Hmm... my fundamental problem with alignment >> motivation is that, fundamentally... alignment isn't really personality, motivation, or the like. Alignment is a karma meter. Its an attempt to model ethics and morality (and the lack thereof) in the D&D universe.
I mean, I agree that trying to say that all members of certain races are "evil" or "chaotic" is bad (likewise, saying that all "goodly" races are Good is a problem). And I do feel that the social aspects of D&D are sorely lacking, especially if its supposed to be one of the three pillars of the game.
But I just feel that, if you're going to replace alignment, it should either be with another karma meter, or just ditch it altogether. If you want to expand on personality and motives and aspirations of characters, as well as how the Interaction Pillar functions? I'm totally down with that, but it should be unrelated to alignment.
I think the issue with a karma meter is the idea that ethics and morality are easily defined. It is easy to say "a person who kills an innocent is evil", but then there's the questions of why did they kill them? was it a trolley problem - 5 innocent people will die unless you kill 1 innocent person? is the person still evil, or are they good for saving the 5 people? Is the person who does a bad thing to save their family from torture and death a bad person?
Ultimately, the entire concept of a universally judged karmic system is the judgement. Saying "this creature is evil" when it's just catching food and doesn't care if that's people is kind of silly (case in point, the Roper). Saying "this creature is indiscriminate, hungry and a hunter" not only describes all the things that a universal constant considers "evil", but does so without the judgement, and throws in a guideline for how to run the creature for the DM to boot! Then players can make decisions like "well, it's only hungry, we could relocate it to the wilds to eat animals instead of killing it..." without the "lawful good" paladin saying "no, it's evil, this book says so! We kill it!"
I'm 100% behind having the alignment scrapped. It adds very little, and what little it does add could be replaced and thoroughly 1-upped by Motivations - in my opinion.
As a side note unrelated to Mephista's comment - If people still wanted to include the alignment chart in their games, then this could be done by listing the various motivations into the alignment chart - EG Greedy is evil, selfless is good, hungry is neutral, cowardly is neutral, etc. That way any creatures or characters with motivations that tend towards good or evil would be readily identified as such (it would be largely intuitive, I think). Just a thought, as an optional rule for the sake of heritage.
I can understand people wanting that, but I kinda feel that's a difficult one to accomplish. It would rely on keeping an absolute morality, having actions defined judged as good or bad by someone, and keeps some of the same fundamental issues as alignment.
So, if you kill something, who decides whether that was good or bad? Same if you help someone, is it positive or negative karma?
That said, I would rather see a "Karma Score" in D&D than the current alignment system. I would not want to see karma scores on monster stat blocks nor linked to core mechanics, and I'd leave implementation up to the individual tables (i.e. deciding which actions give positive or negative karma). It would be mildly better than alignments, IMHO.
Hmm... my fundamental problem with alignment >> motivation is that, fundamentally... alignment isn't really personality, motivation, or the like. Alignment is a karma meter. Its an attempt to model ethics and morality (and the lack thereof) in the D&D universe.
Citation please? Even back in 1st edition, alignment affected personality and motivations, or else items such as a Helm of Opposite Alignment make no sense.
I think the issue with a karma meter is the idea that ethics and morality are easily defined.
Agreed, but that's what the D&D alignment chart tries to do anyways. The default D&D setting doesn't really have shades of grey - it has objective morality. I'm all for ditching that if you want to.
But what I am just saying that Alignment is not the right place to be fitting Character Motivations in. They're asking two very different questions about the character. Someone can have the motivation of "Become the King of XYZ" and assassinate their way to the top (Lawful Evil), or become the ruler by exposing corruption and being a leader of the people (Lawful Good). Motivations are things that a character wants to do over the course of the game, while alignment represents what you're willing to do to accomplish it.
I'm 100% behind having the alignment scrapped. It adds very little, and what little it does add could be replaced and thoroughly 1-upped by Motivations - in my opinion.
Sure. By all means, scrap it. I personally agree that it should be.
That said.... Motivations are not really replacing anything, though? That's my point. The Venn diagram of Motivations and Alignment are two separate circles with zero overlap. At best... you can argue that a motivation would include a person's Ideals... which is already a thing in 5e, and you'd just end up reinventing the wheel.
It -sounds- like you're saying to ditch Alignment (fair) and just rely on their Background for every character. Which... is already a thing?
The fundamental problem I have, as I said before, isn't getting rid of the alignment. I disagree that adding in motivation is actually adding anything to the game that's not already there and that motivations don't really serve any purpose. Its added complexity for no benefit.
Hmm... my fundamental problem with alignment >> motivation is that, fundamentally... alignment isn't really personality, motivation, or the like. Alignment is a karma meter. Its an attempt to model ethics and morality (and the lack thereof) in the D&D universe.
