If they just went back to the original single-axis alignment it would fix everything. All it really needs is the L—C axis. (They figured good & evil were too subjective to consider like that, but Lawful or Chaotic were rather objective. Then simply explain it as that being the “cosmic vibe” you resonate on that others innately pick up on. Make it clear that it isn’t something in the player’s control, it’s something for the DM to use and manage, it just gets tracked on the individual character sheets. Then leave it up the the individual DM to decide if they want to use it or not.
The game NEEDS alignment and these general broad strokes defining entire "races" and cultures as good and evil.
No it doesn't. Other TTRPGs have no alignment systems, and my own table doesn't have alignment, and they work perfectly fine.
WHY? Because it's a game about good vs evil!
No it's not. That my be your game, but that's not my game and that's not the game as a whole. The game as a whole is a fantasy Table Top Roleplaying Game, with no directions for you being good or evil. An evil party works totally fine in D&D, as does a good one, as does a more neutral one. The game as a whole isn't 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 don't have those separations in my game, and there's still drama and struggles between the players' characters and the NPCs/Monsters of the campaign and the villains. Is an Owlbear evil if it wants to eat a party member? Of course not, it's just hungry. However, it is still dramatic when an owlbear swallows the party's halfling whole and dashes into the woods, and then the players later find an Owlbear-pellet containing the bones and hair of their halfling party member.
No good or evil involved in that scenario, but there's still the struggle against the owlbear and there's still the drama of the halfling's gruesome death (as they most likely deserved).
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.
There are "anomalies" across the official D&D worlds. There's no alignment-bound races in Eberron, Ravnica, or Theros. Even in the Forgotten Realms there have been non-evil orcs for decades.
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.
I see nothing here that needs to change with your world or the game because of how you have your world. Having hobgoblins trading with humans is in no way problematic or even based off of alignment, and that's not even going against the main lore of D&D (Volo's gives many examples of how hobgoblins can be non-evil in it's "Monstrous Adventurers" section). In my world, there are tons of goblinoid communities that trade with other races, but still isolate themselves geographically from others and typically don't let outsiders come into their towns. They're not evil, they're just typically not trusting of outsiders and tend to keep to themselves.
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.
Then continue to do what you do in your campaigns. That's not what anyone's trying to do. They're simply opening up the game more to allow more diverse styles of play that don't go against the core of the game (like in Eberron and Exandria where goblinoids, orcs, and drow aren't automatically enemies).
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....
As I demonstrated above, adventures, conflicts, and drama can definitely exist without alignment, as they do in different TTRPGs, and they do in my games without alignment being a thing. My games are certainly not "full of people that sit around a tavern telling jokes and not having any adventures", as my campaign literally just involved the level 7 player characters driving into a haunted ghost-town in an adamantine-mithral plated tank that had a small version of a Warforged Colossus's Incineration Beam to kill a Gargantuan Corpse Flower with Legendary Actions as an army of zombies controlled by a spectral lich attacked them while the ground split open into a giant crevasse beneath them through the casting of an earthquake spell.
All of that awesome madness happened in my last Eberron Campaign, and all of it happened without alignment. Stress, tension, adventure, conflict, and drama all in one session without alignment being involved in the campaign at all. I seriously have not mentioned the words "lawful/chaotic/neutral" in combination for the words "good/neutral/evil" a single time when running this campaign, but that doesn't make my game not be D&D anymore, and it doesn't make it any less epic.
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.
A race being 'evil' isn't drama. It's boring. Proper dramatic evil has a backstory which shows why they chose evil (the explanation is often really stupid -- but it's a choice) and minions are often either straight up human, or not a race at all -- they're something directly created or transformed.
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 just object to people ranting about it from wrong or purely political reasons, exactly like with the races.
Model the behavior you want to see. Don't rant about other people's motivations based on wrong or purely political reasons. Whatever points you're trying to make, bad-faith takes ranting about SJWs and politics make it impossible to take you seriously.
WotC has been dialing down on alignment for over a decade now, but even before that players treated it as optional. It didn't break the game when it was expanded to two axes. It didn't break the game when they simplified in in 4E. It's not necessary for the core mechanics of the game. It's been kept around out of nostalgia. The changes the alignment systems have gone through over the decades - and the way players reliably treat it as an optional mechanic - only reinforce how unnecessary alignment is for the game. When someone says a particular version of the alignment system is necessary or fundamental, that highlights which edition they probably started playing with and are nostalgic for. It's fine for you to have your nostalgia for 3E and for absolutes; nobody can take that away from you. Keep on using alignment as much as you want, even if WotC removes it from the game entirely! Playing D&D has always been about being able to homebrew rules. If the two-axis alignment system means that much to you and the only way you can imagine nuance is by first penning it in within a strict framework, then by all means enjoy doing it that way. Just don't trivialize other people's opinions on it and ascribe nefarious motivations to them for wanting to do things differently.
