"What I will say at this stage is that, indeed, D&D is not for everyone. You need to be able to differentiate between fantasy and reality. And between roleplaying and reality."
Hypocritical statements here...you want people to embrace your way of playing
Never said that. (FYI, it's really different from wanting people to stop denigrating my way of playing)
but you are saying that others way of playing is so antithetic to the way its "suppose" to be played that they should stop?
Where in hell did you read this in my posts ? Please explain how you came to this ludicrous conclusion ? Have you even read the example that I provided ?
Its pretty easy when I just quote what you said....
You are basically comparing those who complain about the alignment system to 7 year olds on a LARP game...for some reason?
It is a decision they have since rescinded, too, may I point out. In a very conscious and conscientious effort to portray people as free willed beings, with the freedom to decide their own morality and run the diverse gamut of alignments rather than being saddled with the overwhelming expectations of past portrayals. Useful because D&D is a system expected to run stories in a multiverse and not just Forgotten Realms. As well, it was a conscious effort to make the game a more welcoming platform for players of all kinds as stated here: https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/diversity-and-dnd
Yeah, right, but this is from one year ago and the sentence above is still in every PHB in print and on DDB.
The statement very clearly says that the change was going forward in new books. What's your point? Do I think they should change their older material? Yes. Does that mean that I don't think their mission statement going forward is good? No.
And while I agree that, in real life, this is totally abhorrent, please have a look at ALL the settings in Van RIchten and explain to me how most of the Dark Lords are not effectively doing this very thing to all the people in their domains ?
No, I don't think I will because 1) the beings in the Dread Domains are literally described as soulless and not actual people, barring the few exceptional ensouled people that arise every once in awhile and 2) all of these things are used as tools for horror. It is actively meant to be scary and alienating. There is a difference between something that is consciously used as a vehicle for terror and a baked in assumption about the various people of a setting that players can play. The former is something that people know is wrong and scary, the latter is something that sneaks in under the radar and pretends like it is an ok way to talk about people.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
But once more putting alignment on a cross and saying that it's a major contributors in people's personal problem is probably a bit too strong a statement for me.
That's great, but it is not for other people. Recognize this. You also keep mentioning Eberron like it's a beacon for the best alignment viewpoint: From Keith Bakers website on alignment in Eberron in 2018:
Eberron takes a different approach to alignment, dropping the idea that draconic alignment is color coded, that orcs are always evil, or that clerics have to match the alignment of their deity. In designing the setting, how did you end up deciding against alignment constraints?
There’s a place for clear-cut struggles between good and evil, and it’s why we have forces like the Emerald Claw in Eberron. However, in my home games I’ve always preferred to challenge the players to think about their actions – to have things be less clear-cut than “We’re good, they’re evil, beating them up is the right thing to do.” From the start, film noir was called out as a major influence of Eberron, and a noir story relies on a certain level of moral ambiguity and shades of gray. It shouldn’t always be easy to decide who the villain is in a scenario… or if killing the villain will solve a problem.
Beyond this, one of the underlying principles of Eberron is that it is a world in which magic has been incorporated into society. Detect evil exists. In 3.5, paladins can use it at will. Stop and think about that for a moment. If evil was a tangible thing that could be positively identified – and if everyone who was identified as evil was unquestionably a monster with no redeeming features, while everyone who’s good is noble and pure – how would evil still exist? Over the course of two thousand years, wouldn’t we turn to paladins and alignment-detecting magic to help us identify and weed out the bad apples until we had a healthy tree? Consider our own history of witch-hunts, inquisitions, and the like. If we had an absolute yardstick and if we knew the people who failed the test were truly vile, what would happen over the course of centuries?
Removing alignment completely was never an option. It’s a concrete part of the D&D ruleset. So instead, it was about taking an approach to alignment that could work with the noir story and take into account the existence of paladins and other alignment-linked effects – to justify a world in which good and evil people can work and fight side by side, where the existence of the value that can be identified with detect evil is accepted within society.
There’s four elements to this.
Alignment is a spectrum. Round up ten “evil” people and you’ll find that their behavior and histories are radically different. Consider the following.
A sociopathic serial killer who will kill or rob anyone that crosses his path without any hesitation or remorse.
A soldier who takes pleasure in torturing citizens of enemy nations – even civilians – but who is willing to lay down his life to protect his own people, and abides by the laws of his homeland.
