so reduced that it's vestigial and could easily be excised without having any effect on the rules.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
To me, alignment is helpful on a country level. A society that leans to Law and Good will be different from one that leans to Chaos and Neutrality. On the character level, it has become, for the most part, more a burden than a tool. Although some classes like Clerics and Paladins are still more connected to it than others.
"But alignment is only "a barrier to rp" because you make it out to be one."
No, I have to actively fight against it being one. It's a constant cause of fights because one person or another has an attitude about what it means. Part of my job involves running D&D games, so I see a wide range of people, and it adds to my workload to have to deal with it all the time. That's even when all of the documentation says up front that we won't be using it. If they at least labeled it an optional rule, this might not be such an issue. I get a lot of 'I know we're not using alignment, but he shouldn't have his character do that because..."
"If you use alignment, like any other feature on your character sheet, in conjuction with other elements (personality traits, bonds, ideals, flaws), then it should help you get a better sense of your character, and you should be able to RP them better." The same is served by using personality traits, bonds, ideals, and flaws without alignment.
"However, if you use alignment and only alignment to dictate your characters actions, or describe what someones personality MUST be with no exeptions, then yes, it will be barrier to RP. But as I have said, alignment is their to be a part of your character, and not everything about it." Yeah, but I've had to explain that to people for two and a half decades now, so I'd rather it just not be in the book.
"No, I have to actively fight against it being one. It's a constant cause of fights because one person or another has an attitude about what it means. Part of my job involves running D&D games, so I see a wide range of people, and it adds to my workload to have to deal with it all the time." Then that's because someone used alignment wrong and taught them that. If the teacher doesn't get the concept, how will the student? DM"s need to be able to understand alignment better so that they can teach and play it right. Only doing alignment in a few campaigns means the DM wont be able to teach it nearly as well.
"The same is served by using personality traits, bonds, ideals, and flaws without alignment." Not really, they are all really one sub category of your characters personality, using them without alignment is like trying to build a puzzle without half the pieces.
But irl no one has an alignment. Why should they have to in D&D?
No one has HP...
No one has spell slots...
No one has a Rage Counter...
It's a game, and everything is abstracted. Irl people do have a morality, people do tend towards impulsiveness or being principled. Alignment is an attempt to model that.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
But irl no one has an alignment. Why should they have to in D&D?
We use alignment-like systems all the time in the real world - we just call them fancy things like the commonly-known Myers-Briggs Type Indicator or any of the more clinical tests like the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory.
One need not look too hard to find employers or schools who assign the MBTI for “team building” purposes; or to find individuals who take online versions of test. I am guessing there are quite a few people on this thread who know their MBTI letters off the top of their head; and probably a few who think their MBTI type is super accurate and perfectly sums up their persona.
The effectiveness of these real-world alignment systems is up for debate - MBTI is little more than pseudoscience, while some of the more clinical tests can be useful tools for some diagnostics, while the clinician still acknowledges that humans are complex beings and these tests only represent an average of the subject’s behavior, not an absolute metric for what the subject might do in every situation.
If looked at in that context - that alignment is the average of your personality, not the defining element of your personality, it can be useful - it give you a quick metric that can give the others at your party a general overview of your character, and can help inform decisions if you do not know how to roleplay a specific scenario.
Like it’s real world testing counterparts, alignment does not mean that, when presented with a certain set of circumstances, your character will do X - it means your character is more likely to do X than not, but it does not preclude your character from doing Ð.
Overall, it is a useful tool when used properly, but, akin to real world evaluations, a tool that becomes increasingly problematic if a player (or worse, another player who takes it upon themselves to be the “alignment police”) treats the system as sacrosanct.
All told, I think it is useful to remain in the game, since it is a nifty little tool for new players or floundering roleplayers - but I do think Wizards should stress the the optional, non-binding nature of alignment as much as possible.
But irl no one has an alignment. Why should they have to in D&D?
No one has HP...
No one has spell slots...
No one has a Rage Counter...
It's a game, and everything is abstracted. Irl people do have a morality, people do tend towards impulsiveness or being principled. Alignment is an attempt to model that.
All of those things you listed have an actual in game mechanic that affects the character. Alignment doesn't.
I think they should add that, but alignment is really classic and important to the dnd system
In 1999, people said that about THAC0.
The omission of the THAC0 system made the game simpler and faster. Alignment is hardly complicated and you do not have to use it, if you do not want to. There are lots of people who choose not to use alignment. I believe even Citical Role campaigns have left alignment out.
