For some people, the idea of being labeled with broad sweeping generalizations or stereotypes like alignments is something that can be relegated to the realm of games or politics. For some of us, it can be a very real and day to day experience. Wanting my roleplaying experience to not be rife with things like that isn't politics for me, it's a freedom from politics. I just want to play the game without having the politics of the status quo thrust in my face. Of course, those who benefit from the status quo don't even realize that they are. It's a nice privilege to be considered the default.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Are we still referring to the absence of alignments or something else, now?
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Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
Are we still referring to the absence of alignments or something else, now?
I think its evolved to the point where we are discussing more as alignment was part of a larger effort that WotC was attempting to address. It was one aspect of many that was causing some issues from their perspective.
The whole 'go woke go broke' mentality is something that rarely actually plays out in practice. Removing alignment and letting people be more flexible with racial ASIs is not going to destroy D&D or tank WOTC.
Are we still referring to the absence of alignments or something else, now?
All of these discussions, for better or worse, end up devolving to the same general tack - was Wizards being racist/exclusionary pre-Diversity and D&D, or is Wizards bowing to cancel culture now at the expense of D&D Tradition/The Soul of D&D?
There's been a hundred threads on the overall subject, and any time someone starts a new thread in the same general region as that subject, sheer gravitational attraction from the elephant in the room pulls the thread into a "discussion" on the subject. Many people found harm in Wizards' pre-Diversity and D&D portrayal/handling of certain themes or subjects. Some people find harm in Wizards' new portrayal/handling of such things. Each side has plenty of folks simply trying to have a reasonable discourse and educate their fellows, but there's a few bad eggs that frequently try and turn these debates into forum riots. More often than anyone likes, they succeed. People are starting to get better about not rising to the inflammatory bait, but it can be quite difficult at times. See the contentiousness in this thread as one example, and the mods having recently gone through it with a hedge trimmer.
Plenty of hobbies are just people getting together and enjoying each other's company, but that does not mean it is wrong to include politics into the hobby. What you label as politics outside and foreign to the hobby, I label it as the traditional values of respect and manners that should be inherent and self-evident.
Cool, so WotC can learn the hard way, like Lorraine Williams did, that when you crap all over your fanbase, they will leave the hobby in droves. I mean maybe that is what will be best is for WotC to go so far into the red that Hasbro grows a pair and sells off the RPG division so all the doofuses that think cramming their politics into the hobby was smart. Cause nothing says "I love RPGs" like cratering the hobby.
Politics and media have been intertwinned a long time and I doubt that appealing to a young demographic with progressive social views will negatively impact sales....as they have moved towards this and sales have only been steadily increasing and they posted the best year ever in 2020 financially.
To be fair though in the discussion WOTC did have there best year thus far in 2020. This was also the year that much of the world was shut down. Even if not shut down completely many specific venues that people enjoy were shut down or operated in a highly limited capacity. This is one reason the use of virtual table tops exploded this year. I am not saying the diversity push will have a negative impact. I am saying it is kind of far too early to tell how positive or negative the push will have as it is in the beginning stages. I mean, outside of the diversity push as many places re-open that could have a negative impact on D&D sales as once closed off recreational options become available but we will see.
I must say that including progressive values via depicting more minorities playing DnD, more women playing DnD, having more sexual orientation diverse NPCs, making sure if you are going to base a game culture off a real world culture the depiction is done in a respectful way that doesn't promote negative stereotypes is one way. I don't think most reasonable people have an issue with this.
If on the other hand promoting progressive values means things like removing good and evil because someone wants the game to be a reflection of the psycho-sociological interconnectivity of all existing beings that is another matter entirely. It is one thing to be inclusive and even change elements of the game. For example, spellcasting still exist in a fashion traditionally linked to DND (spell levels, memorization, etc) despite have more spell flexibility. Yet completely removing an element not the game that has always existed in DnD to fit an agenda I can reasonably understand rational folks talking issue with, and this why despite the hoopla and despite one book not having monsters alignments I don't think WOTC will remove a fundamental element DnD if I'm blatant honesty. They may alter in some fashion like with wizards spells but I think I'm future PHBs alignment will be there but I guess only time will tell.