An innkeeper who consistently waters down his ale and pads the bill a little whenever he thinks he can get away with it.
A repo man who ruthlessly reclaims goods on behalf of his employer, regardless of the circumstances of his victim and how the loss will affect them.
In my campaign, all four of these people will read as “evil” for purposes of detect evil. They all hurt other people on a regular basis and feel no remorse for their actions. Yet the innkeeper would never actually kill anyone. And the repo man is just doing a job and doing it well; he won’t interfere with anyone who hasn’t defaulted on their payments. In my eyes, one of the key elements of alignment is empathy. All four of these people are capable of performing actions that hurt others without remorse because they don’t empathize with their victims. But again, they vary wildly in the threat they pose to society. The serial killer is a dangerous criminal. The innkeeper is a criminal, but not a violent one. The cruel soldier is a danger to his enemies but protects his own people. The repo man has turned his lack of empathy into a productive tool. All of them are evil, but they are on different points of the spectrum.
Another important example of this for Eberron comes with clerics. Eberron allows clerics to have an alignment that is different from that of their divine power source. But it is again important to realize that an evil cleric of a good faith can mean different things. One evil priest of the Silver Flame may be a hypocrite and liar who is secretly allied with the Lords of Dust or abusing the faith of his followers for personal gain. However, another may be deeply devoted to the faith and willing to lay down his life to protect the innocent from supernatural evil – but he is also willing to regularly engage in ruthless and cruel acts to achieve this. The classic inquisitor falls into this mold. He truly is trying to do what’s best, and in a world where demonic possession is real his harsh methods may be your only hope. But he will torture you for your own good, and feel no sympathy for your pain. This makes him “evil” – yet compared to the first priest, he is truly devout and serving the interests of the church.
Speaking to this line:
A repo man who ruthlessly reclaims goods on behalf of his employer, regardless of the circumstances of his victim and how the loss will affect them.
He later describes this man as Evil aligned. A guy doing his job:
The repo man has turned his lack of empathy into a productive tool. All of them are evil, but they are on different points of the spectrum.
Eberron has alignment too, and its interpretation sucks.
I have made my views on alignment, outside of that one issue, perfectly clear.
And these are fine, as I've said, I'm perfectly happy that alignment is optional in almost all but name, even I enjoy its absence in Eberron where the setting is different.
I agree with you in one respect: It is about how you include these concepts which determines how they are received. I would argue that the way alignments, and particularly their use to define entire groups irrevocably, is not the right way to address them.
And on that, I agree as well, as mentioned, I found regrettable the backtracking on 3e which had started to go in the right direction.
As for:
something that mature gamers have been dealing with without any problem for decades
You have heard from several people who have told you that they have only been "dealing" with topics like this by suffering through them. They now feel empowered to speak about how things have been for them, where in the past the "dealt" with it by keeping quiet and hiding their problems. That's certainly not "without problems", but it likely appeared to be "without problems" to everyone who wasn't having to hide their problems.
If you mean to tell me that I've heard from people suffering from topics like "orcs are always evil", in person, and this creating personal problems, I honestly don't think I have, but see below.
Many people have explained their issues on these forums.
However, according to this, now it isn't just that you need people to explain their problems to you, you can't trust them when they explain on a public forum. You will only accept them if they come over to your house, knock on your door, and tell you to your face?
What's the betting that, if they did, you would still stick your fingers in your ears and continue to insist that "mature gamers have been dealing with [them] without any problem for decades"? You move the goal posts, ignore people's issues, and then...
Also, by wording this the way you have, you imply that those of us who think differently to yourself are somehow immature. If this was not your intent, fair enough, but it is certainly how it reads.
What I'm mentioning there is that there certainly have been immature people dealing with this and causing problems with it for decades as well for other people, I'm not mentioning anyone here on these forums. What my perspective is that before saying that it's the fault of the game, maybe you should start by asking about the people first (and I'm not saying that these people having problems are immature themselves, just that they might have been dealing with some, or being the victim of some).
Which is one of the reasons for which (without it being totally similar) it reminds me of the satanic panic, which was actually due to some people having personal problems before playing the game, and after that playing the game maybe in a specific manner with specific people.
But once more putting alignment on a cross and saying that it's a major contributors in people's personal problem is probably a bit too strong a statement for me.
... blame those who are having problems and call them names?
Seriously?
