In the decades I've been playing, I've seen far, far to many cases of players trying to justify all sorts of BS as being alignment-appropriate actions, from lawful monks randomly trying to pickpocket other party members to "good" characters attempting to murder helpless prisoners.
And removing alignment would rectify this how? If you remove alignment then the player would just use motivation, backstory or some other excuse to try and justify their actions. No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater so to speak that group/DM just needs to have a discussion with that particular player and if improvement is not seen take the next steps accordingly. Saying alignment causes arguments because people abuse it so it should be removed is like saying some people are bad drivers therefore we should stop owning cars.
In the decades I've been playing, I've seen far, far to many cases of players trying to justify all sorts of BS as being alignment-appropriate actions, from lawful monks randomly trying to pickpocket other party members to "good" characters attempting to murder helpless prisoners.
And removing alignment would rectify this how? If you remove alignment then the player would just use motivation, backstory or some other excuse to try and justify their actions. No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater so to speak that group/DM just needs to have a discussion with that particular player and if improvement is not seen take the next steps accordingly. Saying alignment causes arguments because people abuse it so it should be removed is like saying some people are bad drivers therefore we should stop owning cars.
That’s true. Replacing it with motivation would lead to a lot of “I don’t want to do this quest my character has no reason to” spotlight-grabbing.
In the decades I've been playing, I've seen far, far to many cases of players trying to justify all sorts of BS as being alignment-appropriate actions, from lawful monks randomly trying to pickpocket other party members to "good" characters attempting to murder helpless prisoners.
And removing alignment would rectify this how?
It forces the player to actually define what they mean, without debates because the DM and the player, or different players, have different understanding of what an alignment means. It won't help with the player whose actual alignment is chaotic stupid and wrote something else down because the DM said "no" to CN, but at least it trims the dispute.
In the decades I've been playing, I've seen far, far to many cases of players trying to justify all sorts of BS as being alignment-appropriate actions, from lawful monks randomly trying to pickpocket other party members to "good" characters attempting to murder helpless prisoners.
And removing alignment would rectify this how? If you remove alignment then the player would just use motivation, backstory or some other excuse to try and justify their actions. No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater so to speak that group/DM just needs to have a discussion with that particular player and if improvement is not seen take the next steps accordingly. Saying alignment causes arguments because people abuse it so it should be removed is like saying some people are bad drivers therefore we should stop owning cars.
That’s true. Replacing it with motivation would lead to a lot of “I don’t want to do this quest my character has no reason to” spotlight-grabbing.
Sure. Also, I think we're losing sight of how alignment for player characters and alignment for monsters are two different discussions.
Honestly, more often than not I'm seeing alignment as a mechanic go ignored for character creation/role-playing purposes. However I do still occasionally run across a player who hasn't thought up ten pages of backstory for their character before sitting down for session zero. In those cases I like to suggest looking at alignment along with traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws as writing prompts to help get their creativity sparking.
But alignment for monsters? I mean, look at how many times in this thread we've seen people arguing for keeping monster alignment by saying some variation of "well duh, of course not all [x] are evil!" If we're going to treat it as axiomatically true that not all of a certain kind of monster will be evil or chaotic, etc., then that's a solid argument for letting go of assigning monsters blanket alignments. Pragmatically speaking, it just seems like a waste of time to print alignment on monster stat blocks when so many of us are just going to ignore it anyway. Also, ditching alignment on creatures enables more creative, satisfying storytelling. "Because they're evil" is a lot less engaging answer for "Why are we fighting these bandits?" than "Because they've been stealing from the baron and his mercenary army to give food and money to the people of their village, and they know you did a job for the baron recently."
I'm thrilled to see alignments go *Poof*. Lets be honest, its an antiquated system. Nine alignments? Simple two axis plot. As is anything in life is that easy.
Except alignments haven't gone poof. They have made alignments so that it has less of an impact on the game (ex. detect evil detects certain creature types vs an alignment) but alignment still exists in the game. In fact, 5E has more alignments than existed in 4E. I agree that life perhaps can't be broken down into neat little columns of good vs. evil and law vs chaos. Thankfully, I am not playing real life I am playing a fantasy game and fantasy games can be broken down into good vs evil and law vs chaos as reflected in much of fantasy fiction Tolkien and Moorcock would be two examples.
Amongst many. But life, and most fantasy is far more complicated than a simple scale. Game of Thrones is a great example. Who is good and who is evil? Who is lawful and who is chaotic? Go read some reddit boards and whoa... its all over the map.
As for your 'Detect' spells, they don't actually detect alignment, so that point is moot too: "For the duration, you know if there is an aberration, celestial, elemental, fey, fiend, or undead within 30 feet of you, as well as where the creature is located. Similarly, you know if there is a place or object within 30 feet of you that has been magically consecrated or desecrated." So yes, certain holy and unholy energies can be detected. Certain 'types' of things can be detected. But not actually if a creature is 'Good' or 'Evil'.