But even if you do not like player characters to use alignment, it is useful for monsters. If you think about it, what sets demons and devils apart is their attitude towards law and order. I also find it easier to role play NPCs, when I know their alignment.
So here's the solution for everyone. You like it, use it. You don't like it, don't use it. Having it in the rules, just gives people that like it the opportunity to use it, nothing more. Some people choose not to use feats in their games, this does not mean that feats should be taken out of the game.
Up through 3rd Edition, alignment actually had mechanical effects on the game: some classes had alignment restrictions and there were spells and abilities that had effects that were based off the alignment of the target. THAC0 and Alignment were both sacred cows that at one point were considered indispensable parts of the game but one's been gone for 20 years and the other's been so reduced that it's vestigial and could easily be excised without having any effect on the rules.
My point exactly. It does not have any real effect on game mechanics and if used it can only affect role playing or pose minor restrictions. So what is the big deal?
But irl no one has an alignment. Why should they have to in D&D?
No one has HP...
No one has spell slots...
No one has a Rage Counter...
It's a game, and everything is abstracted. Irl people do have a morality, people do tend towards impulsiveness or being principled. Alignment is an attempt to model that.
All of those things you listed have an actual in game mechanic that affects the character. Alignment doesn't.
And...?
PtW argued that because it doesn't have a physical existence in real life, it shouldn't exist in the game. Neither do those things. Whether they have a mechanical effect or not is irrelevant (although there are still mechanical effects, even if tiny, even discussed in this thread iirc). Unless you're trying to argue that anything without a mechanic effect shouldn't be in the game (a different argument than I was answering), then it's beside the point.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
My point exactly. It does not have any real effect on game mechanics and if used it can only affect role playing or pose minor restrictions. So what is the big deal?
The problem is that alignment being present means people expect it to be used. If it gets banished into optional rules that everyone accepts won't be used unless the DM specifically says "Hey, we're using this optional rule in this game", sure.
But irl no one has an alignment. Why should they have to in D&D?
We use alignment-like systems all the time in the real world - we just call them fancy things like the commonly-known Myers-Briggs Type Indicator or any of the more clinical tests like the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory.
One need not look too hard to find employers or schools who assign the MBTI for “team building” purposes; or to find individuals who take online versions of test. I am guessing there are quite a few people on this thread who know their MBTI letters off the top of their head; and probably a few who think their MBTI type is super accurate and perfectly sums up their persona.
The effectiveness of these real-world alignment systems is up for debate - MBTI is little more than pseudoscience, while some of the more clinical tests can be useful tools for some diagnostics, while the clinician still acknowledges that humans are complex beings and these tests only represent an average of the subject’s behavior, not an absolute metric for what the subject might do in every situation.
If looked at in that context - that alignment is the average of your personality, not the defining element of your personality, it can be useful - it give you a quick metric that can give the others at your party a general overview of your character, and can help inform decisions if you do not know how to roleplay a specific scenario.
Like it’s real world testing counterparts, alignment does not mean that, when presented with a certain set of circumstances, your character will do X - it means your character is more likely to do X than not, but it does not preclude your character from doing Ð.
Overall, it is a useful tool when used properly, but, akin to real world evaluations, a tool that becomes increasingly problematic if a player (or worse, another player who takes it upon themselves to be the “alignment police”) treats the system as sacrosanct.
All told, I think it is useful to remain in the game, since it is a nifty little tool for new players or floundering roleplayers - but I do think Wizards should stress the the optional, non-binding nature of alignment as much as possible.
This. Exactly this. Every part of this. Yes. It's a tool to help players figure out what their character would most likely do. Make sure the players know that it's just a guideline and tell the alignment police to stop.
This. Exactly this. Every part of this. Yes. It's a tool to help players figure out what their character would most likely do. Make sure the players know that it's just a guideline and tell the alignment police to stop.
. .. ...except the "alignment police" have spent seven pages of this thread now arguing about how alignment should be a crucial tool of any self-respecting D&D player and they always need to conform 100% to the alignent they chose at character creation before they had a single foggy clue who their character was, without flaw or fail, if they don't want their DM to slap them across the face with a board. The "alignment police" are telling everybody to listen and agree whenever their DM says "you can't do that, you're Lawful Good".