Citation please? Even back in 1st edition, alignment affected personality and motivations, or else items such as a Helm of Opposite Alignment make no sense.
In first edition D&D, since you're quoting that far back, instructed the DMs to keep track of player actions. When they accomplish something Good or Evil or Lawful or Chaotic, they get a point. When they accumulate so many points in a direction, their alignment shifts.
That's pretty much the defining feature of karma meters, as per the link I gave.
Hmm... my fundamental problem with alignment >> motivation is that, fundamentally... alignment isn't really personality, motivation, or the like. Alignment is a karma meter. Its an attempt to model ethics and morality (and the lack thereof) in the D&D universe.
Citation please? Even back in 1st edition, alignment affected personality and motivations, or else items such as a Helm of Opposite Alignment make no sense.
In first edition D&D, since you're quoting that far back, instructed the DMs to keep track of player actions. When they accomplish something Good or Evil or Lawful or Chaotic, they get a point. When they accumulate so many points in a direction, their alignment shifts.
That's pretty much the defining feature of karma meters, as per the link I gave.
The point score might be a karma meter, but that's not the same thing as alignment.
Alignment in D&D has always been primarily descriptive rather than prescriptive -- it indicates how a creature has acted in the past, and assuming consistent personality, is thus suggestive about future behavior, but does not actually compel behavior -- but the same thing is true for personality, motivation, etc.
"The Venn diagram of Motivations and Alignment are two separate circles with zero overlap."
I very much disagree, at least when it comes to how a lot of people use them. How many times do we get asked "this character/NPC/monster is chaotic evil, how would it behave in this situation"? Many players and DMs use them as a strong indicator of behaviour, even though they are terrible for that purpose, and these motives would primarily be there as indicators of behaviour.
"The Venn diagram of Motivations and Alignment are two separate circles with zero overlap."
I very much disagree, at least when it comes to how a lot of people use them. How many times do we get asked "this character/NPC/monster is chaotic evil, how would it behave in this situation"? Many players and DMs use them as a strong indicator of behaviour, even though they are terrible for that purpose, and these motives would primarily be there as indicators of behaviour.
But they’re not a terrible indicator of behavior. Motives are great for determining behavior in the circumstances to which they apply, but any reasonable set of motives is only going to apply to, like, 15% of situations a character may find themselves in. For the other 85%, much broader moral outlooks are immensely valuable.
If you think you can describe a “motivation” that is universally applicable, you’re just renaming “good” and “evil,” not replacing them (or re-orienting your alignment system around a different dichotomy, I guess, but that’s a different conversation).
If you think you can describe a “motivation” that is universally applicable, you’re just renaming “good” and “evil,” not replacing them (or re-orienting your alignment system around a different dichotomy, I guess, but that’s a different conversation).
You can have a much larger number of descriptors available for motivation than are available on the good/evil and law/chaos axes. There's a difference from a monster that kills people because it's greedy and wants their stuff and a monster that kills people because it likes the sound of screaming, but they're both evil.
If you think you can describe a “motivation” that is universally applicable, you’re just renaming “good” and “evil,” not replacing them (or re-orienting your alignment system around a different dichotomy, I guess, but that’s a different conversation).
You can have a much larger number of descriptors available for motivation than are available on the good/evil and law/chaos axes. There's a difference from a monster that kills people because it's greedy and wants their stuff and a monster that kills people because it likes the sound of screaming, but they're both evil.
Right, and those "motivations" only apply when they're presented with the opportunity to kill someone. Your example makes my point.
Right, and those "motivations" only apply when they're presented with the opportunity to kill someone. Your example makes my point.
Huh? Sure, there are situation in which any given motivation does not account for a monster's behavior, but there are plenty of situations where alignment is equally useless, because 'evil' does not mean "always picks the evil option", it just means "picks the evil option often enough to be considered overall evil". A greedy monster might totally ignore peasant children (they don't have anything it wants), whereas the sadistic monster would certainly prey on them. In the reverse case, the greedy monster will certainly spend effort finding things worth stealing, while the sadistic monster might leave corpses around with full pouches of gold. On the alignment system, they're both probably Chaotic Evil and you have no real way of distinguishing them.
Right, and those "motivations" only apply when they're presented with the opportunity to kill someone. Your example makes my point.
Huh? Sure, there are situation in which any given motivation does not account for a monster's behavior, but there are plenty of situations where alignment is equally useless, because 'evil' does not mean "always picks the evil option", it just means "picks the evil option often enough to be considered overall evil". A greedy monster might totally ignore peasant children (they don't have anything it wants), whereas the sadistic monster would certainly prey on them. In the reverse case, the greedy monster will certainly spend effort finding things worth stealing, while the sadistic monster might leave corpses around with full pouches of gold. On the alignment system, they're both probably Chaotic Evil and you have no real way of distinguishing them.