I have been trying to keep things civil, but if that's the behaviour I can expect, I think it's best I drop off right now before I say something I regret. Added to which, it's definitely beer o'clock.
"What I will say at this stage is that, indeed, D&D is not for everyone. You need to be able to differentiate between fantasy and reality. And between roleplaying and reality."
Hypocritical statements here...you want people to embrace your way of playing
Never said that. (FYI, it's really different from wanting people to stop denigrating my way of playing)
but you are saying that others way of playing is so antithetic to the way its "suppose" to be played that they should stop?
Where in hell did you read this in my posts ? Please explain how you came to this ludicrous conclusion ? Have you even read the example that I provided ?
Its pretty easy when I just quote what you said....
No you don't. I'm sorry, you are putting words into my mouth, and creating sentences like "you are saying that others way of playing is so antithetic to the way its "suppose" to be played that they should stop?"
On the other hand, look at so many threads on these forums, where people who are the best friends end up not having fun playing the game, having arguments, and this threatening to destroy their friendship. The way some people play the game is not good for them, that's all, and this is obvious. No D&D is better than bad D&D.
You are basically comparing those who complain about the alignment system to 7 year olds on a LARP game...for some reason?
Once again, putting words into my mouth. Please use straight quotes and prove to me that this is what I've done.
The only thing I've said is that it's fundamental to distinguish fantasy and reality, and given multiple examples of this.
I guess all I can ask is for clarification then? Honestly its really hard to discern what your point is when you bring in LARP examples and 7 year olds... I honestly am not sure what you mean to say when you bring that up as example?
Fundamentally, D&D alignment serves two purposes: a shorthand for personality, and faction identification (who gets along with or conflicts with who). Those are both perfectly useful things to have in a game, the question is whether the alignment system does a good job of either one.
On the first issue: not really. There's just too many ways of being a given alignment, and too many objectives that have nothing to do with alignment.
On the second issue: you certainly can have settings where alignment as a faction is useful, but there's a strong tendency for there to be multiple factions within a single alignment, or alliance across alignments, at which point alignment as a faction doesn't do much of value.
Again, common fantasy trope of Sauron dominating the orcs, and honestly I am not even able to roleplay TLotR now ? Despite the fact that it's established that Tolkien was not a racist ?
Oh and I forgot about this point, but no, it is NOT established that Tolkien was not a racist. We all grew up in societies with racist ideas. We are ALL racists, each and every one of us, whether we mean to be or not. It's kind of a thing humanity has not solved yet. For those who wish to not reinforce racist ideas, it is our responsibility to check ourselves and our communities for racist indoctrination and fight against it.
This does not mean we cannot enjoy art or media, it just means we have to do so conscious of that implicit bias that has been trained into us from an early age. It's also beside the point and doesn't have much relevance to the conversation at hand.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
But once more putting alignment on a cross and saying that it's a major contributors in people's personal problem is probably a bit too strong a statement for me.
That's great, but it is not for other people. Recognize this. You also keep mentioning Eberron like it's a beacon for the best alignment viewpoint: From Keith Bakers website on alignment in Eberron in 2018:
Eberron takes a different approach to alignment, dropping the idea that draconic alignment is color coded, that orcs are always evil, or that clerics have to match the alignment of their deity. In designing the setting, how did you end up deciding against alignment constraints?
There’s a place for clear-cut struggles between good and evil, and it’s why we have forces like the Emerald Claw in Eberron. However, in my home games I’ve always preferred to challenge the players to think about their actions – to have things be less clear-cut than “We’re good, they’re evil, beating them up is the right thing to do.” From the start, film noir was called out as a major influence of Eberron, and a noir story relies on a certain level of moral ambiguity and shades of gray. It shouldn’t always be easy to decide who the villain is in a scenario… or if killing the villain will solve a problem.
Beyond this, one of the underlying principles of Eberron is that it is a world in which magic has been incorporated into society. Detect evil exists. In 3.5, paladins can use it at will. Stop and think about that for a moment. If evil was a tangible thing that could be positively identified – and if everyone who was identified as evil was unquestionably a monster with no redeeming features, while everyone who’s good is noble and pure – how would evil still exist? Over the course of two thousand years, wouldn’t we turn to paladins and alignment-detecting magic to help us identify and weed out the bad apples until we had a healthy tree? Consider our own history of witch-hunts, inquisitions, and the like. If we had an absolute yardstick and if we knew the people who failed the test were truly vile, what would happen over the course of centuries?