Again, if you are playing a game of Epic Good vs Epic Evil, with clear cut lines drawn, more power to you. Sometimes the unambiguous of straightforward can be fun and refreshing. But a great many games aren't so easily broken down. Watch a number of the popular streams (take Critical Role) and the whole concept of 'Alignment' is rarely brought up. Its not shades of grey. Its spectrums. I've been doing that for decades.
I get it. It's hard to break from what one is used to. But this has been coming a long time. It's just getting codified now. Many RPG systems have been successful over the years without any alignment system at all. Players make choices, and those choices have consequences. A good DM has the same thing for the NPC's. Bad guys get beat up, but redeem themselves and often become allies all the time. So flavor text is where you make your generalizations ('Orcs tend to raid and ravage the civilized lands, are a blight to most in the North'), but just saying Evil is a waste of story telling potential, and adds very little.
Time for some fun stories!
So 4th edition did not have 9 alignments, when did they change that as 1st and 2nd editions both had the same 9 alignments 5th edition has but back then it mattered on alignment as a Paladin's had to be Lawful Good, Rangers any Good alignment and Druids True Neutral?
Sometimes i feel like the issue is not with the alignment system, but with people thinking that the only action being able to be taken by someone of a certain alignment is always aligned to it. I always followed the rule of of 2e -> "Always consider alignment as a tool, not a straitjacket that restricts the character."
The knight in the most shiny armor can have a dark moment and lose control.... the most ice cold evil of wizards can have a moment of compassion and show "heart". Since we left OD&D alignment always was just a big broad category of where the character lands on a chart.
I can't count the amount of deals i made with "evil" races - the amount of times i was able to have a good time with "evil" characters. In the end - it all boils down to roleplay and not 2 words from an alignment chart. Its as much a definition as "Cave Troll" or "Blue Dragon".
Sometimes i feel like the issue is not with the alignment system, but with people thinking that the only action being able to be taken by someone of a certain alignment is always aligned to it. I always followed the rule of of 2e -> "Always consider alignment as a tool, not a straitjacket that restricts the character."
When the best advice the rules can give is "ignore this rule when inconvenient", why does it exist?
Sometimes i feel like the issue is not with the alignment system, but with people thinking that the only action being able to be taken by someone of a certain alignment is always aligned to it. I always followed the rule of of 2e -> "Always consider alignment as a tool, not a straitjacket that restricts the character."
When the best advice the rules can give is "ignore this rule when inconvenient", why does it exist?
Does it say that? I don't think so. You can cross a red light and still be the good guy. Its complicated. ;)
In the decades I've been playing, I've seen far, far to many cases of players trying to justify all sorts of BS as being alignment-appropriate actions, from lawful monks randomly trying to pickpocket other party members to "good" characters attempting to murder helpless prisoners.
And removing alignment would rectify this how?
It forces the player to actually define what they mean, without debates because the DM and the player, or different players, have different understanding of what an alignment means. It won't help with the player whose actual alignment is chaotic stupid and wrote something else down because the DM said "no" to CN, but at least it trims the dispute.
Again, I think removing something because some people abuse it is a very poor and honestly logically fallacious excuse for banning something. To use my example again it is like removing automobiles because some people whether intentionally or unintentionally are bad even dangerous drivers. In those instances the law deals with those people individual and so should a DM abusing alignment rules in their campaign. 5E already has a number of rules that have obfuscation points that require DM complication everything from illusions to more specific rules whose outcomes can be vague given certain instances. In those cases WOTC has made it clear that the DM is the final arbiter. So it is with alignment. People generally know the broad concepts of the alignments. So given that the DM should only step in if he feels the player did something egregious against that alignment and likewise if a player broadly plays within the ideals of the alignment then alignment should rarely come up within the game. This is especially since 5E disassociated all mechanical elements of DnD from alignment.
Secondly, I see some people (not you) but some people on this forum making a note about people just hanging onto alignment because it is tradition. In that regards the detractors of alignment may have a point. My rebuttal to them however is so what? Because someone is hanging onto a tradition does not make them wrong. Look I play and own A LOT of rpg even very obscure ones but DnD has distinct elements that make it DnD that for better or worse without those elements the game would not be DnD. As an example, DnD at its core has always been a class and level system. The vast majority of games that I play are not class and level based. In fact, classes and levels is something that most RPGs moved away from a long time ago. That is not to say the C&L based systems are bad at all. I am just stating the fact that actually C&L based tabletop rpgs are pretty rare. All that being said, C&L based games do have their strengths (and weaknesses) and without classes and levels DnD would not be DnD and would honestly probably fail as it would be too much of a transition away from the roots of the game.