There's an old saw about how reality is stranger than fiction, because fiction is required to be consistent, logical, and make intuitive sense whereas reality has no such obligation. Even beyond the absurdity of expecting someone to know exactly who their character is down to every last facet before playing that character and thus select the one perfect flawless two-word moral descriptor that makes up the entire sum totality of their persona? has it ever - ever - occured to "The Alignment Police" that maybe, just maybe...just heckin' maybe...being repeatedly exposed to horrifying life-threaening super danger, mind and body-altering magic and interplanar influence, and experiences beyond all the bounds of any life of sleepy NPC-dom might change somebody's outlook just a little bit?
That's why alignment is worthless. if you don't know what your character would do in any given moment? Guess what - neither does your character. Do whatever instinct says to do, then spend some time later reflecting and asking yourself (in character) why you did what you did. The answer might well surprise you - and in that surprise you'll learn more about your character than any combination of the words "Law, Chaos, Good, Evil" ever could. Even if "what you would do" is freeze up from panic and not act, that tells you something about your character and gives you something to overcome, ne? Much more interesting than "Whelp, I belong to one of four allowed Cults of Alignment, I'd better do whatever that alignment would do even if it makes no gods-damned sense for me."
This. Exactly this. Every part of this. Yes. It's a tool to help players figure out what their character would most likely do. Make sure the players know that it's just a guideline and tell the alignment police to stop.
. .. ...except the "alignment police" have spent seven pages of this thread now arguing about how alignment should be a crucial tool of any self-respecting D&D player and they always need to conform 100% to the alignent they chose at character creation before they had a single foggy clue who their character was, without flaw or fail, if they don't want their DM to slap them across the face with a board. The "alignment police" are telling everybody to listen and agree whenever their DM says "you can't do that, you're Lawful Good".
There's an old saw about how reality is stranger than fiction, because fiction is required to be consistent, logical, and make intuitive sense whereas reality has no such obligation. Even beyond the absurdity of expecting someone to know exactly who their character is down to every last facet before playing that character and thus select the one perfect flawless two-word moral descriptor that makes up the entire sum totality of their persona? has it ever - ever - occured to "The Alignment Police" that maybe, just maybe...just heckin' maybe...being repeatedly exposed to horrifying life-threaening super danger, mind and body-altering magic and interplanar influence, and experiences beyond all the bounds of any life of sleepy NPC-dom might change somebody's outlook just a little bit?
That's why alignment is worthless. if you don't know what your character would do in any given moment? Guess what - neither does your character. Do whatever instinct says to do, then spend some time later reflecting and asking yourself (in character) why you did what you did. The answer might well surprise you - and in that surprise you'll learn more about your character than any combination of the words "Law, Chaos, Good, Evil" ever could. Even if "what you would do" is freeze up from panic and not act, that tells you something about your character and gives you something to overcome, ne? Much more interesting than "Whelp, I belong to one of four allowed Cults of Alignment, I'd better do whatever that alignment would do even if it makes no gods-damned sense for me."
Can you point me to some people who had the position you claimed is rampant in this thread? I haven't seen any. All of the comments I've read have been "it can be useful for RP purposes for those who need a guideline" or "there are hardly any mechanical references to alignment, and it should therefore be eliminated"
Your "do whatever your instinct tells you" is a bad argument. That would tell you what you would do in that situation. That doesn't tell you what your character would do. "Then get in character first." Not everyone is a method actor who can become their character on the fly. That's even more notable for DMs who need to switch between a number of characters. What I'm reading is "I always get into character and become my character flawlessly, and that's the only way to play. If you can't do that, you shouldn't be allowed to play because there are some people who think in the opposite extreme to me and think that the vaguely defined alignments are extremely specific and should be adhered to exactly."
Edit to clarify: I'm someone who DOES try to "become" the character and act naturally. I personally hardly use alignment if at all. But I'm not so self-centered that I can't see that people are different and have different strengths and weaknesses. There are even people without inner monologues at all. Those people CAN'T "ask their character what they would do." Don't get rid of a tool just because you don't use it.
This. Exactly this. Every part of this. Yes. It's a tool to help players figure out what their character would most likely do. Make sure the players know that it's just a guideline and tell the alignment police to stop.
. .. ...except the "alignment police" have spent seven pages of this thread now arguing about how alignment should be a crucial tool of any self-respecting D&D player and they always need to conform 100% to the alignent they chose at character creation before they had a single foggy clue who their character was, without flaw or fail, if they don't want their DM to slap them across the face with a board. The "alignment police" are telling everybody to listen and agree whenever their DM says "you can't do that, you're Lawful Good".