Removing alignment completely was never an option. It’s a concrete part of the D&D ruleset. So instead, it was about taking an approach to alignment that could work with the noir story and take into account the existence of paladins and other alignment-linked effects – to justify a world in which good and evil people can work and fight side by side, where the existence of the value that can be identified with detect evil is accepted within society.
There’s four elements to this.
Alignment is a spectrum. Round up ten “evil” people and you’ll find that their behavior and histories are radically different. Consider the following.
A sociopathic serial killer who will kill or rob anyone that crosses his path without any hesitation or remorse.
A soldier who takes pleasure in torturing citizens of enemy nations – even civilians – but who is willing to lay down his life to protect his own people, and abides by the laws of his homeland.
An innkeeper who consistently waters down his ale and pads the bill a little whenever he thinks he can get away with it.
A repo man who ruthlessly reclaims goods on behalf of his employer, regardless of the circumstances of his victim and how the loss will affect them.
In my campaign, all four of these people will read as “evil” for purposes of detect evil. They all hurt other people on a regular basis and feel no remorse for their actions. Yet the innkeeper would never actually kill anyone. And the repo man is just doing a job and doing it well; he won’t interfere with anyone who hasn’t defaulted on their payments. In my eyes, one of the key elements of alignment is empathy. All four of these people are capable of performing actions that hurt others without remorse because they don’t empathize with their victims. But again, they vary wildly in the threat they pose to society. The serial killer is a dangerous criminal. The innkeeper is a criminal, but not a violent one. The cruel soldier is a danger to his enemies but protects his own people. The repo man has turned his lack of empathy into a productive tool. All of them are evil, but they are on different points of the spectrum.
Another important example of this for Eberron comes with clerics. Eberron allows clerics to have an alignment that is different from that of their divine power source. But it is again important to realize that an evil cleric of a good faith can mean different things. One evil priest of the Silver Flame may be a hypocrite and liar who is secretly allied with the Lords of Dust or abusing the faith of his followers for personal gain. However, another may be deeply devoted to the faith and willing to lay down his life to protect the innocent from supernatural evil – but he is also willing to regularly engage in ruthless and cruel acts to achieve this. The classic inquisitor falls into this mold. He truly is trying to do what’s best, and in a world where demonic possession is real his harsh methods may be your only hope. But he will torture you for your own good, and feel no sympathy for your pain. This makes him “evil” – yet compared to the first priest, he is truly devout and serving the interests of the church.
Speaking to this line:
A repo man who ruthlessly reclaims goods on behalf of his employer, regardless of the circumstances of his victim and how the loss will affect them.
He later describes this man as Evil aligned. A guy doing his job:
The repo man has turned his lack of empathy into a productive tool. All of them are evil, but they are on different points of the spectrum.
Eberron has alignment too, and its interpretation sucks.
If your job is evil, then doing your job is evil too. That shouldn't be controversial.
Is being a repo man really inherently 'evil' if you're not going about the job in a particularly evil way though? Seems more like a 'lawful neutral' type of job to me. You couldn't keep up with payments for X so we're taking X back.'
If your job is evil, then doing your job is evil too. That shouldn't be controversial.
How is repossession evil. You engaged in a lawfully binding contract, and broke that contract. The terms of the break is that you are no longer entitled to possession of the thing. If anything, we can make a much easier argument that the person who broke the contract is no longer lawful, as they are breaking contract law.
Keith makes the argument that empathy is needed for alignment, and that if you have empathy you are just clearly not going to do certain things that others without it will. This is a false dichotomy.
I am willing to call that to someone not on these forums because it's debating an article from a viewpoint used as gospel. I will not use such terms towards others on these forums because those devolve into personal attacks extremely quickly.
Everyone has different viewpoints on what is good and evil, and that's part of the game. The social construct of how each person, both real life and in character will react to the interaction is what makes the roleplay interesting. Such black and white thinking is fine for what he will run at his table, but it shouldn't be presented as the end all be all to every single party, which is the problem in this thread. We all have different opinions on alignment, and I dare say all are valid, within the right groups and tables and people participating in those closed spaces. Once we get into broad strokes though, we have to push through and be willing to see bigger pictures IN those bigger pictures.