This is one reason 4E is widely considered a failure. As an old school gamer (mid 40's) that started playing heavily with the release of 2E back in 1989 and owned 1E books but never played 1E I didn't think 4E was a bad game. I thought DnD 4E in fact was very innovative and I happy to see that 5E retained some of the elements of 4E things like short rests, healing word for a minor action heal, less strict Vancian castings, and Cantrips (at-will powers) are all elements of 4E incorporated into 5E albeit reskinned. I recall at Gen Con when Chris Perkins announced that 4E was moving away from Vancian casting there was thunderous applause. I believe you can still find clipse on this of Youtube. 4E was a good solid game. So what killed it? Essentially I believe it was because while a good game and despite being called DnD it moved TOO much away from DnD roots with the AEDU model for all classes, and so forth and thus ultimately it failed. And yes people like myself in that game complained about the lack of alignments too. For example, as I have argued on here The Blood War (the unending war between the Demons and Devils over the nature of evil) has been a vital I would say the predominate backdrop element across the Outer Planes since 2E and the Planescape campaign world was released. Having demons labeled as chaotic evil and devils labeled as simple "evil" totally killed the depth of the differences between the two fiendish races as well as between the Yugoloth (formerly Daemons) that were neutral evil and serve as mercenaries for both sides. Labeling Yugoloth as simply "evil" the way 4E did totally killed what made yugoloth different from Devils (Baatezu). Therefore, when 5E which a lot of thought was put into was released all 9 alignments were again included. That was not happenstance.
So, yes some folks are holding onto alignment because it has always been in DnD but so have Classes and Levels, so has magic missile as a level one spell, so has spell levels, so has the basic 4 cornerstone classes: fighter, wizard, Cleric, and rogue/thief, and so has alignments. This is why despite the squeaky wheel of some folks on this forum I don't think alignment is really going anywhere even IF (and that is a substantive IF) they decide to remove alignment from some monsters alignment will exist for PCs because it is something that is distinctly associated with DnD. It is conceivably possible that whenever the inevitable 6E is released they MAY make alignment optional and have something in the Monster Manual under each monster that says something like Daemons (Alignment Option: Always Chaotic Evil) etc. but I don't see DnD getting rid of alignment completely anymore than I see them moving away from classes and levels. Yet I don't even think they will remove alignment and make it optional because in 5E plenty of people and I know I was one wrote in feedback about bringing back the alignments for reasons I have stated. If there is a 6E playtest I think people would do the same and I recently saw a poll (I can't recall if here or Enworld) about alignments and majority still favored it. So evidently a lot of people like they just don't post on these forums constantly. I know for 5E I rarely posted on the forums to be honest even know I have been a member of this forum for about 2 years I would say and I have made probably under 30 posts but anytime there is a chance to vote on a game mechanic or give feedback to the WOTC via an open official channel (not a forum lol) I do so. So I think people are making a bunch of hoopla over nada because ONE book that didn't even have that many monsters chose to not list alignments for them. All in all, I think alignments will be around for a long time and this makes me happy.
The struggle I have with alignment is that its never just alignment....its an overall portrayal of a race that usually incorporates alignment as a way to paint an entire race in a specific light.
Orcs are humanoids and while their skin color is not one normally found on IRL humans it is generally depicted as darker than that of the other humanoid races. The same for the drow. Even Hobgoblins and goblins appear as darker versions of human complexion or even red skinned....and they are the "evil" races that are created in a specific image to appease their evil gods.
Even if the intent of the creators was not to mimic real world human counterparts...well art doesn't always belong to the artist...for good and bad. People using the excuse to wantonly destroy a race on sight based on their nature, appearance, and culture creates scenarios and situations that hit too close to home for a good amount of the DnD player base. Enough to warrant a discussion on the topic that ultimately lead us down this path of removing "default" alignment and restructuring how we think of sentient humanoid races in Realmslore.
So what does this have to do with alignment? Basically when you make a statblock for a creature alignment is a very heavy indicator for the DM how to play the creature and can impact how they choose to represent the race as part of this world. If the "default" is Chaotic Evil then its more than likely the average representation for the race will be just that....where as there is more nuance than that in the world.
I don't have an issue with people upholding/cherishing tradition, Nightbinder. At least, I assume you're speaking to me and the point I made earlier concerning tradition when you bring it up. I imagine any reasonable person wouldn't have an issue with people simply enjoying their traditions.
My issue is specifically with those weaponizing capital-T Tradition and using it to either beat new players into line or beat them out of the hobby. "These are our traditions - abide by them or leave" deals are never really okay, especially when one fails to examine one's traditions to see if they still hold up. Note that in the entirety of Critical Role's second campaign, alignment never came up once. Not in the game itself. There were a few jokes about Fjord the 'Lawful Good' hexblade warlock of Uk'otoa summoning demons in a couple of Talks episodes, but that was the sum totality of alignment's impact on the second campaign of the most popular/successful D&D streaming show by a country mile.
