I'm probably not the best person to do a propper run-down of it...the basic idea is that it's really terrible to suggest that a whole race (or species, if you insist) are slavers. It's a particularly bad incarnation of...well, exactly that this thread is about: reducing whole "peoples" to stereotypes.
Duergar are worse, because they got it from being enslaved. Like, the generational experience was just so evil that they became evil.
Not sure I see how there's anything there beyond the general problem of declaring a race Evil (or Good). If you get rid of that and just declare that certain cultures hold slaves, nothing weird about that, cultures did hold slaves. As for the duergar, a group deciding that the only thing wrong with slavery is that the wrong people were slaves is (unfortunately) realistic enough.
There is a vast difference between declaring an entire race evil and declaring a culture to be evil. We have seen evil cultures before (e.g. Nazi Germany), and we know that doesn't make even every member of that society evil. However, declaring an entire race evil means that every member is evil, even if they were raised within a "good" culture.
The same goes for slavery. By declaring it on a racial/species level, you are saying that even a Duergar who was raised by a Holy Order who held slavery to be an abomination would tend towards wanting to enslave people. Instead, saying that the Duergar culture holds slaves leaves the possibility of members of that society thinking slavery is bad without them having to "fight their innate racial tendencies", and one raised elsewhere is likely to follow the views of the culture where they were raised.
This is a very good point. The alignment of a society does not mean all members of society are that way. Certainly, if one is born to that culture, but leaves and grows up in a society with different values, there is a great chance that person will hold the new society's values as his/her own. This is a good real world understanding. The game can be more simplified in a fantasy setting so the players and DM don't have to worry about micro structures of the real world. Easier just to say a creature is of a certain alignment, in general, but the DM can choose to account for those in a society who are not the same as everyone else. Just like in the non-evil societies of humans, there are assassins and thieves, etc, who are evil....
Originally, D&D was a good guy vs bad guy type of game environment. Basic D&D said that there were humans and humanoids that made up the society and adventurers. The adventurers were to be champions of good (even though a character could be neutral). Everything else was considered a "monster". Even human brigands, being evil, were "monsters" PCs were not evil alignments unless something bad happened in game play to make them change alignment. Few DMs played "evil campaigns" or allowed evil characters (some, but few).
I also don't like the new model of removing alignment on monsters.
What I particularly have a problem with is the sentient monsters that are described as specifically malignant such as The Relentless Killer and Jiangshi, etc. The Ravenloft book (to use it as an example) goes into flavorful detail describing said creatures as harmful and the heinous things they do but how dare said monster be labeled evil. To be clear, I am all for prime material humanoid races such as Orcs, Drow, etc. having any alignment as that just makes sense. Yet, when it comes to cosmically aligned beings like Angels, Devils, and Demons, Modrons, etcetera removing their alignment for me takes away from the mystic of the monsters. I think this is particularly true as regards Demons and Devils because I have always found the Blood War concept fascinating as the two fiendish races stay locked in a war of annihiliation based on their philosophical differences of evil with Devils being lawful evil and demons being chaotic evil and the yugoloth (daemons) being neutral evil and helping the highest bidder was well as their own nebulous ends. Removing their alignment completely or just listing some of them as "evil" the way the devils were done in 4E lessens the distinction between the fiendish beings (and planar oriented races in general).
I think people have made a mountain out of mole hill in terms of alignment and yes there are occasional disagreements on what specific actions falls into X alignment but to me that is part of the make-up of DnD and in all honesty part of the fun. I mean, part of the enjoymetnin any philosophy or pseudo philosophy is usual not the different interpretations and the quests/debates that arise to find consensus. What is the old adage? The fun is not in the destination but the journey. As written 5E (and in all honesty 4E ) has minimized the impact of alignment overall as regards spells, etc. and again I think this is a good thing. I do have to say though I have not played a game where there was a complete breakdown and the group fell apart over alignment discussions. If this occurred then I think there are bigger issues in that particular gaming group than alignment and said group would fall apart regardless of whether two specific words (LG, CG, etc.) were printed on their character sheets.
As a member of an racial minority (African American/Black) I applaud WOTCs attempts at making the game welcoming to all walks of people and like I previously stated I am board with not having all orcs be evil by default or all drow, etc.....but also as a gamer and DnD fan of 20+ years I am not offended by calling a Balor or an Unspeakable Horror chaotic evil. I mean, there is such a thing as over correction too.
This is a very good point. The alignment of a society does not mean all members of society are that way. Certainly, if one is born to that culture, but leaves and grows up in a society with different values, there is a great chance that person will hold the new society's values as his/her own. This is a good real world understanding. The game can be more simplified in a fantasy setting so the players and DM don't have to worry about micro structures of the real world. Easier just to say a creature is of a certain alignment, in general, but the DM can choose to account for those in a society who are not the same as everyone else. Just like in the non-evil societies of humans, there are assassins and thieves, etc, who are evil....