Some people would rather harm, exclude, or ostracize others than give up their traditions.
That's not just a D&D thing. It's a whole-society thing. Look at all the pushback, backlash, and active hatred directed at the LGBT+ community, to the point where things like Pride Month are necessary simply to try and combat the flood tide of negativity. Why? Because LGBT+ folks challenge tradition, and for a certain subset of the population tradition is sacred and anyone who challenges it is automatically an Enemy.
Look at the most common refrain from many, many of the people who hold this position: "If you hate D&D so much, if you want to change D&D so bad, why not just go play a different game? Why do you keep trying to mess with this one?" They feel like the game's traditions are as important as its rules - hell, often the traditions are more important than the rules. Breaking, discarding, or altering those traditions is taboo, and they would rather take the game away from you than allow you to play it in a nontraditional way.
Some folks are forthright about that - "don't ******* play D&D if you're not willing to play Gary Gygax's D&D. This is my game, and if you don't wanna play it properly then you can **** right off." Some folks are far more insidious about it - "your way of playing is fine enough for your table, but I wish you'd try it the Traditional way, too. The Traditional way is so much better, if you just gave it a proper chance the way it was meant to be played, I'm sure you'd agree that this is the true Best Way to Play. Once you play the Traditional way properly, with reverence and respect for the old ways instead of thinking they get in the way of your fun, I'm sure you'll learn to truly appreciate D&D, just like I do!"
But both are effectively trying to bar anyone who does not conform to the game's fifty year old traditions from playing. It doesn't matter whether the traditions are good or bad - they're Tradition, and that makes them superior to anything else anyone could ever do. Fifty years of learning, development, societal advancement, and improved understanding butts up against fifty years of "but this is how it's always been done!" and it causes fights.
Anyone that has a problem with alignment taken out of the game can always implement it themselves. On one hand I understand that change is difficult, but on the other hand obsessing over an element that is easily home brewed back into your campaign and then also ignoring the fact that this opens up way more doors for customized campaigns (where goblins are good, and elves are evil) … somehow rubs me the wrong way.
In the meantime, who cares what the motives are - if this makes people more accepting of dnd, get over yourself. Traditions change. Move on. Removing Alignment is not going to end any single game you’re playing right now.
Anyone that has a problem with alignment taken out of the game can always implement it themselves. On one hand I understand that change is difficult, but on the other hand obsessing over an element that is easily home brewed back into your campaign and then also ignoring the fact that this opens up way more doors for customized campaigns (where goblins are good, and elves are evil) … somehow rubs me the wrong way.
In the meantime, who cares what the motives are - if this makes people more accepting of dnd, get over yourself. Traditions change. Move on. Removing Alignment is not going to end any single game you’re playing right now.
Well, I think you are jumping the gun a little bit. WOTC has not moved alignment from the game. They have removed it from recent monsters in Ravenloft and removed labeling sentient races like goblins as wholesale evil (the latter of which I think most folks agree with). People can be concerned and voice an opinion on any aspect of the game from the way combat is done to skills, etc. and just saying homebrew it has never been a fix. It is the same argument people had when their was a lack of subclasses (pre Xanathar,s Tasha's etc) and people said well you can always just create classes, spells, and so forth but people like official rules. Luckily, alignment is still an official rule for now.
I really do not understand why some people are so adamant about taking alignment out of the game. If you don't want it or like it, then just ignore it; it's practically an optional rule anyway so there's no need to get rid of it entirely for those who do want it in their games. And for those of you saying "just homebrew it back in if you want it so bad", do you have any idea just how much extra tedious work that is for a DM to do, given how many monsters there are in the game and how much work a DM already has to do? Why should those who do want it in their games have to do so much more work then those who weren't going to bother with it anyway, and more importantly, why do you even care what some players do at their tables in the first place?
Many players simply want to play a traditional game of D&D and there's nothing wrong with that, just as there is nothing wrong with playing a more unorthodox game of D&D. However, it's way easier to ignore or remove aspects you don't like about the game then it is to implement those aspects back in.