That's just it, Nightbinder. I don't think anybody is asking for Wizards to "remove good and evil" from their products. Far from it, in fact.
The ask is generally an admission that 'Evil' - and for that matter 'Good' - are more nuanced and complicated than "you were born Chaotic Evil, you'll die Chaotic Evil, Chaotic Evil is literally the reason for your existence, because some god somewhere said so and you can do absolutely nothing about it." When that's said about an entire sapient people that the game explicitly allows people to portray, it's not really great - but my objection with it comes more from a storytelling perspective than a progressive one. Not to say I don't approve of the progressive aspects of it, but to me the real offense with Alignment is that it allows for and encourages exceptionally lazy storytelling.
"The BBEG is Evil because he just is, evil gods made him that way; you guys are gonna try and stop him because good gods made you good, and that's just all there is to it" is deeply unsatisfying, to the point where I'd honestly be expecting a parody or deconstruction more than simply playing it straight. That level of "Good vs. Evil" conflict is so juvenile and superficial I wouldn't be able to take that campaign seriously - but it's the sort of thing the alignment system traditionally encourages. It's why there's so many attempts out there to make alignment more meaningful, relevant, and nuanced, with one of my favorite takes being the Alignment-As-Motivation ring proposed by Easydamus.
Were Wizards to do similar in future editions of the game and make an attempt to rebuild alignment as a more useful, nuanced tool better aligned with modern storytelling? I'd be keen to see what they made. But the current nine-plus-one box grid of deterministic oversimplified nonsense simply doesn't make for good stories. At least to me. So I don't use it and ignore its presence, and I don't really care if it stays or not. If others want it, as I've said at least a dozen times by now, cool. They can absolutely have it and I'll simply continue ignoring it. To be perfectly honest I didn't even notice alignments weren't included with the monsters in Van Richten's Guide before this thread was posted, I care that little about what two little letters next to the creature type mean.
Yet completely removing an element not the game that has always existed in DnD...
All sentient beings in D&D have an alignment. That is still completely true. Some groups ignore that (which is fine), but by the rules everyone has an alignment. This was not changed. All that's changed is that alignment is no longer proscribed for all critters of a given race, which in practice has been true since the previous century already anyway (evidence exhibit A: Drizzt Do'urden, CG Drow).
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That's just it, Nightbinder. I don't think anybody is asking for Wizards to "remove good and evil" from their products. Far from it, in fact.
There have been several posts in this now 19 page long thread where some people (I didn't say you Yurei) have stated they want alignment to be removed, go poof, etc. Therefore some folks are in fact clamoring for alignment to be removed.
The ask is generally an admission that 'Evil' - and for that matter 'Good' - are more nuanced and complicated than "you were born Chaotic Evil, you'll die Chaotic Evil, Chaotic Evil is literally the reason for your existence, because some god somewhere said so and you can do absolutely nothing about it." When that's said about an entire sapient people that the game explicitly allows people to portray, it's not really great - but my objection with it comes more from a storytelling perspective than a progressive one. Not to say I don't approve of the progressive aspects of it, but to me the real offense with Alignment is that it allows for and encourages exceptionally lazy storytelling.
Very few people would argue that in real life morality and ethics are very nuanced and complicated. A fantasy game however is not real life and having a mechanic that captures good and evil and law vs chaos in a shorthand manner I don't find to be cumbersome . If you don't like an alignment that a particular monster has who says you can't do anything about it? Long before WOTC announced that sapient playable races would no longer be holistically evil people were making up subgroups of goblins and changing the origins of monsters within their game from what the MM said. There have also always existed rebels within a race. Drizzt Do' Urden would be an example (though I do think the Drow as traditionally portrayed are one of the FEW truly problematic non-human races within DnD) of someone who rebelled against an evil society. So the whole some god somewhere said you were chaotic evil and you were raised that way and can't do anything about I am just not seeing any validity to. The only time I could see this not being true is with the races tied to a specific plane as these beings while sentient are living reflections of the plane whose alignment they are linked to but even then there might be a few exceptional beings. Good and evil in storytelling are a part of modern high fantasy which DnD is steeped in and modern fantasy writing including that which is based in shades of gray still includes good vs evil. In fact, that is one of the major themes in literature in general on various levels.