Easier, but problematic, as pointed out by so many throughout this thread. We shouldn't be looking for the easy way and ignoring problems, we should be addressing problems even though it can be difficult.
I was in no way saying that alignments should remain as they are, or that they should be added back to the stat blocks. I was actually supporting the opposite: removing alignments and not printing them on any "whole race" stat block. If WotC wants to assign them to large blocks of creatures, they could do so at societal level, but there should not even be a strong implication that all members of a race are evil (or any specific alignment), which printing them on the stat block for a race does.
Interestingly, and alternative solution was raised in a different thread: Rename the monsters so that, rather than it being for a Goblin, it is for something like a "Goblin Raider". This then gives a strong indication that it is a typical alignment for the type of Goblin who would become a Raider, but that other members of the society (commoners, artisans, merchants etc) may have completely different alignments. I'd still rather get rid of them altogether myself, because I think the alignment system is just terrible for so many reasons, but at least this would no longer even be implying that an entire race was evil.
I think the alignment system works just fine. It give a direction and motivation. I'm not sure a game is really a platform to address problems of society. I guess one could use it that way. As for me, I like the idea of a fantasy game being just that, and having those simple answers. Bad is bad. Good is good. I think, in the genre of fantasy worlds, there are certainly evil races of creatures. I don't think that Sauron and his forces should be considered misunderstood/misguided - they're evil. Anyway, I like the game as is and as was when I started playing it before AD&D came out. No overthinking it.
I think the alignment system works just fine. It give a direction and motivation. I'm not sure a game is really a platform to address problems of society. I guess one could use it that way. As for me, I like the idea of a fantasy game being just that, and having those simple answers. Bad is bad. Good is good. I think, in the genre of fantasy worlds, there are certainly evil races of creatures. I don't think that Sauron and his forces should be considered misunderstood/misguided - they're evil. Anyway, I like the game as is and as was when I started playing it before AD&D came out. No overthinking it.
Nobody questions that Sauron and his forces are evil, the question is more SHOULD entire races of beings be classified that way. But nobody is looking at lord of the rings and thinking 'maybe these orcs are just misunderstood' etc.
I think alignment is a serviceable, but ultimately shallow shorthand that can be useful in some situations, so long as people don't make it the be all end all of a character/race/faction etc.
I'm not sure a game is really a platform to address problems of society.
I mean sure, but that's not what any of this is about. It's not about using the game you address problems of society. It's about making the game free FROM the problems of society. You might see this as bringing politics into the game, but for some of us social issues are not politics, they're our everyday life. They permeate everything from school to work to grocery shopping and yes, even games. It's nice for you that these things aren't an issue, that a nice privilege to have, but for some of us even a simple fantasy game could come with unpleasant baggage. It's a breath of fresh air that Wizards and Beyond are making the effort to remove some of the unpleasantness for more people. That way more people can enjoy the game without those toxic barriers to entry.
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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!
I'm not sure a game is really a platform to address problems of society.
I mean sure, but that's not what any of this is about. It's not about using the game you address problems of society. It's about making the game free FROM the problems of society. You might see this as bringing politics into the game, but for some of us social issues are not politics, they're our everyday life. They permeate everything from school to work to grocery shopping and yes, even games. It's nice for you that these things aren't an issue, that a nice privilege to have, but for some of us even a simple fantasy game could come with unpleasant baggage. It's a breath of fresh air that Wizards and Beyond are making the effort to remove some of the unpleasantness for more people. That way more people can enjoy the game without those toxic barriers to entry.
A roleplaying game is an excellent platform to address societal issues. Whether a particular issue is a good option to explore in a roleplaying game for anyone's particular group is a whole other kettle of fish though. I completely understand some groups not wanting to deal with racism or slavery or any other sensitive issue (so it's a good thing if overt references are removed from the core rules at minimum and preferably from other broad appeal content as well) but those groups might enjoy a campaign that deals with ecology/preservation or addiction or crime or political accountability or any number of other important issues lifted from real life. Big issues have their place in TTRPGs, as long as they're not forced on everyone playing them.
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Oh, sure, I agree about the possibilities of using the game for any purpose the players and DM wish to express. It's a form of art, really. That's why I feel that each group can homebrew the game to be what they would like it to be, but changing the game itself... It was made a certain way, which is its baseline. Let each make their personal alterations from there and leave the base structure as is. There are many other games out there that don't deal with alignments or specifically focus on addressing issues plaguing RL. And it's important to present players/characters with these moral dilemmas and such. Originally, there were no alignments, but Gygax and his friends decided they needed something to give structure to how creatures and "people" acted, as well as the orientation of the planes, etc.... But that's just my point of view. I didn't ever play 4e because they messed with alignment and a couple of other foundational elements of the game that I found to be trying to make it a different game. If a different game is what you want to develop, don't call it D&D. Again, my humble opinion.