I really do not understand why some people are so adamant about taking alignment out of the game.
Alignment, as it's used in the 5e phb, doesn't really cause problems because it doesn't actually do much of anything, but it has a long history of being disruptive in previous editions (detect evil just broke worldbuilding, people would use their alignment as an excuse for toxic behavior, endless argument about what it even meant) so probably better to remove it completely than just make it irrelevant.
But of course, if you have really arguments beyond the "it would make the game more accepting" (which it does not need anyway, I've run extremely accepting tables for more than 40 years, it's all in the attitude of the PEOPLE playing the game, not in the rules of the game that you are playing)
Hmm ... you don't get to decide what the community as a whole needs, your perspective is limited and when it comes to needs for safety and acceptance it is, as a general principle, better to err on the side of more accepting and more compassionate. Otherwise you're basically saying "me and mine are comfortable therefore no more consideration should be given to those who don't feel as comfortable or as accepted" or in other words, "I got mine, screw you." Never a good look.
Also yes, in the end it comes down to the people actually gaming and how they treat the people they game with, there is definitely value in explicitly promoting a culture of acceptance in the gaming community. It's never a bad thing to have values stated openly and followed through with actions. If there are things in the material that make people feel unsafe or unwelcome, which there were and this is coming from direct personal statements from people on this forum not just some hypothetical, then those things should be changed if Wizards is trying to walk the walk.
But again, I really don't think there's some huge crusade to remove alignment. They declined to label the creatures in Van Richten's, but alignment still remains in the PHB and hasn't been contradicted in any way.
Furthermore even if they removed alignment as a mechanic, which I am not pushing for but would be comfortable with, then that would be the direction which the creators decide to take D&D. If you don't like that, they have communication lines open for you to give them your feedback.
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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!
Again - I don't care if they put alignments on critters in future books. I'm as capable of ignoring alignment as people apparently are not capable of putting it back on. Doesn't bother me for the alignment to be there. What gets me is this sense of persecution and people keep bringing up, and the idea that forgoing alignment is A.) just the worst thing a player/DM/GM/random bystanding observer could ever do, and B.) somehow a corruption of the very heart and soul of D&D.
It is neither of those things, at all, and lambasting people who simply do not care about alignment for not considering it Essential to the D&D Experience(C), or who actively dislike the idea of every last single living creature in the entire world aligning neatly, perfectly, unchangingly, and eternally into one of ten little boxes or pre-scripted behaviors (assuming "unaligned" gets its own box, which most people would not so assume), is not okay.
Alignment encourages stereotyping. That's the problem.
How does alignment in a fantasy game with fantasy species encourage stereotyping in the Real World?
That's not what 6thLyranGuard's post said, which makes this post a strawman (which is a bit ironic, given your previous post in this thread). 6thLyranGuard's last post in this thread is exactly 6 words, and two short sentences. It never mentions "the real world", it just says that it encourages stereotyping, and that that's a problem.
Please site actual examples of this effect, and provide links to reliable non biased sources.
Okay. It depends on what you very specifically count as "non-biased", but here you go:
To simplify this, how the media depicts something (and D&D is a part of the media, and becomes a larger part of it as it becomes more popular) influences how people think about it, and how people think about something influences how people respond to it. If the media/D&D depicts stereotypes as good and/or acceptable parts of life, that could have harmful effects. That's what @6thLyranGuard is saying. Stereotyping overall is bad, because people are diverse and no stereotypes are perfect (by their nature), so depicting whole cultures of people (even fantasy people) in the media has the potential to negatively influence the real world.
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Alignment encourages stereotyping. That's the problem.
How does alignment in a fantasy game with fantasy species encourage stereotyping in the Real World?
That's not what 6thLyranGuard's post said, which makes this post a strawman (which is a bit ironic, given your previous post in this thread). 6thLyranGuard's last post in this thread is exactly 6 words, and two short sentences. It never mentions "the real world", it just says that it encourages stereotyping, and that that's a problem.
Please site actual examples of this effect, and provide links to reliable non biased sources.
Okay. It depends on what you very specifically count as "non-biased", but here you go:
To simplify this, how the media depicts something (and D&D is a part of the media, and becomes a larger part of it as it becomes more popular) influences how people think about it, and how people think about something influences how people respond to it. If the media/D&D depicts stereotypes as good and/or acceptable parts of life, that could have harmful effects. That's what @6thLyranGuard is saying. Stereotyping overall is bad, because people are diverse and no stereotypes are perfect (by their nature), so depicting whole cultures of people (even fantasy people) in the media has the potential to negatively influence the real world.