Even in morally grey writing or even grimdark (which is a term I hate as I think it was invented or at least popularized by people trying to be hip but who don't know a lot of modern fantasy was steeped in morally gray and gritty characters like Conan so 'grimdark' is nothing new....at all but I digress) good and evil existed. For example, I love a lot of classic S&S authors. Howard's Conan was definitely not a good character and the Hyborian Age would definitely be called morally gray but Conan despite his neutral and self-serving nature was the hero partially because the people who stood in the way of him achieving his goals were understandably evil in nature. He didn't do good just to do good. He wanted something (gold, some other treasure, etc.) the evil wizard who deals in demons possesses it so he is a "hero" because takes out the wizard who stand in his way. Fafhrd and Gray Mouser were straight up rogues robbing folks. They weren't Robin Hood either robbing from the rich to give to the poor. No. They stole for them. Nehwon was a VERY morally gray world but there was still clear cut good and evil. On the Law and Chaos side Moorcock's Elric character was again not a good person. Moorcock himself said having Elric as a friend would be kind of like having Charles Manson as a buddy but Chaos and Law were tangible forces that impacted that. Some of the best new writers of fantasy today like Susan Dennard (Witchland series) show good and evil exist. So saying having clear cut good and evil in a story is not lazy writing. It is a common literary theme and in fact clear cut good and evil is common to genres of fantasy such as high fantasy and S&S. So I think (and i say this as respectfully as possible) to say having clear cut good and evil short is lazy writing is very presumptive and smacks of hubris and not supported by the empirical body of great literary artists of various genres that have existed in history and today.
"The BBEG is Evil because he just is, evil gods made him that way; you guys are gonna try and stop him because good gods made you good, and that's just all there is to it" is deeply unsatisfying, to the point where I'd honestly be expecting a parody or deconstruction more than simply playing it straight. That level of "Good vs. Evil" conflict is so juvenile and superficial I wouldn't be able to take that campaign seriously - but it's the sort of thing the alignment system traditionally encourages. It's why there's so many attempts out there to make alignment more meaningful, relevant, and nuanced, with one of my favorite takes being the Alignment-As-Motivation ring proposed by Easydamus.
If you want to add an optional motivations rule in addition to the alignment rule that is fine. I don't think it is necessary. For someone who says alignment is not that important or deep I think you are placing a higher onus than is needed and in all honesty than what the PHB and game mechanics do right now. I have said before from a PC perspective in an average game a players alignment while present should hardly be discussed ever. Why? Because alignment is a tool to help you understand your default perspective on the world but most people understand that there are degrees even within that and it is a general perspective not a play by play dictate of how you act. A Lawful Good character can be prick sometimes. Just because they are good doesn't mean they are charismatic. A character can be chaotic evil but still love someone and thus not harm them. So, I don't see a need for motivation to be added. When I make up a character I think of GOALS for my pc to have. The goals are motivation. There does not have to be mechanic for a PC to have goals.
Were Wizards to do similar in future editions of the game and make an attempt to rebuild alignment as a more useful, nuanced tool better aligned with modern storytelling? I'd be keen to see what they made. But the current nine-plus-one box grid of deterministic oversimplified nonsense simply doesn't make for good stories. At least to me. So I don't use it and ignore its presence, and I don't really care if it stays or not. If others want it, as I've said at least a dozen times by now, cool. They can absolutely have it and I'll simply continue ignoring it. To be perfectly honest I didn't even notice alignments weren't included with the monsters in Van Richten's Guide before this thread was posted, I care that little about what two little letters next to the creature type mean.