Alignment is a useful tool for DMs who want a clear-cut, black-and-white, Good vs. Evil campaign where nobody ever questions Good, nor ever forgives Evil. Alignment is also a useful tool for meme makers who have long since treated it as a ready-made, easily laughed-at meme format for organizing characters in popular media franchises. Alignment is actively counterproductive in shades-of-grey games, or games more focused on survival in a vicious world than on Heroes Saving the Day from Evil. It is a tool, little more, and the fact that players are violently protesting its removal from a handful of monster stat blocks in a horror book worries me. D&D has long been the "give a man a fish" sort of game, publishing expensive pre-written adventures for DMs to buy without ever actually doing much to teach a Game Master how to actually Master their Games. It's always fallen to third parties to teach a man to fish.
The removal of alignment from critter stat blocks should honestly be a nothingburger because a proper GM can look at a critter's stat block and what that critter is doing in the game the GM is running and assign it an alignment, if they need to, within seconds. A GM should not need Wizards to tell them the alignment of every single critter in D&D - a GM should know how the alignment tool (tee hee) works well enough to simply use it.
I don't have an issue with people upholding/cherishing tradition, Nightbinder. At least, I assume you're speaking to me and the point I made earlier concerning tradition when you bring it up. I imagine any reasonable person wouldn't have an issue with people simply enjoying their traditions.
My issue is specifically with those weaponizing capital-T Tradition and using it to either beat new players into line or beat them out of the hobby. "These are our traditions - abide by them or leave" deals are never really okay, especially when one fails to examine one's traditions to see if they still hold up. Note that in the entirety of Critical Role's second campaign, alignment never came up once. Not in the game itself. There were a few jokes about Fjord the 'Lawful Good' hexblade warlock of Uk'otoa summoning demons in a couple of Talks episodes, but that was the sum totality of alignment's impact on the second campaign of the most popular/successful D&D streaming show by a country mile.
Alignment is a useful tool for DMs who want a clear-cut, black-and-white, Good vs. Evil campaign where nobody ever questions Good, nor ever forgives Evil. Alignment is also a useful tool for meme makers who have long since treated it as a ready-made, easily laughed-at meme format for organizing characters in popular media franchises. Alignment is actively counterproductive in shades-of-grey games, or games more focused on survival in a vicious world than on Heroes Saving the Day from Evil. It is a tool, little more, and the fact that players are violently protesting its removal from a handful of monster stat blocks in a horror book worries me. D&D has long been the "give a man a fish" sort of game, publishing expensive pre-written adventures for DMs to buy without ever actually doing much to teach a Game Master how to actually Master their Games. It's always fallen to third parties to teach a man to fish.
The removal of alignment from critter stat blocks should honestly be a nothingburger because a proper GM can look at a critter's stat block and what that critter is doing in the game the GM is running and assign it an alignment, if they need to, within seconds. A GM should not need Wizards to tell them the alignment of every single critter in D&D - a GM should know how the alignment tool (tee hee) works well enough to simply use it.
This is really more of the issue... tradition should not be weaponized to halt progress.
You are assuming that it is progress, but not only is there no factual proof of this, the opinions are very varied even on these forums. At some point in time, people thought that 4e was progress and it turned out to be a dead end.
"Progress" is subjective. What's factual is that some changes have already been made, and the makers of D&D have told us the direction they are moving in. (These forums don't really matter --- they have professional market analysts and such whose jobs are to figure out the market.)
4e made plenty of progress, and some of it is readily apparent in 5e. Not everything was thrown out. 5e was further progress, and WotC has shown no inclination to just freeze development and never change things. That's not how the industry works.
You are assuming that it is progress, but not only is there no factual proof of this, the opinions are very varied even on these forums. At some point in time, people thought that 4e was progress and it turned out to be a dead end.
"Progress" is subjective. What's factual is that some changes have already been made, and the makers of D&D have told us the direction they are moving in. (These forums don't really matter --- they have professional market analysts and such whose jobs are to figure out the market.)
4e made plenty of progress, and some of it is readily apparent in 5e. Not everything was thrown out. 5e was further progress, and WotC has shown no inclination to just freeze development and never change things. That's not how the industry works.
And yet, in terms of alignment, the changes in 4e where clearly a dead end, just saying, so 5e was not further progress, it was clearly going back to before. Also, so far, the changes have been extremely limited, mostly optional and certainly not retroactive.