So, you're still describing the same incredibly limited set of circumstances to which these motivations could apply. I don't believe there's any situation in which alignment is useless. If I know a character is evil, that's a decent starting point irrespective of circumstance. I can then modulate based on more specific situational factors. If I have three motivations, that tells me three things the character wants and absolutely nothing about what happens when those three things aren't on the table. If I also know they're evil, that tells me something, no matter what.
I recently started looking at the Yuan-ti as opponents for my players. I have a barely explored jungle and they'd be perfect. I imagine a sort of Aztec flavor to them, stepped pyramids, and very exotic weapons. They'd be having the Purebloods infiltrating the Empire that is the center of my setting, and doing all they could to set the Empire up to fall. They are primarily motivated by their desire to conquer, secondarily to prove their superiority, and last to dominate and rule the world. This would be pretty much tailor made for the Motives System suggested here. They want to conquer, by any means, so let's say they are Ruthless. They want to prove their superiority, so that would make them Proud, and they want to dominate the world, so what better to call them than Dominant?
Ruthless, Proud, and Dominant. What does that tell us? Ruthless doesn't really tell us anything, nor does Proud, nor Dominant. All of these sound vaguely bad, but even a kind and just king can be ruthless in pursuit of their goals, proud of what they have accomplished, and being a king is pretty much always about ruling over your domain, so they are Dominant. I have to check the lore for the Yuan-ti to see that they are pretty nasty critters.
Reading the lore, the Yuan-ti have an elaborate caste system, with Purebloods at the bottom. The closer they are to a purely snake form, the higher they rise. Their approach is methodical, their goal is to show the gods themselves how superior the Snake Gods are. That reads to me as Lawful Evil. I check ye olde Monster Manual, and I find Neutral Evil. Close, I guess. I don't see them running around helping anyone, or encouraging them to misbehave. Any Yuan-ti that steps out of line gets a *very* stern talking to. Oh well, Alignment is a very rough guide. Neutral Evil critters running around running the show in an elaborate caste system that harshly punishes any deviation... yep. Sure.
I still am not seeing anything that the Motives System gives me over Alignment.
I have pretty much the same problem with the Drow. Same kind of elaborate caste system, this time I have a highly Chaotic Evil people who live in an entirely Lawful Evil society. The only way that works in my mind is that Lolth *forces* them to live that way, because she delights in their misery, which makes perfect sense for a Demon-God. I'll not go into the Motives System in regards to the Drow. If you haven't gotten my point by now, it is highly unlikely you ever will.
So, you're still describing the same incredibly limited set of circumstances to which these motivations could apply. I don't believe there's any situation in which alignment is useless.
Alignment is useless in the cases I just mentioned. I was giving examples where motivations tell you things that alignment fails at.
So, you're still describing the same incredibly limited set of circumstances to which these motivations could apply. I don't believe there's any situation in which alignment is useless.
Alignment is useless in the cases I just mentioned. I was giving examples where motivations tell you things that alignment fails at.
You have in no way demonstrated that it's useless in those cases. The fact that it doesn't tell the whole story doesn't mean it isn't valuable. Alignment never tells the whole story. Its purpose is not to tell the whole story.
You have in no way demonstrated that it's useless in those cases. The fact that it doesn't tell the whole story doesn't mean it isn't valuable. Alignment never tells the whole story. Its purpose is not to tell the whole story.
In other words, whether or not you put an alignment on a character sheet, you need a bunch more verbiage explaining what that alignment actually means. In which case you might as well not bother putting the alignment there in the first place.
It -sounds- like you're saying to ditch Alignment (fair) and just rely on their Background for every character. Which... is already a thing?
The fundamental problem I have, as I said before, isn't getting rid of the alignment. I disagree that adding in motivation is actually adding anything to the game that's not already there and that motivations don't really serve any purpose. Its added complexity for no benefit.
It sounds like you're only thinking of characters. I agree that PC's have ideals and flaws and all that jazz which is very similar to this, but there's no such thing for the monsters. I guess I would be looking to remove alignment and then expand the ideals, flaws etc. on characters into Motives, and the also apply this to monsters.
That said.... Motivations are not really replacing anything, though? That's my point. The Venn diagram of Motivations and Alignment are two separate circles with zero overlap. At best... you can argue that a motivation would include a person's Ideals... which is already a thing in 5e, and you'd just end up reinventing the wheel.
I would have to disagree on motives and alignments not overlapping. I grant you that they certainly sit fairly well separated, as a greedy merchant will behave differently to a greedy dragon, but the idea that "Chaotic Evil" conjures on the Orc profile is well replaced by "Savage, Violent, Territorial, Bullies".
So, you're still describing the same incredibly limited set of circumstances to which these motivations could apply. I don't believe there's any situation in which alignment is useless. If I know a character is evil, that's a decent starting point irrespective of circumstance. I can then modulate based on more specific situational factors. If I have three motivations, that tells me three things the character wants and absolutely nothing about what happens when those three things aren't on the table. If I also know they're evil, that tells me something, no matter what.