A more nuanced system than the 9 right now....again I think you are making alignment more important and critical than it has to be despite not caring about it. Yet, assuming in good faith you don't care about alignment and easily ignore which is easy to do as it is divorced from game mechanics in 5E; why should we remove a distinctive element of the game when it is easier to ignore a rule than it is to add a rule?
Yet completely removing an element not the game that has always existed in DnD...
All sentient beings in D&D have an alignment. That is still completely true. Some groups ignore that (which is fine), but by the rules everyone has an alignment. This was not changed. All that's changed is that alignment is no longer proscribed for all critters of a given race, which in practice has been true since the previous century already anyway (evidence exhibit A: Drizzt Do'urden, CG Drow).
Right and I think and myself and MOST of the people who are pro-alignment don't really have an issue (or at most is neutral) towards playable sentient races such as drow, orcs, goblinoids, kobolds, and such not having a wholesale default alignment. I have said that several times. I have also said I personally don't believe alignment at least as regards PCs is goin anywhere. I think what most people are taking issue with is alignment being removed from EVERY monster as was done in ONE book (Van Richten's Guide). This makes sense perhaps for constructs, and monsters of an animal level intelligence (a lion doesn't make moral choices). It is when sentient monsters that are described wholly as evil and exist to do nothing but spread malignancy and I have given the same examples from Ravenoft such as the Relentless Killer, etc have no alignment that people are saying this does not make sense.
Yet completely removing an element not the game that has always existed in DnD...
All sentient beings in D&D have an alignment. That is still completely true. Some groups ignore that (which is fine), but by the rules everyone has an alignment. This was not changed. All that's changed is that alignment is no longer proscribed for all critters of a given race, which in practice has been true since the previous century already anyway (evidence exhibit A: Drizzt Do'urden, CG Drow).
Right and I think and myself and MOST of the people who are pro-alignment don't really have an issue (or at most is neutral) towards playable sentient races such as drow, orcs, goblinoids, kobolds, and such not having a wholesale default alignment. I have said that several times. I have also said I personally don't believe alignment at least as regards PCs is goin anywhere. I think what most people are taking issue with is alignment being removed from EVERY monster as was done in ONE book (Van Richten's Guide). This makes sense perhaps for constructs, and monsters of an animal level intelligence (a lion doesn't make moral choices). It is when sentient monsters that are described wholly as evil and exist to do nothing but spread malignancy and I have given the same examples from Ravenoft such as the Relentless Killer, etc have no alignment that people are saying this does not make sense.
But it wasn't. That's my point. Alignment wasn't removed, it's just not getting proscribed. Not the same thing. A Dullahan, as described in the book, is pretty clearly LE even if the statblock doesn't explicitly say so.
If there is an issue with alignment being omitted from statblocks, it's with unique, named, NPCs. Painting an entire race with the same brush is annoying because there can always be exceptions, but that's not an argument when it comes to individual statblocks. I'd prefer alignments to have been noted in those.
But it wasn't. That's my point. Alignment wasn't removed, it's just not getting proscribed. Not the same thing. A Dullahan, as described in the book, is pretty clearly LE even if the statblock doesn't explicitly say so.
The issue is if it is described in such a fashion what is the issue with the stat block saying so? A DM has always had priority to alter or customize monsters. That is a core rule of the game. Two letters is hardly a space issue. So why is the default not listed if it is clearly described? Also to a new player or DM it may not be clearly LE. Marking it as such gives a snapshot default which the GM is free to alter.
The whole 'go woke go broke' mentality is something that rarely actually plays out in practice. Removing alignment and letting people be more flexible with racial ASIs is not going to destroy D&D or tank WOTC.
Sure, keep telling yourself that. Like I said, Lorraine Williams thought TSR was okay until it imploded around her. When you despise your fanbase, the ones who actually buy your products, they will return the favor.