I'm not sure a game is really a platform to address problems of society.
I mean sure, but that's not what any of this is about. It's not about using the game you address problems of society. It's about making the game free FROM the problems of society. You might see this as bringing politics into the game, but for some of us social issues are not politics, they're our everyday life. They permeate everything from school to work to grocery shopping and yes, even games. It's nice for you that these things aren't an issue, that a nice privilege to have, but for some of us even a simple fantasy game could come with unpleasant baggage. It's a breath of fresh air that Wizards and Beyond are making the effort to remove some of the unpleasantness for more people. That way more people can enjoy the game without those toxic barriers to entry.
If I may, you make a good point and as I stated in post #167 being a member of one of those groups I overall think moving away from labeling races as evil wholesale is a good move but would you say not labeling monsters/opponents such as The Relentless Killer, The Unspeakable Horror, etc. as evil is a bit of an over correction? The same of course goes for philosophically aligned races like The Fiends (Demons, Devils, Yugoloths, etc.), Celestials (Archons, Gaurdinals, etc.) as well as Modrons and such. I am well aware the planes have degrees of alignment not present in PHB. For example, you have Acheron which is LN (E) and Arcadia which is LN(G). Yet, I think removing alignment actually takes some of the mystic out of the planes and takes away distinctions between some of the planar races thus making them less interesting. As an example in 4E which only had 5 alignments on sliding scale ranging from LG to CE and listed devils as simply "Evil" and Demons as "Chaotic Evil" I felt this really de-emphasized the Blood War concept and how different the two fiendish races really are.
I think to Pallutus's point (and yours) I am more concerned about how various races based on human cultures in a game maybe depicted and represented (i.e. does the game feature cultures and peoples not steeped in just quasi-medieval to Renaissance Europe? If so how are those culture and people portrayed, etc.) vs being concerned over fantastical races. Again though overall I agree with you that not all duergar, drow, orcs, goblins, and so forth should be labeled as evil.....but I don't have a problem with a Pit Fiend being labeled as lawful evil. I would even say that one of the main things that makes the Outer Planes interesting is their alignment stratifications and how the stratifications are represented by the inhabitants of the respective planes. Thus, removing this would make the Outer Planes less interesting which honestly kind of sucks especially if Planescape is potentially one of the classic campaign worlds that may see the light of day again.
I'm not sure a game is really a platform to address problems of society.
I mean sure, but that's not what any of this is about. It's not about using the game you address problems of society. It's about making the game free FROM the problems of society. You might see this as bringing politics into the game, but for some of us social issues are not politics, they're our everyday life. They permeate everything from school to work to grocery shopping and yes, even games. It's nice for you that these things aren't an issue, that a nice privilege to have, but for some of us even a simple fantasy game could come with unpleasant baggage. It's a breath of fresh air that Wizards and Beyond are making the effort to remove some of the unpleasantness for more people. That way more people can enjoy the game without those toxic barriers to entry.
If I may, you make a good point and as I stated in post #167 being a member of one of those groups I overall think moving away from labeling races as evil wholesale is a good move but would you say not labeling monsters/opponents such as The Relentless Killer, The Unspeakable Horror, etc. as evil is a bit of an over correction? The same of course goes for philosophically aligned races like The Fiends (Demons, Devils, Yugoloths, etc.), Celestials (Archons, Gaurdinals, etc.) as well as Modrons and such. I am well aware the planes have degrees of alignment not present in PHB. For example, you have Acheron which is LN (E) and Arcadia which is LN(G). Yet, I think removing alignment actually takes some of the mystic out of the planes and takes away distinctions between some of the planar races thus making them less interesting. As an example in 4E which only had 5 alignments on sliding scale ranging from LG to CE and listed devils as simply "Evil" and Demons as "Chaotic Evil" I felt this really de-emphasized the Blood War concept and how different the two fiendish races really are.
I think to Pallutus's point (and yours) I am more concerned about how various races based on human cultures in a game maybe depicted and represented (i.e. does the game feature cultures and peoples not steeped in just quasi-medieval to Renaissance Europe? If so how are those culture and people portrayed, etc.) vs being concerned over fantastical races. Again though overall I agree with you that not all duergar, drow, orcs, goblins, and so forth should be labeled as evil.....but I don't have a problem with a Pit Fiend being labeled as lawful evil. I would even say that one of the main things that makes the Outer Planes interesting is their alignment stratifications and how the stratifications are represented by the inhabitants of the respective planes. Thus, removing this would make the Outer Planes less interesting which honestly kind of sucks especially if Planescape is potentially one of the classic campaign worlds that may see the light of day again.