Okay, so your concern is that Motives are inclined to only help determine actions in limited circumstances?
Let's take "Savage". To me, this means inclined to use brute force rather than intelligence. In an encounter - no talking, only fighting. A door with a riddle? Break the door. In a shop? Intimidate for a better price. In a palace talking with a king? No respect for a king who doesn't seem strong.
Then take "Greedy". To me, this means they want to get stuff for themselves. In an encounter - They will fight, but to get to or keep others away from valuables. A door with a riddle? no real effect. In a shop? They will try to buy as much as possible for as little money. In a palace talking with a king? They will negotiate for a larger reward.
Then take "Chaotic" (I feel like lawful/chaotic are both eligible for this, whilst good/evil aren't). To me, this means a disregard for rules. In an encounter, they will take any advantage, stabbing in the back, throwing powdered glass. In a door with riddles, they will not feel compelled to only get through by answering the riddle. In a shop, they might be inclined to steal something they want. In a palace talking to a king, they will not respect his authority (though may or may not be stupid enough to say so).
Now combine all 3 of these: Savage, Greedy, Chaotic.
In an encounter, they will fight rather than talk, and will try to get valuables (if there's someone with gold who might get away, they are their target). They won't care for the rules and will fight anyone - possibly the guards of the town treasury, if they think they can win and get away with it. At a door puzzle, they will try to break down the door, especially if it has gold behind it. In a shop, they will steal things and then intimidate the shopkeeper to stop him from reporting it. In a palace, they will demand more rewards from the king without any etiquette.
Alternatively, you can call this creature "Chaotic Evil".
In an encounter, they will do a chaotic evil thing. Not sure what that is. At a door riddle, they will do a chaotic evil thing. Perhaps murder some innocents to scare the door. In a shop they will do a chaotic evil thing, which would probably be to steal stuff and intimidate the shopkeeper, or perhaps murder them. In a palace, they will do a chaotic evil thing and hold the king ransom.
It seems, to me at least, that the motives "Savage, Greedy, Chaotic" offers far more insight into what they are likely to do than "Chaotic Evil".
I recently started looking at the Yuan-ti...
...Ruthless, Proud, and Dominant. What does that tell us?
I feel that tells me more about what a Yuan-Ti behaves like than "Neutral Evil" does. A Roper is also Neutral Evil, and these two will not behave the same at all!
So we can safely say that alignment doesn't offer any help in how a creature behaves, and is nothing more than a cosmic judgement against a set of arbitrary standards, which is not necessary in the game. You have to read the lore to understand how the Yuan-Ti act, so why not have a quick summary of 3-4 key motives to make that a bit easier to follow at a glance?
I still am not seeing anything that the Motives System gives me over Alignment.
I don't see what the alignment system gives you at all! Ask someone "how does a Neutral Evil monster behave?", and you will get a load of answers, and none of them will apply to both Yuan-Ti and Ropers. Instead separate them to "Ruthless, Proud, Dominant" and "Hungry, Territorial, Ambush Predator", and you have a much better outline of how they will act.
As for the comparison between the ruthless king and the ruthless yuan-ti, the only reason the Yuan-Ti are "Evil" is because someone else thinks so. A Yuan-Ti will not think what they do is evil. A king may order the execution of someone who wrongs him, whilst making sure his obedient subjects are well fed. A Yuan-Ti would do the same. I suspect that a Yuan-Ti who rules poorly does not rule for long. It's the same with a king.
If you want the king to behave differently, add "Benevolent" to his motives. Instantly, he becomes a different character, but maintains his ability to execute traitors and rule with an iron fist.
Also I agree that it's weird for rigidly structured societies to be classed as Neutral or Chaotic.
So, you're still describing the same incredibly limited set of circumstances to which these motivations could apply. I don't believe there's any situation in which alignment is useless.
Alignment is useless in the cases I just mentioned. I was giving examples where motivations tell you things that alignment fails at.
You have in no way demonstrated that it's useless in those cases. The fact that it doesn't tell the whole story doesn't mean it isn't valuable. Alignment never tells the whole story. Its purpose is not to tell the whole story.
Given that your argument is that there are situations where motivations would be useless but alignment still useful, could you give an example of where this would be the case? I am struggling to think of any.
I think the issue with a karma meter is the idea that ethics and morality are easily defined.
It's a game about pretend elves, not a graduate philosophy paper. Ethics and morality should be easily defined.
Would you go inconvience yourself, spending money or time or effort, to help people just for the sake of helping? If yes, then good. Same question, but replace "helping" with "hurting". If yes, then evil. No to both of the above? Then neutral.
Would you keep to your routines and habits and traditions, even if those traditions are harmful to yourself? If yes, then lawful. Same question, reversed? If yes, then chaotic. No to both of the above? Then neutral.