Of course he meant the stereotyping in D&D translates into real world stereotyping. Otherwise, why would it matter if it didn't have an impact on the real world?
Your links don't mention D&D specifically causing stereotyping....
I want a specific example of Orcs and Drow (or other "problematic" species) in D&D causing stereotyping in the real world.
Alignment encourages stereotyping. That's the problem.
Classes encourages stereotyping even more. Get rid of classes before alignment.
. . . Uh, no. This is a huge mischaracterization and false equivalency. Here are a few key reasons why alignment and classes are different:
Classes are integral to the core of the game. Alignment isn't (no matter how much people protest, alignment has practically no mechanics in the core of the game attached to it). Alignment is fluff (flavor), the class system is crunch (mechanics).
Alignment stereotypes whole groups of people; races, backgrounds, and has been used to stereotype classes in the past (i.e. the "lawful good paladins" restriction from previous editions). Classes generalize the mechanics of people who adventure in different ways, by having magical engineers create magic items/creatures and replicate spells, tree-huggers be able to turn into animals, and so on. There is a major difference between organizing adventuring mechanics into a class system and labelling whole races and monsters as a single moral alignment. Alignment's generalizations at least have the possibility to harm people in the real world through how the media affects people's perceptions of the real world. The class system does not have that potential, as no one believes that musicians can use bongos to create fireballs in real life (Bards with Magical Secrets), or that people that have genetic mutations are granted magical powers (Sorcerers).
Classes have subclasses. Alignment doesn't have "sub-alignments". Classes have far more nuance and customization than the "choose one of 9 options" alignment system.
Alignment encourages stereotyping. That's the problem.
How does alignment in a fantasy game with fantasy species encourage stereotyping in the Real World?
Please site actual examples of this effect, and provide links to reliable non biased sources.
Lemme turn this totally unreasonable request around on you: please cite a scientifically proven and validated source that unequivocally states that D&D stereotyping - specifically D&D stereotyping, you can't use any source that doesn't explicitly talk about D&D - doesn't have an impact in real life.
Can't do it because you're asking for specifics you know don't exist? That's okay. Wasn't expecting it.
I will simply say this: D&D is real. The worlds of Faerun, Exandria, Eberron, Athas, and all the rest are fictional - your adventures in those worlds are not. Grog'n'ale the Bartending Barbarian is a fictional character - your experiences behind the wheel of Grog'n'ale are not. The memories you make, the bonds you forge, and the emotions you experience playing D&D are just as real as the memories, bonds, and emotions you create doing anything else. If those experiences are harmful? That harm is as real as anything else.
The "it's just a fantasy, fantasy can't be hurtful because it's not real!!" argument is absolute bullshit, it's been absolute bullshit for the entire year-ish people have been throwing it around since Tasha's Cauldron and the new direction for D&D was announced, it will never stop being absolute bullshit, and anyone who continues to use it is being increasingly disingenuous and arguing in ever-worsening bad faith. They bloody know better, and if they honestly, legitimately don't by now? Then there's no point in further discussions with that person because their rejection of reality in an attempt to preserve lazy storytelling and unnecessary traditions is beyond salvaging.
Anyways.
I would actually very much like to see a 'classless' D&D system. or rather, something more akin to what I've heard 4th edition was like, where your level, experience, and previously selected options determined what your current pool of available options were from a variety of feats whenever you gained a level. You could select "Ranger' as your base class, say, but that didn't do anything save add "Ranger" feats to your choice pool. You could make a ranger that was more focused on wilderness lore, nature magics and natural harmony, or you could make a ranger that was more focused on archery, hunting, survival and outdoors athleticism. if you didn't like Favored Enemy or Natural Explorer for your ranger? Don't take those feats - take fighty feats instead and make a more fighty but less nature-y ranger. The rigid, ultra-fixed 5e class system that causes every last single ranger in D&D 5e to be completely and utterly identical to every other ranger in D&D save for the most pointless and superficial of cosmetic differences from one's subclass is annoying, and I'd really like to see what a team could do if tasked with threading the needle between 4e/PF2e's broader pool of options selection and 5e's "you get ONE THING, and ONE THING ONLY, when you level up UND ZAT IS ALL" approach.