Yeah I think we're on the same page about not labeling free willed people with an alignment, but that it's ok to do so to extra planar creatures aligned with supernatural planes of existence. Way back in the beginning I said that I'm ok with alignment being in the game, but that I liked that creatures were no longer being automatically labeled in the new book. That way it stays a mechanic, but one that a DM can choose to use as n option rather than it being hard coded.
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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!
Alignment being a subjective DM tool also opens it up to being used as...well, a subjective DM tool. Magic items, for example, could require attunement by a critter of [X] alignment by the item's definition, forestalling the four-hour argument of "but I'm supposed to be Lawful Good! So what if I slaughtered seven entire goblin villages a few games ago?! Why can't I attune to the Mace of Supreme Justice?!" Or at least possibly forestalling it. Putting alignment in the hands of the DM to use as they see fit - explicitly, instead of relying on the DM to know they can adjust the game freely since so few of them bother doing that - allows it to be useful in the situations where it's useful without being a straitjacket in the situations where it's not.
I'm not sure a game is really a platform to address problems of society.
I mean sure, but that's not what any of this is about. It's not about using the game you address problems of society. It's about making the game free FROM the problems of society. You might see this as bringing politics into the game, but for some of us social issues are not politics, they're our everyday life. They permeate everything from school to work to grocery shopping and yes, even games. It's nice for you that these things aren't an issue, that a nice privilege to have, but for some of us even a simple fantasy game could come with unpleasant baggage. It's a breath of fresh air that Wizards and Beyond are making the effort to remove some of the unpleasantness for more people. That way more people can enjoy the game without those toxic barriers to entry.
If I may, you make a good point and as I stated in post #167 being a member of one of those groups I overall think moving away from labeling races as evil wholesale is a good move but would you say not labeling monsters/opponents such as The Relentless Killer, The Unspeakable Horror, etc. as evil is a bit of an over correction? The same of course goes for philosophically aligned races like The Fiends (Demons, Devils, Yugoloths, etc.), Celestials (Archons, Gaurdinals, etc.) as well as Modrons and such. I am well aware the planes have degrees of alignment not present in PHB. For example, you have Acheron which is LN (E) and Arcadia which is LN(G). Yet, I think removing alignment actually takes some of the mystic out of the planes and takes away distinctions between some of the planar races thus making them less interesting. As an example in 4E which only had 5 alignments on sliding scale ranging from LG to CE and listed devils as simply "Evil" and Demons as "Chaotic Evil" I felt this really de-emphasized the Blood War concept and how different the two fiendish races really are.
I think to Pallutus's point (and yours) I am more concerned about how various races based on human cultures in a game maybe depicted and represented (i.e. does the game feature cultures and peoples not steeped in just quasi-medieval to Renaissance Europe? If so how are those culture and people portrayed, etc.) vs being concerned over fantastical races. Again though overall I agree with you that not all duergar, drow, orcs, goblins, and so forth should be labeled as evil.....but I don't have a problem with a Pit Fiend being labeled as lawful evil. I would even say that one of the main things that makes the Outer Planes interesting is their alignment stratifications and how the stratifications are represented by the inhabitants of the respective planes. Thus, removing this would make the Outer Planes less interesting which honestly kind of sucks especially if Planescape is potentially one of the classic campaign worlds that may see the light of day again.
Yeah I think we're on the same page about not labeling free willed people with an alignment, but that it's ok to do so to extra planar creatures aligned with supernatural planes of existence. Way back in the beginning I said that I'm ok with alignment being in the game, but that I liked that creatures were no longer being automatically labeled in the new book. That way it stays a mechanic, but one that a DM can choose to use as n option rather than it being hard coded.
Right I am in agreement overall. The only thing is there are creatures in Ravenloft like the Relentless Killer and Unspeakable Horror which are clearly evil and not labeled as such not just the free-willed and not fully sentient monsters. Therefore I overall concur with you but I don't agree with the directional format WOTC has taken thus far.