I think the issue with a karma meter is the idea that ethics and morality are easily defined.
It's a game about pretend elves, not a graduate philosophy paper. Ethics and morality should be easily defined.
Would you go inconvience yourself, spending money or time or effort, to help people just for the sake of helping? If yes, then good. Same question, but replace "helping" with "hurting". If yes, then evil. No to both of the above? Then neutral.
Would you keep to your routines and habits and traditions, even if those traditions are harmful to yourself? If yes, then lawful. Same question, reversed? If yes, then chaotic. No to both of the above? Then neutral.
But morality isn't black & white. Your very brief summary is like saying "look at the night sky. If it's light, it's a star. if it's not, it's not a star.", and you're neglecting galaxies, satellites, clouds, the moon, aircraft, and all manner of other things.
If a shopkeeper refuses to give bread to a starving person, are they evil or neutral? They aren't going out of their way to harm them, nor are they going out of their way to help them.
If a hungry animal eats another animal it encounters, is it evil for doing so? Apparently Ropers are.
If someone helps a group of people exclusively for personal gain, are they good for doing so? What if they help them only to further their evil plans? Saving a dying man is not good if they are saved to work in the acid-mines.
The question is - why should ethics and morality be defined at all? They are, at best, opinions. What drives a person is a fact - whether it makes them good or not is opinion. The merchant is driven by greed. Other merchants would see him as weak if he fed the poor, and would look down on him. Perhaps he knows that the only way he can take control of the merchants guild is to work up to the top, at which point he can use his power to feed all of the poor. Is he still evil for not feeding the poor person, for the sake of the greater good? The animal is driven by hunger, and whether their next meal is Holy McPaladinface of the order of the goody two-shoes or Edgy FitzMurderhobo of the orphan-stabbing association, it will not affect the morality of their decision to "kill and eat the thing because I am hungry".
Now go a step further. If Holy McPaladinface were to go out of his way to harm the Merchant, who is considered evil because he didn't feed the poor, is Holy suddenly an evil guy? What if he went out of his way to harm a lich who wanted to destroy the world? Or went out of his way to help the merchant who wanted to not feed the poor? how does it affect your definition of alignment when you consider who they are going out of their way to harm or help?
TL:DR - if going out of your way to harm someone is evil, is it still evil if they are evil? And what if they are only evil for petty reasons, EG being greedy?
I think the issue with a karma meter is the idea that ethics and morality are easily defined.
It's a game about pretend elves, not a graduate philosophy paper. Ethics and morality should be easily defined.
Would you go inconvience yourself, spending money or time or effort, to help people just for the sake of helping? If yes, then good. Same question, but replace "helping" with "hurting". If yes, then evil. No to both of the above? Then neutral.
Would you keep to your routines and habits and traditions, even if those traditions are harmful to yourself? If yes, then lawful. Same question, reversed? If yes, then chaotic. No to both of the above? Then neutral.
I think you would get people disagreeing with you about those definitions, especially Lawful/Chaotic, as they are pretty much what I said in another thread which ended up in a massive argument.
That said, even those don't work. What if you "inconvience yourself, spending money or time or effort, to help people just for the sake of helping", but the people you are helping are "evil"? What if you replaced helping with hurting, but those people were "evil" and you were hurting them by stopping them doing "evil" things? What if you didn't know those you were helping/hurting were "evil", would the answers be the same?
Morality isn't simple, and can't easily be defined absolutely. Pretending it can will lead to arguments, which will lead to complications of the system, which will lead to more arguments, and so the cycle continues.
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I think the issue with a karma meter is the idea that ethics and morality are easily defined. It is easy to say "a person who kills an innocent is evil", but then there's the questions of why did they kill them? was it a trolley problem - 5 innocent people will die unless you kill 1 innocent person? is the person still evil, or are they good for saving the 5 people? Is the person who does a bad thing to save their family from torture and death a bad person?
Ultimately, the entire concept of a universally judged karmic system is the judgement. Saying "this creature is evil" when it's just catching food and doesn't care if that's people is kind of silly (case in point, the Roper). Saying "this creature is indiscriminate, hungry and a hunter" not only describes all the things that a universal constant considers "evil", but does so without the judgement, and throws in a guideline for how to run the creature for the DM to boot! Then players can make decisions like "well, it's only hungry, we could relocate it to the wilds to eat animals instead of killing it..." without the "lawful good" paladin saying "no, it's evil, this book says so! We kill it!"
I'm 100% behind having the alignment scrapped. It adds very little, and what little it does add could be replaced and thoroughly 1-upped by Motivations - in my opinion.