Removing the alignment system seems to make a lot of people unhappy. And while we oh so strive to include everyone, we just work to upset one group in favor of the other. Expanding the system, to allow everyone to get something out of it or still simply opt for ignoring it, is a much for favorable approach in my mind. And i don't remember anyone of the "pro alignment" camp so far having an issue with good rework of it that keeps it simplicity in core, but offers deeper detail. And if those that clearly are against the system cause of it missing the mark - isn't that be an option you can live with?
But it wasn't. That's my point. Alignment wasn't removed, it's just not getting proscribed. Not the same thing. A Dullahan, as described in the book, is pretty clearly LE even if the statblock doesn't explicitly say so.
The issue is if it is described in such a fashion what is the issue with the stat block saying so? A DM has always had priority to alter or customize monsters. That is a core rule of the game. Two letters is hardly a space issue. So why is the default not listed if it is clearly described? Also to a new player or DM it may not be clearly LE. Marking it as such gives a snapshot default which the GM is free to alter.
Presumably they're going forward with not listing alignments in racial statblocks. Not all monster races are going to be as uniform as most of the ones in VRGtR, so in some case listing a default suggestion might not be right. As such, WotC might have felt they'd rather just not list anything for any race, rather than indication alignments for some but not others. Regardless, individual specimens of all these races will still have an alignment.
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You know what Monsters actually need as a Stat? Morale. They need a morale code or a better mechanic in game that lets DMs handle situations where they say "Nope, not gonna continue this fight cause half our buddies just got Julian'd and we don't wanna end up dead". Because "Just let the DM handle it all themselves" doesn't work. Cause a simple Wisdom check removes so many things that make Morale useful that doesn't involve every combat being a duel to the last man standing.
You know what Monsters actually need as a Stat? Morale. They need a morale code or a better mechanic in game that lets DMs handle situations where they say "Nope, not gonna continue this fight cause half our buddies just got Julian'd and we don't wanna end up dead". Because "Just let the DM handle it all themselves" doesn't work. Cause a simple Wisdom check removes so many things that make Morale useful that doesn't involve every combat being a duel to the last man standing.
Have you ever seen https://www.themonstersknow.com/ ? Keith Amann does a pretty thorough (I'm not going to claim "good" since that's subjective) job of breaking down creature stats, what they might mean to roleplay them, and how their stats suggest tactics, including things like at what point they will bug out and flee. You might find that useful?
You know what Monsters actually need as a Stat? Morale. They need a morale code or a better mechanic in game that lets DMs handle situations where they say "Nope, not gonna continue this fight cause half our buddies just got Julian'd and we don't wanna end up dead". Because "Just let the DM handle it all themselves" doesn't work. Cause a simple Wisdom check removes so many things that make Morale useful that doesn't involve every combat being a duel to the last man standing.
The game had a morale system. The ability to climax an encounter by not winning, but them losing morale wasn't really working out. I remember thinking that the system in general was a good idea, but in the end resulted in the fact that players didn't have to win the battle, but just defeat morale. And in such, battles often ended anti climactic.
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For some people, the idea of being labeled with broad sweeping generalizations or stereotypes like alignments is something that can be relegated to the realm of games or politics. For some of us, it can be a very real and day to day experience. Wanting my roleplaying experience to not be rife with things like that isn't politics for me, it's a freedom from politics. I just want to play the game without having the politics of the status quo thrust in my face. Of course, those who benefit from the status quo don't even realize that they are. It's a nice privilege to be considered the default.
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!
Are we still referring to the absence of alignments or something else, now?
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I think its evolved to the point where we are discussing more as alignment was part of a larger effort that WotC was attempting to address. It was one aspect of many that was causing some issues from their perspective.
The whole 'go woke go broke' mentality is something that rarely actually plays out in practice. Removing alignment and letting people be more flexible with racial ASIs is not going to destroy D&D or tank WOTC.
All of these discussions, for better or worse, end up devolving to the same general tack - was Wizards being racist/exclusionary pre-Diversity and D&D, or is Wizards bowing to cancel culture now at the expense of D&D Tradition/The Soul of D&D?