The game NEEDS alignment and these general broad strokes defining entire "races" and cultures as good and evil. WHY? Because it's a game about good vs evil! It's DRAMA. It's the struggle!! You can't have the game, the drama, the struggle without these separations and labels! Yes, of course you can say there are anomalies within each culture and race. You, as the DM, can change anything you want in your version of the game to fit the struggle in your game. In one of my campaign worlds, there is a major hobgoblin civilization that has made a connection with the humans in the area and they have trade and other agreements because of something the humans did to help them long ago (kind of like the Enterprise C paving the way for the Federation-Klingon alliance.) But I wouldn't say the entire game needs to change because I have it that way in my campaign. It is nice for WotC to acknowledge the sadness of the elements in reality that promote "the struggle", and I've been a LONG time fan of them and TSR Inc. Overall, I'm a fan of the game and what it allows all of us to do. So, great, use it as a tool to parallel the issues of this reality and how you can possibly do away with the elements that divide all of us, if you force taking away the structures which provide us with the adventures/conflicts/drama, we will end up with a game full of people that sit around at the tavern telling jokes and not having any adventures to go on....
Yeah I think we're on the same page about not labeling free willed people with an alignment, but that it's ok to do so to extra planar creatures aligned with supernatural planes of existence. Way back in the beginning I said that I'm ok with alignment being in the game, but that I liked that creatures were no longer being automatically labeled in the new book. That way it stays a mechanic, but one that a DM can choose to use as n option rather than it being hard coded.
Right I am in agreement overall. The only thing is there are creatures in Ravenloft like the Relentless Killer and Unspeakable Horror which are clearly evil and not labeled as such not just the free-willed and not fully sentient monsters. Therefore I overall concur with you but I don't agree with the directional format WOTC has taken thus far.
Don't read too much in that move. Just as with the fantasy "race" issue, it's a purely PR move done to get rabid SJW off their backs by making a show of political correctness. They do minor shows at the edge (and in options anyway), but the overall game does not change and there is certainly no reissuing or modification of the core books of the game which is what all of the gamers around the world read and use first (honestly, who is going to read Tasha's before the PH ?).
...
Sorry, but it's incredibly hard to take the rest of your post seriously when it starts off with such a bad-faith take.
I understand the move away from using alignment for monsters/enemies/NPC's/etc. We can ditch boring old notions of "all [x] are like this" and highlight the behavior that's going on right in front of the party. When it comes to DMing, either I'm going in-depth with explaining the motivations and behavior of an NPC or monster to my players, or I'm not. If I am doing that, there's no need to explicitly say "this creature is chaotic neutral" because I'm employing "show, don't tell." If I'm not doing that, then my players are just getting a stabfest combat encounter and they don't even care if the creature is chaotic neutral or not.
Alignment makes sense as a tool during the character creation process. It can be a great prompt for getting players to think about what kind of character they're wanting to play if they haven't already written out ten pages of backstory. But that's about as useful as alignment's ever been in all the years I've been playing. I don't miss THAC0 and if alignment had gone away alongside THAC0 I wouldn't miss it either.
The game NEEDS alignment and these general broad strokes defining entire "races" and cultures as good and evil. WHY? Because it's a game about good vs evil! It's DRAMA. It's the struggle!! You can't have the game, the drama, the struggle without these separations and labels!
The game NEEDS alignment and these general broad strokes defining entire "races" and cultures as good and evil. WHY? Because it's a game about good vs evil! It's DRAMA. It's the struggle!! You can't have the game, the drama, the struggle without these separations and labels!
Of course you can.
I just put them racial alignments as neutral, but individuals can be of any alignment to me that is how I see the world humanity is neutral but Bob down the street he's chaotic good real nice to the neighbors, but is never on time and forgets to return the mower he borrowed last year. Now Keith he is different he is lawful evil but you all knew that already as he is a politician.
In classic versions of Ravenloft, it was impossible to detect alignment on the Good/Evil axis, so on one level I can see this being the case for the most recent sourcebook.
In regards to other sourcebooks, I figure it's due to the fact that since 4th Edition the status of alignment as is has been something Wizards of the Coast has been wanting to deemphasize for a long time now. I have to admit I'm sympathetic to this; I said this in another forum, but alignment is a simplified morality system written to hit on basic media tropes as opposed to an in-depth discussion on social conduct. Philosophers and theologians Gygax and Arneson were not.
Given the radically different morality systems in the same religions, cultures, and nations in real life, attempts at outlaying a cosmic moral system is a Herculean effort, so most of D&D has often gone for tropey fantasy stuff as opposed to a rigorous scholarly analysis of the nature of acceptable behavior. Even religious and philosophical systems which have been built by people who dedicated their lives towards pondering these questions have had contradictions, edge cases, and grey areas that couldn't be answered so easily.
No wonder alignment has been subject to so much arguments and contradictory takes. If WotC is indeed deemphasizing alignment, I feel that this is a good step forward and gives gaming groups more power to make such decisions themselves.
A sign of our new view of real society as being morally ambiguous and whatever you want goes-the rule is whatever.