As a side note unrelated to Mephista's comment - If people still wanted to include the alignment chart in their games, then this could be done by listing the various motivations into the alignment chart - EG Greedy is evil, selfless is good, hungry is neutral, cowardly is neutral, etc. That way any creatures or characters with motivations that tend towards good or evil would be readily identified as such (it would be largely intuitive, I think). Just a thought, as an optional rule for the sake of heritage.
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I can understand people wanting that, but I kinda feel that's a difficult one to accomplish. It would rely on keeping an absolute morality, having actions defined judged as good or bad by someone, and keeps some of the same fundamental issues as alignment.
So, if you kill something, who decides whether that was good or bad? Same if you help someone, is it positive or negative karma?
That said, I would rather see a "Karma Score" in D&D than the current alignment system. I would not want to see karma scores on monster stat blocks nor linked to core mechanics, and I'd leave implementation up to the individual tables (i.e. deciding which actions give positive or negative karma). It would be mildly better than alignments, IMHO.
Citation please? Even back in 1st edition, alignment affected personality and motivations, or else items such as a Helm of Opposite Alignment make no sense.
Agreed, but that's what the D&D alignment chart tries to do anyways. The default D&D setting doesn't really have shades of grey - it has objective morality. I'm all for ditching that if you want to.
But what I am just saying that Alignment is not the right place to be fitting Character Motivations in. They're asking two very different questions about the character. Someone can have the motivation of "Become the King of XYZ" and assassinate their way to the top (Lawful Evil), or become the ruler by exposing corruption and being a leader of the people (Lawful Good). Motivations are things that a character wants to do over the course of the game, while alignment represents what you're willing to do to accomplish it.
Sure. By all means, scrap it. I personally agree that it should be.
That said.... Motivations are not really replacing anything, though? That's my point. The Venn diagram of Motivations and Alignment are two separate circles with zero overlap. At best... you can argue that a motivation would include a person's Ideals... which is already a thing in 5e, and you'd just end up reinventing the wheel.
It -sounds- like you're saying to ditch Alignment (fair) and just rely on their Background for every character. Which... is already a thing?
The fundamental problem I have, as I said before, isn't getting rid of the alignment. I disagree that adding in motivation is actually adding anything to the game that's not already there and that motivations don't really serve any purpose. Its added complexity for no benefit.
In first edition D&D, since you're quoting that far back, instructed the DMs to keep track of player actions. When they accomplish something Good or Evil or Lawful or Chaotic, they get a point. When they accumulate so many points in a direction, their alignment shifts.
That's pretty much the defining feature of karma meters, as per the link I gave.
The point score might be a karma meter, but that's not the same thing as alignment.
Alignment in D&D has always been primarily descriptive rather than prescriptive -- it indicates how a creature has acted in the past, and assuming consistent personality, is thus suggestive about future behavior, but does not actually compel behavior -- but the same thing is true for personality, motivation, etc.
"The Venn diagram of Motivations and Alignment are two separate circles with zero overlap."
I very much disagree, at least when it comes to how a lot of people use them. How many times do we get asked "this character/NPC/monster is chaotic evil, how would it behave in this situation"? Many players and DMs use them as a strong indicator of behaviour, even though they are terrible for that purpose, and these motives would primarily be there as indicators of behaviour.
But they’re not a terrible indicator of behavior. Motives are great for determining behavior in the circumstances to which they apply, but any reasonable set of motives is only going to apply to, like, 15% of situations a character may find themselves in. For the other 85%, much broader moral outlooks are immensely valuable.
If you think you can describe a “motivation” that is universally applicable, you’re just renaming “good” and “evil,” not replacing them (or re-orienting your alignment system around a different dichotomy, I guess, but that’s a different conversation).
You can have a much larger number of descriptors available for motivation than are available on the good/evil and law/chaos axes. There's a difference from a monster that kills people because it's greedy and wants their stuff and a monster that kills people because it likes the sound of screaming, but they're both evil.
Right, and those "motivations" only apply when they're presented with the opportunity to kill someone. Your example makes my point.
Huh? Sure, there are situation in which any given motivation does not account for a monster's behavior, but there are plenty of situations where alignment is equally useless, because 'evil' does not mean "always picks the evil option", it just means "picks the evil option often enough to be considered overall evil". A greedy monster might totally ignore peasant children (they don't have anything it wants), whereas the sadistic monster would certainly prey on them. In the reverse case, the greedy monster will certainly spend effort finding things worth stealing, while the sadistic monster might leave corpses around with full pouches of gold. On the alignment system, they're both probably Chaotic Evil and you have no real way of distinguishing them.
So, you're still describing the same incredibly limited set of circumstances to which these motivations could apply. I don't believe there's any situation in which alignment is useless. If I know a character is evil, that's a decent starting point irrespective of circumstance. I can then modulate based on more specific situational factors. If I have three motivations, that tells me three things the character wants and absolutely nothing about what happens when those three things aren't on the table. If I also know they're evil, that tells me something, no matter what.