There's an old saw about how reality is stranger than fiction, because fiction is required to be consistent, logical, and make intuitive sense whereas reality has no such obligation. Even beyond the absurdity of expecting someone to know exactly who their character is down to every last facet before playing that character and thus select the one perfect flawless two-word moral descriptor that makes up the entire sum totality of their persona? has it ever - ever - occured to "The Alignment Police" that maybe, just maybe...just heckin' maybe...being repeatedly exposed to horrifying life-threaening super danger, mind and body-altering magic and interplanar influence, and experiences beyond all the bounds of any life of sleepy NPC-dom might change somebody's outlook just a little bit?
That's why alignment is worthless. if you don't know what your character would do in any given moment? Guess what - neither does your character. Do whatever instinct says to do, then spend some time later reflecting and asking yourself (in character) why you did what you did. The answer might well surprise you - and in that surprise you'll learn more about your character than any combination of the words "Law, Chaos, Good, Evil" ever could. Even if "what you would do" is freeze up from panic and not act, that tells you something about your character and gives you something to overcome, ne? Much more interesting than "Whelp, I belong to one of four allowed Cults of Alignment, I'd better do whatever that alignment would do even if it makes no gods-damned sense for me."
You're the only one who is doing this, and frankly, your attitude of telling other people how they should play is what you're attacking in every other post, and it's very tiresome.
Sad D&D Fact: your brain and your character's brain are the same brain. Your character cannot think without using your brain to do it. Your character will always be "you, but through the lens of this different mindset". If you refuse to make snap decisions in the moment without instead spending twenty minutes hemming and hawing and searching up references for "what my character would do", then there's gonna be a lot of tables you don't get to play D&D at.
None of that means you can't portray someone different than yourself, or someone with traits that diverge wildly from your own. It does mean you will have to accept that you'll never be consistent in your portrayal of someone else. There's always going to be slips, weird decisions, or things you do that you smack yourself for later. Pro tip: welcome to being good at roleplaying. Try to make your character a flawessly consistent icon of their alignment, the truest and most perfect embodiment of Lawful Good there ever was that never does anything the least bit un-Lawful and the least bit un-Good? Congrats: your character is a boring and/or frustrating caricature of a person that has no depth or verisimilitude. Real people are inconsistent ****-ups that do shit in the heat of the moment they have to try and justify to themselves later all the time. Especially if they're put in life-threatening danger, and doubly especially in a D&D game where they can be corrupted in mind and soul if they step a foot wrong.
Real people are not smoothly uniform. They are built on inconsistencies, conflicts of nature, and fragile assemblages of experience and assumption that make up their identities. Embrace it. Revel in it. Discard the idea that your every move must be carefully calculated to display exactly the correct amount of Lawfulness and Goodness so as to be perfectly consistent with the characterization you decided on before ever once stepping into this person's shoes and join the rest of us down here in the mud and shit of Real Persondom. It's more fun, and so much less stressful.
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"But alignment is only "a barrier to rp" because you make it out to be one."
No, I have to actively fight against it being one. It's a constant cause of fights because one person or another has an attitude about what it means. Part of my job involves running D&D games, so I see a wide range of people, and it adds to my workload to have to deal with it all the time. That's even when all of the documentation says up front that we won't be using it. If they at least labeled it an optional rule, this might not be such an issue. I get a lot of 'I know we're not using alignment, but he shouldn't have his character do that because..."
"If you use alignment, like any other feature on your character sheet, in conjuction with other elements (personality traits, bonds, ideals, flaws), then it should help you get a better sense of your character, and you should be able to RP them better."
The same is served by using personality traits, bonds, ideals, and flaws without alignment.
"However, if you use alignment and only alignment to dictate your characters actions, or describe what someones personality MUST be with no exeptions, then yes, it will be barrier to RP. But as I have said, alignment is their to be a part of your character, and not everything about it."
Yeah, but I've had to explain that to people for two and a half decades now, so I'd rather it just not be in the book.
Why do your players know the alignment of your monsters?
And making them well-defined WOULD then make them a barrier because then you would need to follow the definition rather than "my character wants to help others/is indifferent/wants to help himself at the detriment of others." You define it based on your character and then try to stick to it. It is a useful tool.
I think they should add that, but alignment is really classic and important to the dnd system
In 1999, people said that about THAC0.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
The omission of the THAC0 system made the game simpler and faster. Alignment is hardly complicated and you do not have to use it, if you do not want to. There are lots of people who choose not to use alignment. I believe even Citical Role campaigns have left alignment out.