Hell - alignment could be brought in under such a system as a pool of optional options the DM could make available to players for games where they want alignment to matter more. Feats that require the character to adhere strictly to the tenets of their alignment to gain a specific power/ability/knowledge base, allowing DMs to play into those tropes if they want to. Something like 'Pure of Heart - if the character is considered Lawful Good, they have advantage on saving throws made to resist possession or being charmed by creatures of Neutral or Evil alignment', as just one example. That would be a terrible thing to simply force on someone as one of their rare, rigid, unbending, and completely inflexible class powers in the 5e class system, but in a game where your class is what you make of it from the box of Legos your previous choice builds for you? Throw it in, sounds like a cool possibility for someone that wants to really play into that "The pure of heart will not be corrupted by the darkness!" story. GMs running a more grey game where alignment doesn't factor in can simply say "alignment-based feats aren't available in this game" and be done with it. The added flexibility would be awesome.
Of course he meant the stereotyping in D&D translates into real world stereotyping. Otherwise, why would it matter if it didn't have an impact on the real world?
Because stereotyping can have negative effects even if stereotyping in the media/D&D doesn't directly translate to stereotyping people in the real world. What matters is if it influences how people feel about stereotyping in general, which can and does have negative effects, as I showed above by linking proof that how people are depicted in the media affects how people react to it in the real world.
Your links don't mention D&D specifically causing stereotyping....
That doesn't matter. Stereotyping is the issue, not D&D. If one can prove that stereotyping in the media is negative, and that Alignment in D&D is stereotyping (which it is), that is all that's needed to prove "it's bad that alignment stereotypes".
I want a specific example of Orcs and Drow (or other "problematic" species) in D&D causing stereotyping in the real world.
And you're not going to get that, because those aren't the goalposts necessary to rebut your claims. I've already given sufficient evidence of stereotyping in the media negatively affecting the real world, and also explained how D&D's alignment "system" stereotypes creatures in game. That's all that's necessary to prove your argument wrong. Don't try to move the goalposts, please.
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If they just went back to the original single-axis alignment it would fix everything. All it really needs is the L—C axis. (They figured good & evil were too subjective to consider like that, but Lawful or Chaotic were rather objective. Then simply explain it as that being the “cosmic vibe” you resonate on that others innately pick up on. Make it clear that it isn’t something in the player’s control, it’s something for the DM to use and manage, it just gets tracked on the individual character sheets. Then leave it up the the individual DM to decide if they want to use it or not.
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No it doesn't. Other TTRPGs have no alignment systems, and my own table doesn't have alignment, and they work perfectly fine.
No it's not. That my be your game, but that's not my game and that's not the game as a whole. The game as a whole is a fantasy Table Top Roleplaying Game, with no directions for you being good or evil. An evil party works totally fine in D&D, as does a good one, as does a more neutral one. The game as a whole isn't about good vs. evil.
Of course you can. I don't have those separations in my game, and there's still drama and struggles between the players' characters and the NPCs/Monsters of the campaign and the villains. Is an Owlbear evil if it wants to eat a party member? Of course not, it's just hungry. However, it is still dramatic when an owlbear swallows the party's halfling whole and dashes into the woods, and then the players later find an Owlbear-pellet containing the bones and hair of their halfling party member.
No good or evil involved in that scenario, but there's still the struggle against the owlbear and there's still the drama of the halfling's gruesome death (as they most likely deserved).
There are "anomalies" across the official D&D worlds. There's no alignment-bound races in Eberron, Ravnica, or Theros. Even in the Forgotten Realms there have been non-evil orcs for decades.
I see nothing here that needs to change with your world or the game because of how you have your world. Having hobgoblins trading with humans is in no way problematic or even based off of alignment, and that's not even going against the main lore of D&D (Volo's gives many examples of how hobgoblins can be non-evil in it's "Monstrous Adventurers" section). In my world, there are tons of goblinoid communities that trade with other races, but still isolate themselves geographically from others and typically don't let outsiders come into their towns. They're not evil, they're just typically not trusting of outsiders and tend to keep to themselves.
Then continue to do what you do in your campaigns. That's not what anyone's trying to do. They're simply opening up the game more to allow more diverse styles of play that don't go against the core of the game (like in Eberron and Exandria where goblinoids, orcs, and drow aren't automatically enemies).
As I demonstrated above, adventures, conflicts, and drama can definitely exist without alignment, as they do in different TTRPGs, and they do in my games without alignment being a thing. My games are certainly not "full of people that sit around a tavern telling jokes and not having any adventures", as my campaign literally just involved the level 7 player characters driving into a haunted ghost-town in an adamantine-mithral plated tank that had a small version of a Warforged Colossus's Incineration Beam to kill a Gargantuan Corpse Flower with Legendary Actions as an army of zombies controlled by a spectral lich attacked them while the ground split open into a giant crevasse beneath them through the casting of an earthquake spell.