There's been a hundred threads on the overall subject, and any time someone starts a new thread in the same general region as that subject, sheer gravitational attraction from the elephant in the room pulls the thread into a "discussion" on the subject. Many people found harm in Wizards' pre-Diversity and D&D portrayal/handling of certain themes or subjects. Some people find harm in Wizards' new portrayal/handling of such things. Each side has plenty of folks simply trying to have a reasonable discourse and educate their fellows, but there's a few bad eggs that frequently try and turn these debates into forum riots. More often than anyone likes, they succeed. People are starting to get better about not rising to the inflammatory bait, but it can be quite difficult at times. See the contentiousness in this thread as one example, and the mods having recently gone through it with a hedge trimmer.
Please do not contact or message me.
To be fair though in the discussion WOTC did have there best year thus far in 2020. This was also the year that much of the world was shut down. Even if not shut down completely many specific venues that people enjoy were shut down or operated in a highly limited capacity. This is one reason the use of virtual table tops exploded this year. I am not saying the diversity push will have a negative impact. I am saying it is kind of far too early to tell how positive or negative the push will have as it is in the beginning stages. I mean, outside of the diversity push as many places re-open that could have a negative impact on D&D sales as once closed off recreational options become available but we will see.
I must say that including progressive values via depicting more minorities playing DnD, more women playing DnD, having more sexual orientation diverse NPCs, making sure if you are going to base a game culture off a real world culture the depiction is done in a respectful way that doesn't promote negative stereotypes is one way. I don't think most reasonable people have an issue with this.
If on the other hand promoting progressive values means things like removing good and evil because someone wants the game to be a reflection of the psycho-sociological interconnectivity of all existing beings that is another matter entirely. It is one thing to be inclusive and even change elements of the game. For example, spellcasting still exist in a fashion traditionally linked to DND (spell levels, memorization, etc) despite have more spell flexibility. Yet completely removing an element not the game that has always existed in DnD to fit an agenda I can reasonably understand rational folks talking issue with, and this why despite the hoopla and despite one book not having monsters alignments I don't think WOTC will remove a fundamental element DnD if I'm blatant honesty. They may alter in some fashion like with wizards spells but I think I'm future PHBs alignment will be there but I guess only time will tell.
That's just it, Nightbinder. I don't think anybody is asking for Wizards to "remove good and evil" from their products. Far from it, in fact.
The ask is generally an admission that 'Evil' - and for that matter 'Good' - are more nuanced and complicated than "you were born Chaotic Evil, you'll die Chaotic Evil, Chaotic Evil is literally the reason for your existence, because some god somewhere said so and you can do absolutely nothing about it." When that's said about an entire sapient people that the game explicitly allows people to portray, it's not really great - but my objection with it comes more from a storytelling perspective than a progressive one. Not to say I don't approve of the progressive aspects of it, but to me the real offense with Alignment is that it allows for and encourages exceptionally lazy storytelling.
"The BBEG is Evil because he just is, evil gods made him that way; you guys are gonna try and stop him because good gods made you good, and that's just all there is to it" is deeply unsatisfying, to the point where I'd honestly be expecting a parody or deconstruction more than simply playing it straight. That level of "Good vs. Evil" conflict is so juvenile and superficial I wouldn't be able to take that campaign seriously - but it's the sort of thing the alignment system traditionally encourages. It's why there's so many attempts out there to make alignment more meaningful, relevant, and nuanced, with one of my favorite takes being the Alignment-As-Motivation ring proposed by Easydamus.
Were Wizards to do similar in future editions of the game and make an attempt to rebuild alignment as a more useful, nuanced tool better aligned with modern storytelling? I'd be keen to see what they made. But the current nine-plus-one box grid of deterministic oversimplified nonsense simply doesn't make for good stories. At least to me. So I don't use it and ignore its presence, and I don't really care if it stays or not. If others want it, as I've said at least a dozen times by now, cool. They can absolutely have it and I'll simply continue ignoring it. To be perfectly honest I didn't even notice alignments weren't included with the monsters in Van Richten's Guide before this thread was posted, I care that little about what two little letters next to the creature type mean.