Pallutus
There is a vast difference between declaring an entire race evil and declaring a culture to be evil. We have seen evil cultures before (e.g. Nazi Germany), and we know that doesn't make even every member of that society evil. However, declaring an entire race evil means that every member is evil, even if they were raised within a "good" culture.
The same goes for slavery. By declaring it on a racial/species level, you are saying that even a Duergar who was raised by a Holy Order who held slavery to be an abomination would tend towards wanting to enslave people. Instead, saying that the Duergar culture holds slaves leaves the possibility of members of that society thinking slavery is bad without them having to "fight their innate racial tendencies", and one raised elsewhere is likely to follow the views of the culture where they were raised.
This is a very good point. The alignment of a society does not mean all members of society are that way. Certainly, if one is born to that culture, but leaves and grows up in a society with different values, there is a great chance that person will hold the new society's values as his/her own. This is a good real world understanding. The game can be more simplified in a fantasy setting so the players and DM don't have to worry about micro structures of the real world. Easier just to say a creature is of a certain alignment, in general, but the DM can choose to account for those in a society who are not the same as everyone else. Just like in the non-evil societies of humans, there are assassins and thieves, etc, who are evil....
Originally, D&D was a good guy vs bad guy type of game environment. Basic D&D said that there were humans and humanoids that made up the society and adventurers. The adventurers were to be champions of good (even though a character could be neutral). Everything else was considered a "monster". Even human brigands, being evil, were "monsters" PCs were not evil alignments unless something bad happened in game play to make them change alignment. Few DMs played "evil campaigns" or allowed evil characters (some, but few).
Just a thought.
Pallutus
I also don't like the new model of removing alignment on monsters.
What I particularly have a problem with is the sentient monsters that are described as specifically malignant such as The Relentless Killer and Jiangshi, etc. The Ravenloft book (to use it as an example) goes into flavorful detail describing said creatures as harmful and the heinous things they do but how dare said monster be labeled evil. To be clear, I am all for prime material humanoid races such as Orcs, Drow, etc. having any alignment as that just makes sense. Yet, when it comes to cosmically aligned beings like Angels, Devils, and Demons, Modrons, etcetera removing their alignment for me takes away from the mystic of the monsters. I think this is particularly true as regards Demons and Devils because I have always found the Blood War concept fascinating as the two fiendish races stay locked in a war of annihiliation based on their philosophical differences of evil with Devils being lawful evil and demons being chaotic evil and the yugoloth (daemons) being neutral evil and helping the highest bidder was well as their own nebulous ends. Removing their alignment completely or just listing some of them as "evil" the way the devils were done in 4E lessens the distinction between the fiendish beings (and planar oriented races in general).
I think people have made a mountain out of mole hill in terms of alignment and yes there are occasional disagreements on what specific actions falls into X alignment but to me that is part of the make-up of DnD and in all honesty part of the fun. I mean, part of the enjoymetnin any philosophy or pseudo philosophy is usual not the different interpretations and the quests/debates that arise to find consensus. What is the old adage? The fun is not in the destination but the journey. As written 5E (and in all honesty 4E ) has minimized the impact of alignment overall as regards spells, etc. and again I think this is a good thing. I do have to say though I have not played a game where there was a complete breakdown and the group fell apart over alignment discussions. If this occurred then I think there are bigger issues in that particular gaming group than alignment and said group would fall apart regardless of whether two specific words (LG, CG, etc.) were printed on their character sheets.
As a member of an racial minority (African American/Black) I applaud WOTCs attempts at making the game welcoming to all walks of people and like I previously stated I am board with not having all orcs be evil by default or all drow, etc.....but also as a gamer and DnD fan of 20+ years I am not offended by calling a Balor or an Unspeakable Horror chaotic evil. I mean, there is such a thing as over correction too.
Easier, but problematic, as pointed out by so many throughout this thread. We shouldn't be looking for the easy way and ignoring problems, we should be addressing problems even though it can be difficult.
I was in no way saying that alignments should remain as they are, or that they should be added back to the stat blocks. I was actually supporting the opposite: removing alignments and not printing them on any "whole race" stat block. If WotC wants to assign them to large blocks of creatures, they could do so at societal level, but there should not even be a strong implication that all members of a race are evil (or any specific alignment), which printing them on the stat block for a race does.
Interestingly, and alternative solution was raised in a different thread: Rename the monsters so that, rather than it being for a Goblin, it is for something like a "Goblin Raider". This then gives a strong indication that it is a typical alignment for the type of Goblin who would become a Raider, but that other members of the society (commoners, artisans, merchants etc) may have completely different alignments. I'd still rather get rid of them altogether myself, because I think the alignment system is just terrible for so many reasons, but at least this would no longer even be implying that an entire race was evil.