Alignment is great for giving an indication of where your character is at the moment and can help you decide on what to do when you find yourself in situations where you're asking "what would my character do".
Alignment is not something locked down as I see it. It can be changed over time.
If you need your alignment in order to figure out what your character would do in a given situation, surely you have bigger problems. Especially if you first have to figure out what your alignment is and how it may have changed recently.
Now, for a throwaway NPC, sure. It can give a good indication without thinking about the character in much detail.
Ok? What spurned you to write that semi-hostile reply?
Alignment is not something locked down as I see it. It can be changed over time.
I honestly think that this is the one thing that bothers me the most about alignment and the behaviour of his detractors, this totally alleged "locking down", because from the earliest publication, it has always been a record that could be changed by a character's action, nothing more, see for example, even in AD&D 1e which had probably the strongest stance on alignement in all the editions, the fact that alignment change could occur as the result of character actions and its consequences in terms of technical effects. So yes, there were consequences but if anything it shows that it could change...
I agree.
Especially during pivotal moments in a character's story do I see alignment change making sense, whether it's redemption arcs or the reverse.
I would note that Eberron was dealing with the fact that Detect Evil in 3.5e actually detected alignment, so he didn't have the option of simply ignoring alignment. Otherwise you just note that this is a pitiless repo man who will not be swayed by excuses or hardship, and not worry about what alignment that is.
I don't think the alignment system is entirely without its uses, it's still potentially useful as a rough guide to in-game morality and as an easy method of classification for character actions. But its rigid status as traditionally applied, particularly as a method of labelling every aspect of a character's being, is definitely absurd (in my opinion) and runs into problems pretty quickly.
It's not like a rigid alignment system is necessary to define heroes and villains either, plenty of other RPG systems have managed to do so without it.
There is a difference between something that is consciously used as a vehicle for terror and a baked in assumption about the various people of a setting that players can play. The former is something that people know is wrong and scary, the latter is something that sneaks in under the radar and pretends like it is an ok way to talk about people.
Prove to me that it's the intent of alignement in epic gaming, honestly. You imply that it's devious on purpose, whereas horror, which is done to scare people, is not devious at all, no... Honestly...
No, I don't say that is the intent at all. That is the effect. It is perpetrating it unawares through neglect. Also, may I say that "prove to me that is the intent" is very unnecessarily belligerent.
My point is that it's just as obvious that their hands are being twisted more and more just as the hands of less visible companies are being ignored (e.g. Paizo).
So your take away from "We're trying our best to do better to make people more comfortable and welcome" is that ... their hands are somehow being twisted?
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Oh yes, and then it's much better to create people soulless and inflict horrors upon them by completely depriving them of their free will than to describe some other races as having less free will because of the influence of an evil god.
The problem is making that a racial trait. Nothing wrong with having NPCs who are under the influence of an evil god.
Anything that’s meant to simplify the game, but creates this much debate instead, isn’t doing it’s job. That’s that.
Just my experience, but I've never really had alignment debates at the table. Not as DM, not as player. Bring up alignment on a discussion forum and people will discuss it like ornery Greek philosophers, but when it's used in the game it tends to work out well enough even if different players have different ideas about it.
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Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
So it's OK because it's declared as being OK ? Fine, I then declare that it's fine to have war against the ravaging hordes of Orc because it's epic and it's meant to be heroic against the hordes of evil. I don't see any difference.
There is a difference between something that is consciously used as a vehicle for terror and a baked in assumption about the various people of a setting that players can play. The former is something that people know is wrong and scary, the latter is something that sneaks in under the radar and pretends like it is an ok way to talk about people.
Let me expand on this, because I'm not sure I fully explained myself.
We agree that it's not ok to talk about real people in real life as if certain types of people are subhuman and inherently have less free will, right? That way lies Mengele and eugenics and other abominable stuff. But I do think that, in fiction, there is a place for the asking and discussing of uncomfortable topics. Like there is definitely fiction that brings up the question of "What about these people who are probably people, but also are so different from us that we can't even tell if they have free will, what do we do about them?"
But here's the thing, those pieces of fiction build themselves around such moral and ethical questions as their crux. They are not just casually dropping them into the background as a default assumption of the world ... or if they are, they're usually used as examples critiquing the author (see HP Lovecraft). Things with heavy implications like that are something that fiction should make the reader mindful of on purpose rather than just baking in as part of background fabric of the fiction. Because the personhood of people is something that is worthy of the attention and to not give it that kind of attention would be negligence capable of being harmful.