Please do not contact or message me.
All sentient beings in D&D have an alignment. That is still completely true. Some groups ignore that (which is fine), but by the rules everyone has an alignment. This was not changed. All that's changed is that alignment is no longer proscribed for all critters of a given race, which in practice has been true since the previous century already anyway (evidence exhibit A: Drizzt Do'urden, CG Drow).
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There have been several posts in this now 19 page long thread where some people (I didn't say you Yurei) have stated they want alignment to be removed, go poof, etc. Therefore some folks are in fact clamoring for alignment to be removed.
Very few people would argue that in real life morality and ethics are very nuanced and complicated. A fantasy game however is not real life and having a mechanic that captures good and evil and law vs chaos in a shorthand manner I don't find to be cumbersome . If you don't like an alignment that a particular monster has who says you can't do anything about it? Long before WOTC announced that sapient playable races would no longer be holistically evil people were making up subgroups of goblins and changing the origins of monsters within their game from what the MM said. There have also always existed rebels within a race. Drizzt Do' Urden would be an example (though I do think the Drow as traditionally portrayed are one of the FEW truly problematic non-human races within DnD) of someone who rebelled against an evil society. So the whole some god somewhere said you were chaotic evil and you were raised that way and can't do anything about I am just not seeing any validity to. The only time I could see this not being true is with the races tied to a specific plane as these beings while sentient are living reflections of the plane whose alignment they are linked to but even then there might be a few exceptional beings. Good and evil in storytelling are a part of modern high fantasy which DnD is steeped in and modern fantasy writing including that which is based in shades of gray still includes good vs evil. In fact, that is one of the major themes in literature in general on various levels.
Even in morally grey writing or even grimdark (which is a term I hate as I think it was invented or at least popularized by people trying to be hip but who don't know a lot of modern fantasy was steeped in morally gray and gritty characters like Conan so 'grimdark' is nothing new....at all but I digress) good and evil existed. For example, I love a lot of classic S&S authors. Howard's Conan was definitely not a good character and the Hyborian Age would definitely be called morally gray but Conan despite his neutral and self-serving nature was the hero partially because the people who stood in the way of him achieving his goals were understandably evil in nature. He didn't do good just to do good. He wanted something (gold, some other treasure, etc.) the evil wizard who deals in demons possesses it so he is a "hero" because takes out the wizard who stand in his way. Fafhrd and Gray Mouser were straight up rogues robbing folks. They weren't Robin Hood either robbing from the rich to give to the poor. No. They stole for them. Nehwon was a VERY morally gray world but there was still clear cut good and evil. On the Law and Chaos side Moorcock's Elric character was again not a good person. Moorcock himself said having Elric as a friend would be kind of like having Charles Manson as a buddy but Chaos and Law were tangible forces that impacted that. Some of the best new writers of fantasy today like Susan Dennard (Witchland series) show good and evil exist. So saying having clear cut good and evil in a story is not lazy writing. It is a common literary theme and in fact clear cut good and evil is common to genres of fantasy such as high fantasy and S&S. So I think (and i say this as respectfully as possible) to say having clear cut good and evil short is lazy writing is very presumptive and smacks of hubris and not supported by the empirical body of great literary artists of various genres that have existed in history and today.
If you want to add an optional motivations rule in addition to the alignment rule that is fine. I don't think it is necessary. For someone who says alignment is not that important or deep I think you are placing a higher onus than is needed and in all honesty than what the PHB and game mechanics do right now. I have said before from a PC perspective in an average game a players alignment while present should hardly be discussed ever. Why? Because alignment is a tool to help you understand your default perspective on the world but most people understand that there are degrees even within that and it is a general perspective not a play by play dictate of how you act. A Lawful Good character can be prick sometimes. Just because they are good doesn't mean they are charismatic. A character can be chaotic evil but still love someone and thus not harm them. So, I don't see a need for motivation to be added. When I make up a character I think of GOALS for my pc to have. The goals are motivation. There does not have to be mechanic for a PC to have goals.