I think the alignment system works just fine. It give a direction and motivation. I'm not sure a game is really a platform to address problems of society. I guess one could use it that way. As for me, I like the idea of a fantasy game being just that, and having those simple answers. Bad is bad. Good is good. I think, in the genre of fantasy worlds, there are certainly evil races of creatures. I don't think that Sauron and his forces should be considered misunderstood/misguided - they're evil. Anyway, I like the game as is and as was when I started playing it before AD&D came out. No overthinking it.
Pallutus
Nobody questions that Sauron and his forces are evil, the question is more SHOULD entire races of beings be classified that way. But nobody is looking at lord of the rings and thinking 'maybe these orcs are just misunderstood' etc.
I think alignment is a serviceable, but ultimately shallow shorthand that can be useful in some situations, so long as people don't make it the be all end all of a character/race/faction etc.
I mean sure, but that's not what any of this is about. It's not about using the game you address problems of society. It's about making the game free FROM the problems of society. You might see this as bringing politics into the game, but for some of us social issues are not politics, they're our everyday life. They permeate everything from school to work to grocery shopping and yes, even games. It's nice for you that these things aren't an issue, that a nice privilege to have, but for some of us even a simple fantasy game could come with unpleasant baggage. It's a breath of fresh air that Wizards and Beyond are making the effort to remove some of the unpleasantness for more people. That way more people can enjoy the game without those toxic barriers to entry.
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!
A roleplaying game is an excellent platform to address societal issues. Whether a particular issue is a good option to explore in a roleplaying game for anyone's particular group is a whole other kettle of fish though. I completely understand some groups not wanting to deal with racism or slavery or any other sensitive issue (so it's a good thing if overt references are removed from the core rules at minimum and preferably from other broad appeal content as well) but those groups might enjoy a campaign that deals with ecology/preservation or addiction or crime or political accountability or any number of other important issues lifted from real life. Big issues have their place in TTRPGs, as long as they're not forced on everyone playing them.
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Oh, sure, I agree about the possibilities of using the game for any purpose the players and DM wish to express. It's a form of art, really. That's why I feel that each group can homebrew the game to be what they would like it to be, but changing the game itself... It was made a certain way, which is its baseline. Let each make their personal alterations from there and leave the base structure as is. There are many other games out there that don't deal with alignments or specifically focus on addressing issues plaguing RL. And it's important to present players/characters with these moral dilemmas and such. Originally, there were no alignments, but Gygax and his friends decided they needed something to give structure to how creatures and "people" acted, as well as the orientation of the planes, etc.... But that's just my point of view. I didn't ever play 4e because they messed with alignment and a couple of other foundational elements of the game that I found to be trying to make it a different game. If a different game is what you want to develop, don't call it D&D. Again, my humble opinion.
Pallutus
If I may, you make a good point and as I stated in post #167 being a member of one of those groups I overall think moving away from labeling races as evil wholesale is a good move but would you say not labeling monsters/opponents such as The Relentless Killer, The Unspeakable Horror, etc. as evil is a bit of an over correction? The same of course goes for philosophically aligned races like The Fiends (Demons, Devils, Yugoloths, etc.), Celestials (Archons, Gaurdinals, etc.) as well as Modrons and such. I am well aware the planes have degrees of alignment not present in PHB. For example, you have Acheron which is LN (E) and Arcadia which is LN(G). Yet, I think removing alignment actually takes some of the mystic out of the planes and takes away distinctions between some of the planar races thus making them less interesting. As an example in 4E which only had 5 alignments on sliding scale ranging from LG to CE and listed devils as simply "Evil" and Demons as "Chaotic Evil" I felt this really de-emphasized the Blood War concept and how different the two fiendish races really are.
I think to Pallutus's point (and yours) I am more concerned about how various races based on human cultures in a game maybe depicted and represented (i.e. does the game feature cultures and peoples not steeped in just quasi-medieval to Renaissance Europe? If so how are those culture and people portrayed, etc.) vs being concerned over fantastical races. Again though overall I agree with you that not all duergar, drow, orcs, goblins, and so forth should be labeled as evil.....but I don't have a problem with a Pit Fiend being labeled as lawful evil. I would even say that one of the main things that makes the Outer Planes interesting is their alignment stratifications and how the stratifications are represented by the inhabitants of the respective planes. Thus, removing this would make the Outer Planes less interesting which honestly kind of sucks especially if Planescape is potentially one of the classic campaign worlds that may see the light of day again.
Yeah I think we're on the same page about not labeling free willed people with an alignment, but that it's ok to do so to extra planar creatures aligned with supernatural planes of existence. Way back in the beginning I said that I'm ok with alignment being in the game, but that I liked that creatures were no longer being automatically labeled in the new book. That way it stays a mechanic, but one that a DM can choose to use as n option rather than it being hard coded.