I recently started looking at the Yuan-ti as opponents for my players. I have a barely explored jungle and they'd be perfect. I imagine a sort of Aztec flavor to them, stepped pyramids, and very exotic weapons. They'd be having the Purebloods infiltrating the Empire that is the center of my setting, and doing all they could to set the Empire up to fall. They are primarily motivated by their desire to conquer, secondarily to prove their superiority, and last to dominate and rule the world. This would be pretty much tailor made for the Motives System suggested here. They want to conquer, by any means, so let's say they are Ruthless. They want to prove their superiority, so that would make them Proud, and they want to dominate the world, so what better to call them than Dominant?
Ruthless, Proud, and Dominant. What does that tell us? Ruthless doesn't really tell us anything, nor does Proud, nor Dominant. All of these sound vaguely bad, but even a kind and just king can be ruthless in pursuit of their goals, proud of what they have accomplished, and being a king is pretty much always about ruling over your domain, so they are Dominant. I have to check the lore for the Yuan-ti to see that they are pretty nasty critters.
Reading the lore, the Yuan-ti have an elaborate caste system, with Purebloods at the bottom. The closer they are to a purely snake form, the higher they rise. Their approach is methodical, their goal is to show the gods themselves how superior the Snake Gods are. That reads to me as Lawful Evil. I check ye olde Monster Manual, and I find Neutral Evil. Close, I guess. I don't see them running around helping anyone, or encouraging them to misbehave. Any Yuan-ti that steps out of line gets a *very* stern talking to. Oh well, Alignment is a very rough guide. Neutral Evil critters running around running the show in an elaborate caste system that harshly punishes any deviation... yep. Sure.
I still am not seeing anything that the Motives System gives me over Alignment.
I have pretty much the same problem with the Drow. Same kind of elaborate caste system, this time I have a highly Chaotic Evil people who live in an entirely Lawful Evil society. The only way that works in my mind is that Lolth *forces* them to live that way, because she delights in their misery, which makes perfect sense for a Demon-God. I'll not go into the Motives System in regards to the Drow. If you haven't gotten my point by now, it is highly unlikely you ever will.
<Insert clever signature here>
Alignment is useless in the cases I just mentioned. I was giving examples where motivations tell you things that alignment fails at.
You have in no way demonstrated that it's useless in those cases. The fact that it doesn't tell the whole story doesn't mean it isn't valuable. Alignment never tells the whole story. Its purpose is not to tell the whole story.
In other words, whether or not you put an alignment on a character sheet, you need a bunch more verbiage explaining what that alignment actually means. In which case you might as well not bother putting the alignment there in the first place.
It sounds like you're only thinking of characters. I agree that PC's have ideals and flaws and all that jazz which is very similar to this, but there's no such thing for the monsters. I guess I would be looking to remove alignment and then expand the ideals, flaws etc. on characters into Motives, and the also apply this to monsters.
I would have to disagree on motives and alignments not overlapping. I grant you that they certainly sit fairly well separated, as a greedy merchant will behave differently to a greedy dragon, but the idea that "Chaotic Evil" conjures on the Orc profile is well replaced by "Savage, Violent, Territorial, Bullies".
Okay, so your concern is that Motives are inclined to only help determine actions in limited circumstances?
Let's take "Savage". To me, this means inclined to use brute force rather than intelligence. In an encounter - no talking, only fighting. A door with a riddle? Break the door. In a shop? Intimidate for a better price. In a palace talking with a king? No respect for a king who doesn't seem strong.
Then take "Greedy". To me, this means they want to get stuff for themselves. In an encounter - They will fight, but to get to or keep others away from valuables. A door with a riddle? no real effect. In a shop? They will try to buy as much as possible for as little money. In a palace talking with a king? They will negotiate for a larger reward.
Then take "Chaotic" (I feel like lawful/chaotic are both eligible for this, whilst good/evil aren't). To me, this means a disregard for rules. In an encounter, they will take any advantage, stabbing in the back, throwing powdered glass. In a door with riddles, they will not feel compelled to only get through by answering the riddle. In a shop, they might be inclined to steal something they want. In a palace talking to a king, they will not respect his authority (though may or may not be stupid enough to say so).
Now combine all 3 of these: Savage, Greedy, Chaotic.
In an encounter, they will fight rather than talk, and will try to get valuables (if there's someone with gold who might get away, they are their target). They won't care for the rules and will fight anyone - possibly the guards of the town treasury, if they think they can win and get away with it. At a door puzzle, they will try to break down the door, especially if it has gold behind it. In a shop, they will steal things and then intimidate the shopkeeper to stop him from reporting it. In a palace, they will demand more rewards from the king without any etiquette.
Alternatively, you can call this creature "Chaotic Evil".