The "further progress" in mind is pretty obvious:
in 4e, they simplified alignment and (iirc) reduced the mechanics that leveraged alignment.
in 5e, they restored the 3x3 grid (even added "unaligned" as a propper 10th), but further reduced the mechanics that leveraged alignment.
in continued publishing of new 5e material, they have continued to ignore the mechanical impacts of alignment, have started not assigning it to new monsters, and have hinted that they will revise some of the existing races around this very concept:
"We present orcs and drow in a new light in two of our most recent books, Eberron: Rising from the Last War and Explorer's Guide to Wildemount. In those books, orcs and drow are just as morally and culturally complex as other peoples. We will continue that approach in future books, portraying all the peoples of D&D in relatable ways and making it clear that they are as free as humans to decide who they are and what they do."
That was published just under a year ago, and they are clearly following through on it.
You are correct that they have not removed alignment entirely. Some people have conjectured that they might --- or, more accurately, some people have expressed pre-emptive approval of it. But they haven't done it. If some future supplement was written to bring, say, Planescape into 5e, I expect they'd have a lot to say about alignment, especially in regards to creatures and races of the prime material plane (etc), and they would probably use such a work to continue moving in a direction that is more cognizant of historical issues and more inclusive of an increasingly diverse player base. But really, that's all conjecture.
Maybe its some kind of barrier. Accepting that a race might generally considered evil as their tendencies through society or creation simply point them into that direction on the human scale of good vs. evil.
Maybe fantasy races are like animals - simply going down a certain path that has been layed in front of them for ages (with exceptions). While some animals might not be able to be considered to be domesticable still some almost act like they are. Or we believe they are.
When i read the entry of a new race and i see that they have been classified as i.e. "lawful evil" i don't see them being all the same alignment - but that its the majority with small exceptions. Giving me an indication how the atypical specimen you run into 99% of the time might be. Doesn't mean the 1% can't be more frequent in my game at some point cause of location/story or whatever.
It might make sense to expand the alignment system rather then get rid of it. leave the very broad giant boxes as they are and give some more fine detailed approaches to each deer down the line.
Solasta did throw something out there. I don't know if i've seen it elsewhere. hmmm....
We could also just try to understand that its a work of fiction in a world filled with magic and fictional gods that created them with a mind and a purpose thats all over the place for a lot of races. Nothing of which holds true in our scientific minds and views of today and nothing we call reality. But maybe we should give all sentient beings a complete human mindset and diverse nature. So that all races are basically just different clothes we put on with no real meaning and zero edges.
I'm ready for my party ghast bard riding in on his awakened stinking cow. *whispers* Lets just hope the druid didn't forget to memorize goodberries like the last party.... what a slaughter it was once he got drunk and hungry....
We could also just try to understand that its a work of fiction in a world filled with magic and fictional gods that created them with a mind and a purpose thats all over the place for a lot of races. Nothing of which holds true in our scientific minds and views of today and nothing we call reality. But maybe we should give all sentient beings a complete human mindset and diverse nature. So that all races are basically just different clothes we put on with no real meaning and zero edges.
I know what fiction is, but speaking about people like they are less than people is an abuse that I and other people have suffered in real life. However it is meant in intention, this kind of language is hurtful as a consequence. I'm letting you know that I find it personally demeaning and hurtful, so please stop.
It is also something that WOTC has explicitly said they are going to change, so your suggestion contradicts the official statement of Wizards of the Coast.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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!
Orcs are NOT people. They are a FANTASY race. They do NOT have free will (at least mainstream, see below for Eberron).
I've bolded some bits for emphasis:
"Throughout the 50-year history of D&D, some of the peoples in the game—orcs and drow being two of the prime examples—have been characterized as monstrous and evil, using descriptions that are painfully reminiscent of how real-world ethnic groups have been and continue to be denigrated. That’s just not right, and it’s not something we believe in. Despite our conscious efforts to the contrary, we have allowed some of those old descriptions to reappear in the game. We recognize that to live our values, we have to do an even better job in handling these issues. If we make mistakes, our priority is to make things right."
followed by
"In those books, orcs and drow are just as morally and culturally complex as other peoples. We will continue that approach in future books, portraying all the peoples of D&D in relatable ways and making it clear that they are as free as humans to decide who they are and what they do."
It'd be fairly difficult to make their intention more clear. Orcs are people in D&D. And I bet they intend that for any playable race.
in 4e, they simplified alignment and (iirc) reduced the mechanics that leveraged alignment.
No, they completely removed them, as far as I know.
Well, to help inform your thoughts moving forward, you are wrong. 4E both simplified alignment and still had a handful of mechanics that cared, though to a much lesser degree from previous editions. I know this because I played 4E through its entire seven year run, and interacted with those mechanics.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
And removing alignment would rectify this how? If you remove alignment then the player would just use motivation, backstory or some other excuse to try and justify their actions. No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater so to speak that group/DM just needs to have a discussion with that particular player and if improvement is not seen take the next steps accordingly. Saying alignment causes arguments because people abuse it so it should be removed is like saying some people are bad drivers therefore we should stop owning cars.