It's not something I would foist onto the unprepared player of D&D, and definitely not without proper clearance and consent at a Session 0. So I'm absolutely glad that the default de-people-ization of orcs and drow through an assumed species-wide alignment is something that is becoming a thing of the past.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
And then, there are entire races and cultures on some of the domains that are under the sway of their Dark Lord. Again, how is that more acceptable that having the god that created a FANTASY race having a definitive sway over that race ?
It's not presented as an inherent property of what they are. It's not a problem having an evil orc. It's not even a problem of having an entire city of evil orcs (which is about as big as any Dark Lord's domain gets). It's problem when being evil is an innate property of orc-ness.
In any case, it's possible to use the alignment system without that, and it's possible to have troublesome portrayals of creatures without using alignment, so this is a bit of a side discussion except as it's been historically abused in D&D.
Its pretty easy when I just quote what you said....
You are basically comparing those who complain about the alignment system to 7 year olds on a LARP game...for some reason?
The statement very clearly says that the change was going forward in new books. What's your point? Do I think they should change their older material? Yes. Does that mean that I don't think their mission statement going forward is good? No.
No, I don't think I will because 1) the beings in the Dread Domains are literally described as soulless and not actual people, barring the few exceptional ensouled people that arise every once in awhile and 2) all of these things are used as tools for horror. It is actively meant to be scary and alienating. There is a difference between something that is consciously used as a vehicle for terror and a baked in assumption about the various people of a setting that players can play. The former is something that people know is wrong and scary, the latter is something that sneaks in under the radar and pretends like it is an ok way to talk about people.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
That's great, but it is not for other people. Recognize this. You also keep mentioning Eberron like it's a beacon for the best alignment viewpoint: From Keith Bakers website on alignment in Eberron in 2018:
Speaking to this line:
He later describes this man as Evil aligned. A guy doing his job:
Eberron has alignment too, and its interpretation sucks.
Many people have explained their issues on these forums.
However, according to this, now it isn't just that you need people to explain their problems to you, you can't trust them when they explain on a public forum. You will only accept them if they come over to your house, knock on your door, and tell you to your face?
What's the betting that, if they did, you would still stick your fingers in your ears and continue to insist that "mature gamers have been dealing with [them] without any problem for decades"? You move the goal posts, ignore people's issues, and then...
... blame those who are having problems and call them names?
Seriously?
I have been trying to keep things civil, but if that's the behaviour I can expect, I think it's best I drop off right now before I say something I regret. Added to which, it's definitely beer o'clock.
I guess all I can ask is for clarification then? Honestly its really hard to discern what your point is when you bring in LARP examples and 7 year olds... I honestly am not sure what you mean to say when you bring that up as example?
Fundamentally, D&D alignment serves two purposes: a shorthand for personality, and faction identification (who gets along with or conflicts with who). Those are both perfectly useful things to have in a game, the question is whether the alignment system does a good job of either one.
On the first issue: not really. There's just too many ways of being a given alignment, and too many objectives that have nothing to do with alignment.
On the second issue: you certainly can have settings where alignment as a faction is useful, but there's a strong tendency for there to be multiple factions within a single alignment, or alliance across alignments, at which point alignment as a faction doesn't do much of value.
Oh and I forgot about this point, but no, it is NOT established that Tolkien was not a racist. We all grew up in societies with racist ideas. We are ALL racists, each and every one of us, whether we mean to be or not. It's kind of a thing humanity has not solved yet. For those who wish to not reinforce racist ideas, it is our responsibility to check ourselves and our communities for racist indoctrination and fight against it.
This does not mean we cannot enjoy art or media, it just means we have to do so conscious of that implicit bias that has been trained into us from an early age. It's also beside the point and doesn't have much relevance to the conversation at hand.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
If your job is evil, then doing your job is evil too. That shouldn't be controversial.
Is being a repo man really inherently 'evil' if you're not going about the job in a particularly evil way though? Seems more like a 'lawful neutral' type of job to me. You couldn't keep up with payments for X so we're taking X back.'
How is repossession evil. You engaged in a lawfully binding contract, and broke that contract. The terms of the break is that you are no longer entitled to possession of the thing. If anything, we can make a much easier argument that the person who broke the contract is no longer lawful, as they are breaking contract law.