But even if you do not like player characters to use alignment, it is useful for monsters. If you think about it, what sets demons and devils apart is their attitude towards law and order. I also find it easier to role play NPCs, when I know their alignment.
So here's the solution for everyone. You like it, use it. You don't like it, don't use it. Having it in the rules, just gives people that like it the opportunity to use it, nothing more. Some people choose not to use feats in their games, this does not mean that feats should be taken out of the game.
Up through 3rd Edition, alignment actually had mechanical effects on the game: some classes had alignment restrictions and there were spells and abilities that had effects that were based off the alignment of the target. THAC0 and Alignment were both sacred cows that at one point were considered indispensable parts of the game but one's been gone for 20 years and the other's been so reduced that it's vestigial and could easily be excised without having any effect on the rules.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
To me, alignment is helpful on a country level. A society that leans to Law and Good will be different from one that leans to Chaos and Neutrality. On the character level, it has become, for the most part, more a burden than a tool. Although some classes like Clerics and Paladins are still more connected to it than others.
"No, I have to actively fight against it being one. It's a constant cause of fights because one person or another has an attitude about what it means. Part of my job involves running D&D games, so I see a wide range of people, and it adds to my workload to have to deal with it all the time." Then that's because someone used alignment wrong and taught them that. If the teacher doesn't get the concept, how will the student? DM"s need to be able to understand alignment better so that they can teach and play it right. Only doing alignment in a few campaigns means the DM wont be able to teach it nearly as well.
"The same is served by using personality traits, bonds, ideals, and flaws without alignment." Not really, they are all really one sub category of your characters personality, using them without alignment is like trying to build a puzzle without half the pieces.
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HERE.But irl no one has an alignment. Why should they have to in D&D?
No one has HP...
No one has spell slots...
No one has a Rage Counter...
It's a game, and everything is abstracted. Irl people do have a morality, people do tend towards impulsiveness or being principled. Alignment is an attempt to model that.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
We use alignment-like systems all the time in the real world - we just call them fancy things like the commonly-known Myers-Briggs Type Indicator or any of the more clinical tests like the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory.
One need not look too hard to find employers or schools who assign the MBTI for “team building” purposes; or to find individuals who take online versions of test. I am guessing there are quite a few people on this thread who know their MBTI letters off the top of their head; and probably a few who think their MBTI type is super accurate and perfectly sums up their persona.
The effectiveness of these real-world alignment systems is up for debate - MBTI is little more than pseudoscience, while some of the more clinical tests can be useful tools for some diagnostics, while the clinician still acknowledges that humans are complex beings and these tests only represent an average of the subject’s behavior, not an absolute metric for what the subject might do in every situation.
If looked at in that context - that alignment is the average of your personality, not the defining element of your personality, it can be useful - it give you a quick metric that can give the others at your party a general overview of your character, and can help inform decisions if you do not know how to roleplay a specific scenario.
Like it’s real world testing counterparts, alignment does not mean that, when presented with a certain set of circumstances, your character will do X - it means your character is more likely to do X than not, but it does not preclude your character from doing Ð.
Overall, it is a useful tool when used properly, but, akin to real world evaluations, a tool that becomes increasingly problematic if a player (or worse, another player who takes it upon themselves to be the “alignment police”) treats the system as sacrosanct.
All told, I think it is useful to remain in the game, since it is a nifty little tool for new players or floundering roleplayers - but I do think Wizards should stress the the optional, non-binding nature of alignment as much as possible.
All of those things you listed have an actual in game mechanic that affects the character. Alignment doesn't.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
My point exactly. It does not have any real effect on game mechanics and if used it can only affect role playing or pose minor restrictions. So what is the big deal?
And...?
PtW argued that because it doesn't have a physical existence in real life, it shouldn't exist in the game. Neither do those things. Whether they have a mechanical effect or not is irrelevant (although there are still mechanical effects, even if tiny, even discussed in this thread iirc). Unless you're trying to argue that anything without a mechanic effect shouldn't be in the game (a different argument than I was answering), then it's beside the point.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
The problem is that alignment being present means people expect it to be used. If it gets banished into optional rules that everyone accepts won't be used unless the DM specifically says "Hey, we're using this optional rule in this game", sure.
This. Exactly this. Every part of this. Yes. It's a tool to help players figure out what their character would most likely do. Make sure the players know that it's just a guideline and tell the alignment police to stop.