That’s true. Replacing it with motivation would lead to a lot of “I don’t want to do this quest my character has no reason to” spotlight-grabbing.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
It forces the player to actually define what they mean, without debates because the DM and the player, or different players, have different understanding of what an alignment means. It won't help with the player whose actual alignment is chaotic stupid and wrote something else down because the DM said "no" to CN, but at least it trims the dispute.
Sure. Also, I think we're losing sight of how alignment for player characters and alignment for monsters are two different discussions.
Honestly, more often than not I'm seeing alignment as a mechanic go ignored for character creation/role-playing purposes. However I do still occasionally run across a player who hasn't thought up ten pages of backstory for their character before sitting down for session zero. In those cases I like to suggest looking at alignment along with traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws as writing prompts to help get their creativity sparking.
But alignment for monsters? I mean, look at how many times in this thread we've seen people arguing for keeping monster alignment by saying some variation of "well duh, of course not all [x] are evil!" If we're going to treat it as axiomatically true that not all of a certain kind of monster will be evil or chaotic, etc., then that's a solid argument for letting go of assigning monsters blanket alignments. Pragmatically speaking, it just seems like a waste of time to print alignment on monster stat blocks when so many of us are just going to ignore it anyway. Also, ditching alignment on creatures enables more creative, satisfying storytelling. "Because they're evil" is a lot less engaging answer for "Why are we fighting these bandits?" than "Because they've been stealing from the baron and his mercenary army to give food and money to the people of their village, and they know you did a job for the baron recently."
So 4th edition did not have 9 alignments, when did they change that as 1st and 2nd editions both had the same 9 alignments 5th edition has but back then it mattered on alignment as a Paladin's had to be Lawful Good, Rangers any Good alignment and Druids True Neutral?
Sometimes i feel like the issue is not with the alignment system, but with people thinking that the only action being able to be taken by someone of a certain alignment is always aligned to it. I always followed the rule of of 2e -> "Always consider alignment as a tool, not a straitjacket that restricts the character."
The knight in the most shiny armor can have a dark moment and lose control....
the most ice cold evil of wizards can have a moment of compassion and show "heart".
Since we left OD&D alignment always was just a big broad category of where the character lands on a chart.
I can't count the amount of deals i made with "evil" races - the amount of times i was able to have a good time with "evil" characters. In the end - it all boils down to roleplay and not 2 words from an alignment chart. Its as much a definition as "Cave Troll" or "Blue Dragon".
When the best advice the rules can give is "ignore this rule when inconvenient", why does it exist?
Does it say that? I don't think so. You can cross a red light and still be the good guy. Its complicated. ;)
Again, I think removing something because some people abuse it is a very poor and honestly logically fallacious excuse for banning something. To use my example again it is like removing automobiles because some people whether intentionally or unintentionally are bad even dangerous drivers. In those instances the law deals with those people individual and so should a DM abusing alignment rules in their campaign. 5E already has a number of rules that have obfuscation points that require DM complication everything from illusions to more specific rules whose outcomes can be vague given certain instances. In those cases WOTC has made it clear that the DM is the final arbiter. So it is with alignment. People generally know the broad concepts of the alignments. So given that the DM should only step in if he feels the player did something egregious against that alignment and likewise if a player broadly plays within the ideals of the alignment then alignment should rarely come up within the game. This is especially since 5E disassociated all mechanical elements of DnD from alignment.
Secondly, I see some people (not you) but some people on this forum making a note about people just hanging onto alignment because it is tradition. In that regards the detractors of alignment may have a point. My rebuttal to them however is so what? Because someone is hanging onto a tradition does not make them wrong. Look I play and own A LOT of rpg even very obscure ones but DnD has distinct elements that make it DnD that for better or worse without those elements the game would not be DnD. As an example, DnD at its core has always been a class and level system. The vast majority of games that I play are not class and level based. In fact, classes and levels is something that most RPGs moved away from a long time ago. That is not to say the C&L based systems are bad at all. I am just stating the fact that actually C&L based tabletop rpgs are pretty rare. All that being said, C&L based games do have their strengths (and weaknesses) and without classes and levels DnD would not be DnD and would honestly probably fail as it would be too much of a transition away from the roots of the game.