All of that awesome madness happened in my last Eberron Campaign, and all of it happened without alignment. Stress, tension, adventure, conflict, and drama all in one session without alignment being involved in the campaign at all. I seriously have not mentioned the words "lawful/chaotic/neutral" in combination for the words "good/neutral/evil" a single time when running this campaign, but that doesn't make my game not be D&D anymore, and it doesn't make it any less epic.
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Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
A race being 'evil' isn't drama. It's boring. Proper dramatic evil has a backstory which shows why they chose evil (the explanation is often really stupid -- but it's a choice) and minions are often either straight up human, or not a race at all -- they're something directly created or transformed.
Model the behavior you want to see. Don't rant about other people's motivations based on wrong or purely political reasons. Whatever points you're trying to make, bad-faith takes ranting about SJWs and politics make it impossible to take you seriously.
WotC has been dialing down on alignment for over a decade now, but even before that players treated it as optional. It didn't break the game when it was expanded to two axes. It didn't break the game when they simplified in in 4E. It's not necessary for the core mechanics of the game. It's been kept around out of nostalgia. The changes the alignment systems have gone through over the decades - and the way players reliably treat it as an optional mechanic - only reinforce how unnecessary alignment is for the game. When someone says a particular version of the alignment system is necessary or fundamental, that highlights which edition they probably started playing with and are nostalgic for. It's fine for you to have your nostalgia for 3E and for absolutes; nobody can take that away from you. Keep on using alignment as much as you want, even if WotC removes it from the game entirely! Playing D&D has always been about being able to homebrew rules. If the two-axis alignment system means that much to you and the only way you can imagine nuance is by first penning it in within a strict framework, then by all means enjoy doing it that way. Just don't trivialize other people's opinions on it and ascribe nefarious motivations to them for wanting to do things differently.
Some people would rather harm, exclude, or ostracize others than give up their traditions.
That's not just a D&D thing. It's a whole-society thing. Look at all the pushback, backlash, and active hatred directed at the LGBT+ community, to the point where things like Pride Month are necessary simply to try and combat the flood tide of negativity. Why? Because LGBT+ folks challenge tradition, and for a certain subset of the population tradition is sacred and anyone who challenges it is automatically an Enemy.
Look at the most common refrain from many, many of the people who hold this position: "If you hate D&D so much, if you want to change D&D so bad, why not just go play a different game? Why do you keep trying to mess with this one?" They feel like the game's traditions are as important as its rules - hell, often the traditions are more important than the rules. Breaking, discarding, or altering those traditions is taboo, and they would rather take the game away from you than allow you to play it in a nontraditional way.
Some folks are forthright about that - "don't ******* play D&D if you're not willing to play Gary Gygax's D&D. This is my game, and if you don't wanna play it properly then you can **** right off."
Some folks are far more insidious about it - "your way of playing is fine enough for your table, but I wish you'd try it the Traditional way, too. The Traditional way is so much better, if you just gave it a proper chance the way it was meant to be played, I'm sure you'd agree that this is the true Best Way to Play. Once you play the Traditional way properly, with reverence and respect for the old ways instead of thinking they get in the way of your fun, I'm sure you'll learn to truly appreciate D&D, just like I do!"
But both are effectively trying to bar anyone who does not conform to the game's fifty year old traditions from playing. It doesn't matter whether the traditions are good or bad - they're Tradition, and that makes them superior to anything else anyone could ever do. Fifty years of learning, development, societal advancement, and improved understanding butts up against fifty years of "but this is how it's always been done!" and it causes fights.
In D&D, and in everything else, too.
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Anyone that has a problem with alignment taken out of the game can always implement it themselves. On one hand I understand that change is difficult, but on the other hand obsessing over an element that is easily home brewed back into your campaign and then also ignoring the fact that this opens up way more doors for customized campaigns (where goblins are good, and elves are evil) … somehow rubs me the wrong way.
In the meantime, who cares what the motives are - if this makes people more accepting of dnd, get over yourself. Traditions change. Move on. Removing Alignment is not going to end any single game you’re playing right now.