Keith makes the argument that empathy is needed for alignment, and that if you have empathy you are just clearly not going to do certain things that others without it will. This is a false dichotomy.
I am willing to call that to someone not on these forums because it's debating an article from a viewpoint used as gospel. I will not use such terms towards others on these forums because those devolve into personal attacks extremely quickly.
Everyone has different viewpoints on what is good and evil, and that's part of the game. The social construct of how each person, both real life and in character will react to the interaction is what makes the roleplay interesting. Such black and white thinking is fine for what he will run at his table, but it shouldn't be presented as the end all be all to every single party, which is the problem in this thread. We all have different opinions on alignment, and I dare say all are valid, within the right groups and tables and people participating in those closed spaces. Once we get into broad strokes though, we have to push through and be willing to see bigger pictures IN those bigger pictures.
Ok?
What spurned you to write that semi-hostile reply?
Altrazin Aghanes - Wizard/Fighter
Varpulis Windhowl - Fighter
Skolson Demjon - Cleric/Fighter
I agree.
Especially during pivotal moments in a character's story do I see alignment change making sense, whether it's redemption arcs or the reverse.
Altrazin Aghanes - Wizard/Fighter
Varpulis Windhowl - Fighter
Skolson Demjon - Cleric/Fighter
I would note that Eberron was dealing with the fact that Detect Evil in 3.5e actually detected alignment, so he didn't have the option of simply ignoring alignment. Otherwise you just note that this is a pitiless repo man who will not be swayed by excuses or hardship, and not worry about what alignment that is.
And so I wake up to yet another thread derailed into endless debate over morality and ethics.
Alignment is bad, people. Anything that’s meant to simplify the game, but creates this much debate instead, isn’t doing it’s job. That’s that.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
I don't think the alignment system is entirely without its uses, it's still potentially useful as a rough guide to in-game morality and as an easy method of classification for character actions. But its rigid status as traditionally applied, particularly as a method of labelling every aspect of a character's being, is definitely absurd (in my opinion) and runs into problems pretty quickly.
It's not like a rigid alignment system is necessary to define heroes and villains either, plenty of other RPG systems have managed to do so without it.
No, I don't say that is the intent at all. That is the effect. It is perpetrating it unawares through neglect. Also, may I say that "prove to me that is the intent" is very unnecessarily belligerent.
So your take away from "We're trying our best to do better to make people more comfortable and welcome" is that ... their hands are somehow being twisted?
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
The problem is making that a racial trait. Nothing wrong with having NPCs who are under the influence of an evil god.
Just my experience, but I've never really had alignment debates at the table. Not as DM, not as player. Bring up alignment on a discussion forum and people will discuss it like ornery Greek philosophers, but when it's used in the game it tends to work out well enough even if different players have different ideas about it.
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Let me expand on this, because I'm not sure I fully explained myself.
We agree that it's not ok to talk about real people in real life as if certain types of people are subhuman and inherently have less free will, right? That way lies Mengele and eugenics and other abominable stuff. But I do think that, in fiction, there is a place for the asking and discussing of uncomfortable topics. Like there is definitely fiction that brings up the question of "What about these people who are probably people, but also are so different from us that we can't even tell if they have free will, what do we do about them?"
But here's the thing, those pieces of fiction build themselves around such moral and ethical questions as their crux. They are not just casually dropping them into the background as a default assumption of the world ... or if they are, they're usually used as examples critiquing the author (see HP Lovecraft). Things with heavy implications like that are something that fiction should make the reader mindful of on purpose rather than just baking in as part of background fabric of the fiction. Because the personhood of people is something that is worthy of the attention and to not give it that kind of attention would be negligence capable of being harmful.
It's not something I would foist onto the unprepared player of D&D, and definitely not without proper clearance and consent at a Session 0. So I'm absolutely glad that the default de-people-ization of orcs and drow through an assumed species-wide alignment is something that is becoming a thing of the past.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
It's not presented as an inherent property of what they are. It's not a problem having an evil orc. It's not even a problem of having an entire city of evil orcs (which is about as big as any Dark Lord's domain gets). It's problem when being evil is an innate property of orc-ness.
In any case, it's possible to use the alignment system without that, and it's possible to have troublesome portrayals of creatures without using alignment, so this is a bit of a side discussion except as it's been historically abused in D&D.