This is one reason 4E is widely considered a failure. As an old school gamer (mid 40's) that started playing heavily with the release of 2E back in 1989 and owned 1E books but never played 1E I didn't think 4E was a bad game. I thought DnD 4E in fact was very innovative and I happy to see that 5E retained some of the elements of 4E things like short rests, healing word for a minor action heal, less strict Vancian castings, and Cantrips (at-will powers) are all elements of 4E incorporated into 5E albeit reskinned. I recall at Gen Con when Chris Perkins announced that 4E was moving away from Vancian casting there was thunderous applause. I believe you can still find clipse on this of Youtube. 4E was a good solid game. So what killed it? Essentially I believe it was because while a good game and despite being called DnD it moved TOO much away from DnD roots with the AEDU model for all classes, and so forth and thus ultimately it failed. And yes people like myself in that game complained about the lack of alignments too. For example, as I have argued on here The Blood War (the unending war between the Demons and Devils over the nature of evil) has been a vital I would say the predominate backdrop element across the Outer Planes since 2E and the Planescape campaign world was released. Having demons labeled as chaotic evil and devils labeled as simple "evil" totally killed the depth of the differences between the two fiendish races as well as between the Yugoloth (formerly Daemons) that were neutral evil and serve as mercenaries for both sides. Labeling Yugoloth as simply "evil" the way 4E did totally killed what made yugoloth different from Devils (Baatezu). Therefore, when 5E which a lot of thought was put into was released all 9 alignments were again included. That was not happenstance.
So, yes some folks are holding onto alignment because it has always been in DnD but so have Classes and Levels, so has magic missile as a level one spell, so has spell levels, so has the basic 4 cornerstone classes: fighter, wizard, Cleric, and rogue/thief, and so has alignments. This is why despite the squeaky wheel of some folks on this forum I don't think alignment is really going anywhere even IF (and that is a substantive IF) they decide to remove alignment from some monsters alignment will exist for PCs because it is something that is distinctly associated with DnD. It is conceivably possible that whenever the inevitable 6E is released they MAY make alignment optional and have something in the Monster Manual under each monster that says something like Daemons (Alignment Option: Always Chaotic Evil) etc. but I don't see DnD getting rid of alignment completely anymore than I see them moving away from classes and levels. Yet I don't even think they will remove alignment and make it optional because in 5E plenty of people and I know I was one wrote in feedback about bringing back the alignments for reasons I have stated. If there is a 6E playtest I think people would do the same and I recently saw a poll (I can't recall if here or Enworld) about alignments and majority still favored it. So evidently a lot of people like they just don't post on these forums constantly. I know for 5E I rarely posted on the forums to be honest even know I have been a member of this forum for about 2 years I would say and I have made probably under 30 posts but anytime there is a chance to vote on a game mechanic or give feedback to the WOTC via an open official channel (not a forum lol) I do so. So I think people are making a bunch of hoopla over nada because ONE book that didn't even have that many monsters chose to not list alignments for them. All in all, I think alignments will be around for a long time and this makes me happy.
The struggle I have with alignment is that its never just alignment....its an overall portrayal of a race that usually incorporates alignment as a way to paint an entire race in a specific light.
Orcs are humanoids and while their skin color is not one normally found on IRL humans it is generally depicted as darker than that of the other humanoid races. The same for the drow. Even Hobgoblins and goblins appear as darker versions of human complexion or even red skinned....and they are the "evil" races that are created in a specific image to appease their evil gods.
Even if the intent of the creators was not to mimic real world human counterparts...well art doesn't always belong to the artist...for good and bad. People using the excuse to wantonly destroy a race on sight based on their nature, appearance, and culture creates scenarios and situations that hit too close to home for a good amount of the DnD player base. Enough to warrant a discussion on the topic that ultimately lead us down this path of removing "default" alignment and restructuring how we think of sentient humanoid races in Realmslore.
So what does this have to do with alignment? Basically when you make a statblock for a creature alignment is a very heavy indicator for the DM how to play the creature and can impact how they choose to represent the race as part of this world. If the "default" is Chaotic Evil then its more than likely the average representation for the race will be just that....where as there is more nuance than that in the world.
I don't have an issue with people upholding/cherishing tradition, Nightbinder. At least, I assume you're speaking to me and the point I made earlier concerning tradition when you bring it up. I imagine any reasonable person wouldn't have an issue with people simply enjoying their traditions.
My issue is specifically with those weaponizing capital-T Tradition and using it to either beat new players into line or beat them out of the hobby. "These are our traditions - abide by them or leave" deals are never really okay, especially when one fails to examine one's traditions to see if they still hold up. Note that in the entirety of Critical Role's second campaign, alignment never came up once. Not in the game itself. There were a few jokes about Fjord the 'Lawful Good' hexblade warlock of Uk'otoa summoning demons in a couple of Talks episodes, but that was the sum totality of alignment's impact on the second campaign of the most popular/successful D&D streaming show by a country mile.