.
..
...except the "alignment police" have spent seven pages of this thread now arguing about how alignment should be a crucial tool of any self-respecting D&D player and they always need to conform 100% to the alignent they chose at character creation before they had a single foggy clue who their character was, without flaw or fail, if they don't want their DM to slap them across the face with a board. The "alignment police" are telling everybody to listen and agree whenever their DM says "you can't do that, you're Lawful Good".
There's an old saw about how reality is stranger than fiction, because fiction is required to be consistent, logical, and make intuitive sense whereas reality has no such obligation. Even beyond the absurdity of expecting someone to know exactly who their character is down to every last facet before playing that character and thus select the one perfect flawless two-word moral descriptor that makes up the entire sum totality of their persona? has it ever - ever - occured to "The Alignment Police" that maybe, just maybe...just heckin' maybe...being repeatedly exposed to horrifying life-threaening super danger, mind and body-altering magic and interplanar influence, and experiences beyond all the bounds of any life of sleepy NPC-dom might change somebody's outlook just a little bit?
That's why alignment is worthless. if you don't know what your character would do in any given moment? Guess what - neither does your character. Do whatever instinct says to do, then spend some time later reflecting and asking yourself (in character) why you did what you did. The answer might well surprise you - and in that surprise you'll learn more about your character than any combination of the words "Law, Chaos, Good, Evil" ever could. Even if "what you would do" is freeze up from panic and not act, that tells you something about your character and gives you something to overcome, ne? Much more interesting than "Whelp, I belong to one of four allowed Cults of Alignment, I'd better do whatever that alignment would do even if it makes no gods-damned sense for me."
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Can you point me to some people who had the position you claimed is rampant in this thread? I haven't seen any. All of the comments I've read have been "it can be useful for RP purposes for those who need a guideline" or "there are hardly any mechanical references to alignment, and it should therefore be eliminated"
Your "do whatever your instinct tells you" is a bad argument. That would tell you what you would do in that situation. That doesn't tell you what your character would do. "Then get in character first." Not everyone is a method actor who can become their character on the fly. That's even more notable for DMs who need to switch between a number of characters. What I'm reading is "I always get into character and become my character flawlessly, and that's the only way to play. If you can't do that, you shouldn't be allowed to play because there are some people who think in the opposite extreme to me and think that the vaguely defined alignments are extremely specific and should be adhered to exactly."
Edit to clarify: I'm someone who DOES try to "become" the character and act naturally. I personally hardly use alignment if at all. But I'm not so self-centered that I can't see that people are different and have different strengths and weaknesses. There are even people without inner monologues at all. Those people CAN'T "ask their character what they would do." Don't get rid of a tool just because you don't use it.
You're the only one who is doing this, and frankly, your attitude of telling other people how they should play is what you're attacking in every other post, and it's very tiresome.
Sad D&D Fact: your brain and your character's brain are the same brain. Your character cannot think without using your brain to do it. Your character will always be "you, but through the lens of this different mindset". If you refuse to make snap decisions in the moment without instead spending twenty minutes hemming and hawing and searching up references for "what my character would do", then there's gonna be a lot of tables you don't get to play D&D at.
None of that means you can't portray someone different than yourself, or someone with traits that diverge wildly from your own. It does mean you will have to accept that you'll never be consistent in your portrayal of someone else. There's always going to be slips, weird decisions, or things you do that you smack yourself for later. Pro tip: welcome to being good at roleplaying. Try to make your character a flawessly consistent icon of their alignment, the truest and most perfect embodiment of Lawful Good there ever was that never does anything the least bit un-Lawful and the least bit un-Good? Congrats: your character is a boring and/or frustrating caricature of a person that has no depth or verisimilitude. Real people are inconsistent ****-ups that do shit in the heat of the moment they have to try and justify to themselves later all the time. Especially if they're put in life-threatening danger, and doubly especially in a D&D game where they can be corrupted in mind and soul if they step a foot wrong.
Real people are not smoothly uniform. They are built on inconsistencies, conflicts of nature, and fragile assemblages of experience and assumption that make up their identities. Embrace it. Revel in it. Discard the idea that your every move must be carefully calculated to display exactly the correct amount of Lawfulness and Goodness so as to be perfectly consistent with the characterization you decided on before ever once stepping into this person's shoes and join the rest of us down here in the mud and shit of Real Persondom. It's more fun, and so much less stressful.
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