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!
Alignment being a subjective DM tool also opens it up to being used as...well, a subjective DM tool. Magic items, for example, could require attunement by a critter of [X] alignment by the item's definition, forestalling the four-hour argument of "but I'm supposed to be Lawful Good! So what if I slaughtered seven entire goblin villages a few games ago?! Why can't I attune to the Mace of Supreme Justice?!" Or at least possibly forestalling it. Putting alignment in the hands of the DM to use as they see fit - explicitly, instead of relying on the DM to know they can adjust the game freely since so few of them bother doing that - allows it to be useful in the situations where it's useful without being a straitjacket in the situations where it's not.
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Right I am in agreement overall. The only thing is there are creatures in Ravenloft like the Relentless Killer and Unspeakable Horror which are clearly evil and not labeled as such not just the free-willed and not fully sentient monsters. Therefore I overall concur with you but I don't agree with the directional format WOTC has taken thus far.
The game NEEDS alignment and these general broad strokes defining entire "races" and cultures as good and evil. WHY? Because it's a game about good vs evil! It's DRAMA. It's the struggle!! You can't have the game, the drama, the struggle without these separations and labels! Yes, of course you can say there are anomalies within each culture and race. You, as the DM, can change anything you want in your version of the game to fit the struggle in your game. In one of my campaign worlds, there is a major hobgoblin civilization that has made a connection with the humans in the area and they have trade and other agreements because of something the humans did to help them long ago (kind of like the Enterprise C paving the way for the Federation-Klingon alliance.) But I wouldn't say the entire game needs to change because I have it that way in my campaign.
It is nice for WotC to acknowledge the sadness of the elements in reality that promote "the struggle", and I've been a LONG time fan of them and TSR Inc. Overall, I'm a fan of the game and what it allows all of us to do. So, great, use it as a tool to parallel the issues of this reality and how you can possibly do away with the elements that divide all of us, if you force taking away the structures which provide us with the adventures/conflicts/drama, we will end up with a game full of people that sit around at the tavern telling jokes and not having any adventures to go on....
Pallutus
Meh. How often do the PCs actually stop to consider the alignment of the things they're fighting?
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.
Sorry, but it's incredibly hard to take the rest of your post seriously when it starts off with such a bad-faith take.
I understand the move away from using alignment for monsters/enemies/NPC's/etc. We can ditch boring old notions of "all [x] are like this" and highlight the behavior that's going on right in front of the party. When it comes to DMing, either I'm going in-depth with explaining the motivations and behavior of an NPC or monster to my players, or I'm not. If I am doing that, there's no need to explicitly say "this creature is chaotic neutral" because I'm employing "show, don't tell." If I'm not doing that, then my players are just getting a stabfest combat encounter and they don't even care if the creature is chaotic neutral or not.
Alignment makes sense as a tool during the character creation process. It can be a great prompt for getting players to think about what kind of character they're wanting to play if they haven't already written out ten pages of backstory. But that's about as useful as alignment's ever been in all the years I've been playing. I don't miss THAC0 and if alignment had gone away alongside THAC0 I wouldn't miss it either.
Of course you can.
I just put them racial alignments as neutral, but individuals can be of any alignment to me that is how I see the world humanity is neutral but Bob down the street he's chaotic good real nice to the neighbors, but is never on time and forgets to return the mower he borrowed last year. Now Keith he is different he is lawful evil but you all knew that already as he is a politician.
In classic versions of Ravenloft, it was impossible to detect alignment on the Good/Evil axis, so on one level I can see this being the case for the most recent sourcebook.
In regards to other sourcebooks, I figure it's due to the fact that since 4th Edition the status of alignment as is has been something Wizards of the Coast has been wanting to deemphasize for a long time now. I have to admit I'm sympathetic to this; I said this in another forum, but alignment is a simplified morality system written to hit on basic media tropes as opposed to an in-depth discussion on social conduct. Philosophers and theologians Gygax and Arneson were not.
Given the radically different morality systems in the same religions, cultures, and nations in real life, attempts at outlaying a cosmic moral system is a Herculean effort, so most of D&D has often gone for tropey fantasy stuff as opposed to a rigorous scholarly analysis of the nature of acceptable behavior. Even religious and philosophical systems which have been built by people who dedicated their lives towards pondering these questions have had contradictions, edge cases, and grey areas that couldn't be answered so easily.
No wonder alignment has been subject to so much arguments and contradictory takes. If WotC is indeed deemphasizing alignment, I feel that this is a good step forward and gives gaming groups more power to make such decisions themselves.
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