In an encounter, they will do a chaotic evil thing. Not sure what that is. At a door riddle, they will do a chaotic evil thing. Perhaps murder some innocents to scare the door. In a shop they will do a chaotic evil thing, which would probably be to steal stuff and intimidate the shopkeeper, or perhaps murder them. In a palace, they will do a chaotic evil thing and hold the king ransom.
It seems, to me at least, that the motives "Savage, Greedy, Chaotic" offers far more insight into what they are likely to do than "Chaotic Evil".
I feel that tells me more about what a Yuan-Ti behaves like than "Neutral Evil" does. A Roper is also Neutral Evil, and these two will not behave the same at all!
So we can safely say that alignment doesn't offer any help in how a creature behaves, and is nothing more than a cosmic judgement against a set of arbitrary standards, which is not necessary in the game. You have to read the lore to understand how the Yuan-Ti act, so why not have a quick summary of 3-4 key motives to make that a bit easier to follow at a glance?
I don't see what the alignment system gives you at all! Ask someone "how does a Neutral Evil monster behave?", and you will get a load of answers, and none of them will apply to both Yuan-Ti and Ropers. Instead separate them to "Ruthless, Proud, Dominant" and "Hungry, Territorial, Ambush Predator", and you have a much better outline of how they will act.
As for the comparison between the ruthless king and the ruthless yuan-ti, the only reason the Yuan-Ti are "Evil" is because someone else thinks so. A Yuan-Ti will not think what they do is evil. A king may order the execution of someone who wrongs him, whilst making sure his obedient subjects are well fed. A Yuan-Ti would do the same. I suspect that a Yuan-Ti who rules poorly does not rule for long. It's the same with a king.
If you want the king to behave differently, add "Benevolent" to his motives. Instantly, he becomes a different character, but maintains his ability to execute traitors and rule with an iron fist.
Also I agree that it's weird for rigidly structured societies to be classed as Neutral or Chaotic.
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Given that your argument is that there are situations where motivations would be useless but alignment still useful, could you give an example of where this would be the case? I am struggling to think of any.
It's a game about pretend elves, not a graduate philosophy paper. Ethics and morality should be easily defined.
Would you go inconvience yourself, spending money or time or effort, to help people just for the sake of helping? If yes, then good.
Same question, but replace "helping" with "hurting". If yes, then evil.
No to both of the above? Then neutral.
Would you keep to your routines and habits and traditions, even if those traditions are harmful to yourself? If yes, then lawful.
Same question, reversed? If yes, then chaotic.
No to both of the above? Then neutral.
But morality isn't black & white. Your very brief summary is like saying "look at the night sky. If it's light, it's a star. if it's not, it's not a star.", and you're neglecting galaxies, satellites, clouds, the moon, aircraft, and all manner of other things.
If a shopkeeper refuses to give bread to a starving person, are they evil or neutral? They aren't going out of their way to harm them, nor are they going out of their way to help them.
If a hungry animal eats another animal it encounters, is it evil for doing so? Apparently Ropers are.
If someone helps a group of people exclusively for personal gain, are they good for doing so? What if they help them only to further their evil plans? Saving a dying man is not good if they are saved to work in the acid-mines.
The question is - why should ethics and morality be defined at all? They are, at best, opinions. What drives a person is a fact - whether it makes them good or not is opinion. The merchant is driven by greed. Other merchants would see him as weak if he fed the poor, and would look down on him. Perhaps he knows that the only way he can take control of the merchants guild is to work up to the top, at which point he can use his power to feed all of the poor. Is he still evil for not feeding the poor person, for the sake of the greater good? The animal is driven by hunger, and whether their next meal is Holy McPaladinface of the order of the goody two-shoes or Edgy FitzMurderhobo of the orphan-stabbing association, it will not affect the morality of their decision to "kill and eat the thing because I am hungry".
Now go a step further. If Holy McPaladinface were to go out of his way to harm the Merchant, who is considered evil because he didn't feed the poor, is Holy suddenly an evil guy? What if he went out of his way to harm a lich who wanted to destroy the world? Or went out of his way to help the merchant who wanted to not feed the poor? how does it affect your definition of alignment when you consider who they are going out of their way to harm or help?
TL:DR - if going out of your way to harm someone is evil, is it still evil if they are evil? And what if they are only evil for petty reasons, EG being greedy?
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I think you would get people disagreeing with you about those definitions, especially Lawful/Chaotic, as they are pretty much what I said in another thread which ended up in a massive argument.
That said, even those don't work. What if you "inconvience yourself, spending money or time or effort, to help people just for the sake of helping", but the people you are helping are "evil"? What if you replaced helping with hurting, but those people were "evil" and you were hurting them by stopping them doing "evil" things? What if you didn't know those you were helping/hurting were "evil", would the answers be the same?
Morality isn't simple, and can't easily be defined absolutely. Pretending it can will lead to arguments, which will lead to complications of the system, which will lead to more arguments, and so the cycle continues.