I really do not understand why some people are so adamant about taking alignment out of the game. If you don't want it or like it, then just ignore it; it's practically an optional rule anyway so there's no need to get rid of it entirely for those who do want it in their games. And for those of you saying "just homebrew it back in if you want it so bad", do you have any idea just how much extra tedious work that is for a DM to do, given how many monsters there are in the game and how much work a DM already has to do? Why should those who do want it in their games have to do so much more work then those who weren't going to bother with it anyway, and more importantly, why do you even care what some players do at their tables in the first place?
Many players simply want to play a traditional game of D&D and there's nothing wrong with that, just as there is nothing wrong with playing a more unorthodox game of D&D. However, it's way easier to ignore or remove aspects you don't like about the game then it is to implement those aspects back in.
Is there really a crusade to remove alignment? Do you really need to make yourself feel persecuted in this? Honestly ...
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, as it's used in the 5e phb, doesn't really cause problems because it doesn't actually do much of anything, but it has a long history of being disruptive in previous editions (detect evil just broke worldbuilding, people would use their alignment as an excuse for toxic behavior, endless argument about what it even meant) so probably better to remove it completely than just make it irrelevant.
Hmm ... you don't get to decide what the community as a whole needs, your perspective is limited and when it comes to needs for safety and acceptance it is, as a general principle, better to err on the side of more accepting and more compassionate. Otherwise you're basically saying "me and mine are comfortable therefore no more consideration should be given to those who don't feel as comfortable or as accepted" or in other words, "I got mine, screw you." Never a good look.
Also yes, in the end it comes down to the people actually gaming and how they treat the people they game with, there is definitely value in explicitly promoting a culture of acceptance in the gaming community. It's never a bad thing to have values stated openly and followed through with actions. If there are things in the material that make people feel unsafe or unwelcome, which there were and this is coming from direct personal statements from people on this forum not just some hypothetical, then those things should be changed if Wizards is trying to walk the walk.
But again, I really don't think there's some huge crusade to remove alignment. They declined to label the creatures in Van Richten's, but alignment still remains in the PHB and hasn't been contradicted in any way.
Furthermore even if they removed alignment as a mechanic, which I am not pushing for but would be comfortable with, then that would be the direction which the creators decide to take D&D. If you don't like that, they have communication lines open for you to give them your feedback.
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!
Again - I don't care if they put alignments on critters in future books. I'm as capable of ignoring alignment as people apparently are not capable of putting it back on. Doesn't bother me for the alignment to be there. What gets me is this sense of persecution and people keep bringing up, and the idea that forgoing alignment is A.) just the worst thing a player/DM/GM/random bystanding observer could ever do, and B.) somehow a corruption of the very heart and soul of D&D.
It is neither of those things, at all, and lambasting people who simply do not care about alignment for not considering it Essential to the D&D Experience(C), or who actively dislike the idea of every last single living creature in the entire world aligning neatly, perfectly, unchangingly, and eternally into one of ten little boxes or pre-scripted behaviors (assuming "unaligned" gets its own box, which most people would not so assume), is not okay.
Please do not contact or message me.
Alignment encourages stereotyping. That's the problem.
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.
How does alignment in a fantasy game with fantasy species encourage stereotyping in the Real World?
Please site actual examples of this effect, and provide links to reliable non biased sources.
That's not what 6thLyranGuard's post said, which makes this post a strawman (which is a bit ironic, given your previous post in this thread). 6thLyranGuard's last post in this thread is exactly 6 words, and two short sentences. It never mentions "the real world", it just says that it encourages stereotyping, and that that's a problem.
Okay. It depends on what you very specifically count as "non-biased", but here you go:
https://montarebehavioralhealth.com/the-portrayal-of-mental-health-in-the-media/#
https://www.truthaboutnursing.org/faq/media_affects_thinking.html#gsc.tab=0
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/12/media-misrepresents-black-men-effects-felt-real-world
To simplify this, how the media depicts something (and D&D is a part of the media, and becomes a larger part of it as it becomes more popular) influences how people think about it, and how people think about something influences how people respond to it. If the media/D&D depicts stereotypes as good and/or acceptable parts of life, that could have harmful effects. That's what @6thLyranGuard is saying. Stereotyping overall is bad, because people are diverse and no stereotypes are perfect (by their nature), so depicting whole cultures of people (even fantasy people) in the media has the potential to negatively influence the real world.
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No way. I love classless systems but D&D is not it. It’s better off doing what it does best instead of trying to do what other games do better.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
Of course he meant the stereotyping in D&D translates into real world stereotyping. Otherwise, why would it matter if it didn't have an impact on the real world?