A more nuanced system than the 9 right now....again I think you are making alignment more important and critical than it has to be despite not caring about it. Yet, assuming in good faith you don't care about alignment and easily ignore which is easy to do as it is divorced from game mechanics in 5E; why should we remove a distinctive element of the game when it is easier to ignore a rule than it is to add a rule?
Right and I think and myself and MOST of the people who are pro-alignment don't really have an issue (or at most is neutral) towards playable sentient races such as drow, orcs, goblinoids, kobolds, and such not having a wholesale default alignment. I have said that several times. I have also said I personally don't believe alignment at least as regards PCs is goin anywhere. I think what most people are taking issue with is alignment being removed from EVERY monster as was done in ONE book (Van Richten's Guide). This makes sense perhaps for constructs, and monsters of an animal level intelligence (a lion doesn't make moral choices). It is when sentient monsters that are described wholly as evil and exist to do nothing but spread malignancy and I have given the same examples from Ravenoft such as the Relentless Killer, etc have no alignment that people are saying this does not make sense.
But it wasn't. That's my point. Alignment wasn't removed, it's just not getting proscribed. Not the same thing. A Dullahan, as described in the book, is pretty clearly LE even if the statblock doesn't explicitly say so.
If there is an issue with alignment being omitted from statblocks, it's with unique, named, NPCs. Painting an entire race with the same brush is annoying because there can always be exceptions, but that's not an argument when it comes to individual statblocks. I'd prefer alignments to have been noted in those.
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The issue is if it is described in such a fashion what is the issue with the stat block saying so? A DM has always had priority to alter or customize monsters. That is a core rule of the game. Two letters is hardly a space issue. So why is the default not listed if it is clearly described? Also to a new player or DM it may not be clearly LE. Marking it as such gives a snapshot default which the GM is free to alter.
Sure, keep telling yourself that. Like I said, Lorraine Williams thought TSR was okay until it imploded around her. When you despise your fanbase, the ones who actually buy your products, they will return the favor.
Removing the alignment system seems to make a lot of people unhappy. And while we oh so strive to include everyone, we just work to upset one group in favor of the other.
Expanding the system, to allow everyone to get something out of it or still simply opt for ignoring it, is a much for favorable approach in my mind. And i don't remember anyone of the "pro alignment" camp so far having an issue with good rework of it that keeps it simplicity in core, but offers deeper detail. And if those that clearly are against the system cause of it missing the mark - isn't that be an option you can live with?
Presumably they're going forward with not listing alignments in racial statblocks. Not all monster races are going to be as uniform as most of the ones in VRGtR, so in some case listing a default suggestion might not be right. As such, WotC might have felt they'd rather just not list anything for any race, rather than indication alignments for some but not others. Regardless, individual specimens of all these races will still have an alignment.
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Again, not what's being done even if some vocal opponents misrepresent it as such.
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I am referring to those that want that. Thats all :)
You know what Monsters actually need as a Stat? Morale. They need a morale code or a better mechanic in game that lets DMs handle situations where they say "Nope, not gonna continue this fight cause half our buddies just got Julian'd and we don't wanna end up dead". Because "Just let the DM handle it all themselves" doesn't work. Cause a simple Wisdom check removes so many things that make Morale useful that doesn't involve every combat being a duel to the last man standing.
Have you ever seen https://www.themonstersknow.com/ ? Keith Amann does a pretty thorough (I'm not going to claim "good" since that's subjective) job of breaking down creature stats, what they might mean to roleplay them, and how their stats suggest tactics, including things like at what point they will bug out and flee. You might find that useful?
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
The game had a morale system. The ability to climax an encounter by not winning, but them losing morale wasn't really working out. I remember thinking that the system in general was a good idea, but in the end resulted in the fact that players didn't have to win the battle, but just defeat morale. And in such, battles often ended anti climactic.