Alignment is a useful tool for DMs who want a clear-cut, black-and-white, Good vs. Evil campaign where nobody ever questions Good, nor ever forgives Evil. Alignment is also a useful tool for meme makers who have long since treated it as a ready-made, easily laughed-at meme format for organizing characters in popular media franchises. Alignment is actively counterproductive in shades-of-grey games, or games more focused on survival in a vicious world than on Heroes Saving the Day from Evil. It is a tool, little more, and the fact that players are violently protesting its removal from a handful of monster stat blocks in a horror book worries me. D&D has long been the "give a man a fish" sort of game, publishing expensive pre-written adventures for DMs to buy without ever actually doing much to teach a Game Master how to actually Master their Games. It's always fallen to third parties to teach a man to fish.
The removal of alignment from critter stat blocks should honestly be a nothingburger because a proper GM can look at a critter's stat block and what that critter is doing in the game the GM is running and assign it an alignment, if they need to, within seconds. A GM should not need Wizards to tell them the alignment of every single critter in D&D - a GM should know how the alignment tool (tee hee) works well enough to simply use it.
Please do not contact or message me.
This is really more of the issue... tradition should not be weaponized to halt progress.
"Progress" is subjective. What's factual is that some changes have already been made, and the makers of D&D have told us the direction they are moving in. (These forums don't really matter --- they have professional market analysts and such whose jobs are to figure out the market.)
4e made plenty of progress, and some of it is readily apparent in 5e. Not everything was thrown out. 5e was further progress, and WotC has shown no inclination to just freeze development and never change things. That's not how the industry works.
The "further progress" in mind is pretty obvious:
You are correct that they have not removed alignment entirely. Some people have conjectured that they might --- or, more accurately, some people have expressed pre-emptive approval of it. But they haven't done it. If some future supplement was written to bring, say, Planescape into 5e, I expect they'd have a lot to say about alignment, especially in regards to creatures and races of the prime material plane (etc), and they would probably use such a work to continue moving in a direction that is more cognizant of historical issues and more inclusive of an increasingly diverse player base. But really, that's all conjecture.
Maybe its some kind of barrier.

Accepting that a race might generally considered evil as their tendencies through society or creation simply point them into that direction on the human scale of good vs. evil.
Maybe fantasy races are like animals - simply going down a certain path that has been layed in front of them for ages (with exceptions).
While some animals might not be able to be considered to be domesticable still some almost act like they are. Or we believe they are.
When i read the entry of a new race and i see that they have been classified as i.e. "lawful evil" i don't see them being all the same alignment - but that its the majority with small exceptions. Giving me an indication how the atypical specimen you run into 99% of the time might be. Doesn't mean the 1% can't be more frequent in my game at some point cause of location/story or whatever.
It might make sense to expand the alignment system rather then get rid of it. leave the very broad giant boxes as they are and give some more fine detailed approaches to each deer down the line.
Solasta did throw something out there. I don't know if i've seen it elsewhere. hmmm....
If they are meant to be people, they shouldn't be spoken about like they are animals. Can we not do that, please?
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!
We could also just try to understand that its a work of fiction in a world filled with magic and fictional gods that created them with a mind and a purpose thats all over the place for a lot of races.
Nothing of which holds true in our scientific minds and views of today and nothing we call reality. But maybe we should give all sentient beings a complete human mindset and diverse nature. So that all races are basically just different clothes we put on with no real meaning and zero edges.
I'm ready for my party ghast bard riding in on his awakened stinking cow.
*whispers* Lets just hope the druid didn't forget to memorize goodberries like the last party.... what a slaughter it was once he got drunk and hungry....
I know what fiction is, but speaking about people like they are less than people is an abuse that I and other people have suffered in real life. However it is meant in intention, this kind of language is hurtful as a consequence. I'm letting you know that I find it personally demeaning and hurtful, so please stop.
It is also something that WOTC has explicitly said they are going to change, so your suggestion contradicts the official statement of Wizards of the Coast.
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've bolded some bits for emphasis:
"Throughout the 50-year history of D&D, some of the peoples in the game—orcs and drow being two of the prime examples—have been characterized as monstrous and evil, using descriptions that are painfully reminiscent of how real-world ethnic groups have been and continue to be denigrated. That’s just not right, and it’s not something we believe in. Despite our conscious efforts to the contrary, we have allowed some of those old descriptions to reappear in the game. We recognize that to live our values, we have to do an even better job in handling these issues. If we make mistakes, our priority is to make things right."
followed by
"In those books, orcs and drow are just as morally and culturally complex as other peoples. We will continue that approach in future books, portraying all the peoples of D&D in relatable ways and making it clear that they are as free as humans to decide who they are and what they do."
It'd be fairly difficult to make their intention more clear. Orcs are people in D&D. And I bet they intend that for any playable race.
Well, to help inform your thoughts moving forward, you are wrong. 4E both simplified alignment and still had a handful of mechanics that cared, though to a much lesser degree from previous editions. I know this because I played 4E through its entire seven year run, and interacted with those mechanics.