Your links don't mention D&D specifically causing stereotyping....
I want a specific example of Orcs and Drow (or other "problematic" species) in D&D causing stereotyping in the real world.
. . . Uh, no. This is a huge mischaracterization and false equivalency. Here are a few key reasons why alignment and classes are different:
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Lemme turn this totally unreasonable request around on you: please cite a scientifically proven and validated source that unequivocally states that D&D stereotyping - specifically D&D stereotyping, you can't use any source that doesn't explicitly talk about D&D - doesn't have an impact in real life.
Can't do it because you're asking for specifics you know don't exist? That's okay. Wasn't expecting it.
I will simply say this: D&D is real. The worlds of Faerun, Exandria, Eberron, Athas, and all the rest are fictional - your adventures in those worlds are not. Grog'n'ale the Bartending Barbarian is a fictional character - your experiences behind the wheel of Grog'n'ale are not. The memories you make, the bonds you forge, and the emotions you experience playing D&D are just as real as the memories, bonds, and emotions you create doing anything else. If those experiences are harmful? That harm is as real as anything else.
The "it's just a fantasy, fantasy can't be hurtful because it's not real!!" argument is absolute bullshit, it's been absolute bullshit for the entire year-ish people have been throwing it around since Tasha's Cauldron and the new direction for D&D was announced, it will never stop being absolute bullshit, and anyone who continues to use it is being increasingly disingenuous and arguing in ever-worsening bad faith. They bloody know better, and if they honestly, legitimately don't by now? Then there's no point in further discussions with that person because their rejection of reality in an attempt to preserve lazy storytelling and unnecessary traditions is beyond salvaging.
Anyways.
I would actually very much like to see a 'classless' D&D system. or rather, something more akin to what I've heard 4th edition was like, where your level, experience, and previously selected options determined what your current pool of available options were from a variety of feats whenever you gained a level. You could select "Ranger' as your base class, say, but that didn't do anything save add "Ranger" feats to your choice pool. You could make a ranger that was more focused on wilderness lore, nature magics and natural harmony, or you could make a ranger that was more focused on archery, hunting, survival and outdoors athleticism. if you didn't like Favored Enemy or Natural Explorer for your ranger? Don't take those feats - take fighty feats instead and make a more fighty but less nature-y ranger. The rigid, ultra-fixed 5e class system that causes every last single ranger in D&D 5e to be completely and utterly identical to every other ranger in D&D save for the most pointless and superficial of cosmetic differences from one's subclass is annoying, and I'd really like to see what a team could do if tasked with threading the needle between 4e/PF2e's broader pool of options selection and 5e's "you get ONE THING, and ONE THING ONLY, when you level up UND ZAT IS ALL" approach.
Hell - alignment could be brought in under such a system as a pool of optional options the DM could make available to players for games where they want alignment to matter more. Feats that require the character to adhere strictly to the tenets of their alignment to gain a specific power/ability/knowledge base, allowing DMs to play into those tropes if they want to. Something like 'Pure of Heart - if the character is considered Lawful Good, they have advantage on saving throws made to resist possession or being charmed by creatures of Neutral or Evil alignment', as just one example. That would be a terrible thing to simply force on someone as one of their rare, rigid, unbending, and completely inflexible class powers in the 5e class system, but in a game where your class is what you make of it from the box of Legos your previous choice builds for you? Throw it in, sounds like a cool possibility for someone that wants to really play into that "The pure of heart will not be corrupted by the darkness!" story. GMs running a more grey game where alignment doesn't factor in can simply say "alignment-based feats aren't available in this game" and be done with it. The added flexibility would be awesome.
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Because stereotyping can have negative effects even if stereotyping in the media/D&D doesn't directly translate to stereotyping people in the real world. What matters is if it influences how people feel about stereotyping in general, which can and does have negative effects, as I showed above by linking proof that how people are depicted in the media affects how people react to it in the real world.
That doesn't matter. Stereotyping is the issue, not D&D. If one can prove that stereotyping in the media is negative, and that Alignment in D&D is stereotyping (which it is), that is all that's needed to prove "it's bad that alignment stereotypes".
And you're not going to get that, because those aren't the goalposts necessary to rebut your claims. I've already given sufficient evidence of stereotyping in the media negatively affecting the real world, and also explained how D&D's alignment "system" stereotypes creatures in game. That's all that's necessary to prove your argument wrong. Don't try to move the goalposts, please.
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