I did like the philosophy of the ancient alignments. I understand the problems involved. But, still, I also understand that we are mature enough to understand that this is a game. I liked the concept of war between cosmic forces. And I liked the idea that mortals, whether they want to or not, are also mired in that war. I liked that the alignment had an influence on your character (even physically), and that you were forced to follow it. But that is a personal taste, which does not compromise the game if it is not there.
Personally I think those very same cosmic forces would benefit from being unmoored from the Alignment Axis. It would make them more mysterious, wondrous, terrifying, and alien if they were divorced from something so arbitrary, comprehensible, and mortal as a nine by nine grid of categories. They could still be driven by things that we limited beings might perceive as Law or Evil, but they'd also be free to be as weirdling and ineffable as future writers would like to make them, and I think that would be a good thing.
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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!
Watching WoC trip all over themselves trying to be PC is almost worth the price of admission. I literally did a spit-take when I read about Drow skin color being "of many hues." roflolol. Soooooo glad they issued that "correction." :)
That's ok.....WotC has the backbone of an earthworm, so I can't wait to see the "errata" when Anti-Woke replaces Woke as the dominant PC belief. Won't save Wiz from "going broke" though - that's a fate they have richly earned by injecting Leftthinkism into D and D. I am looking forward to the day someone with a spine acquires the rights to D and D, so we can get all the political nonsense out of the game. I don't play games to be indoctrinated into a political belief, I play them to escape the political toxicity in America today.
I would argue that the commitment of WotC to implement these changes despite the face-pulling from people such as yourself demonstrates more than a little backbone. Unless you are arguing that people in your camp are nothing to be afraid of, which I would absolutely agree with. As for waiting for “anti-woke” errata, I would not hold your breath. WotC is going to outlive you, you can count on that. Empathy is not political and to say otherwise is scathing commentary on that person’s character.
And on top of that, big businesses tend to be run by people who lean more politically conservative than liberal. When a company makes a change to appeal to a more liberal audience, it's generally because they've done the math and decided that it's worth more money to be seen supporting that crowd than to be seen supporting the other side. The complaints and cries of "Woke" now are not all that dissimilar from the complaints and cries of "Political Correctness!" when the 3.0 Player's Handbook was released and people saw that the example PCs were made up of as many female characters as male characters and represented a broad array of ethnic types instead of all being white. Predictions were made of WotC's imminent failure, and the fact that we're having this conversation 21 years and two editions later should tell you how accurate they were.
Yeah. "Go woke go broke' doesn't actually tend to work out. These are generally calculated moves to appeal to a wider audience. A wider audience that has been doing quite well for WOTC in general with 5E's resounding success so far.
These errata changes are not going to be the end of WOTC, D&D or even 5E. Nor are they going to have to backpedal. Looking at the actual changes it feels like some people are just overreacting out of reflex.
Watching WoC trip all over themselves trying to be PC is almost worth the price of admission. I literally did a spit-take when I read about Drow skin color being "of many hues." roflolol. Soooooo glad they issued that "correction." :)
That's ok.....WotC has the backbone of an earthworm, so I can't wait to see the "errata" when Anti-Woke replaces Woke as the dominant PC belief. Won't save Wiz from "going broke" though - that's a fate they have richly earned by injecting Leftthinkism into D and D. I am looking forward to the day someone with a spine acquires the rights to D and D, so we can get all the political nonsense out of the game. I don't play games to be indoctrinated into a political belief, I play them to escape the political toxicity in America today.
But what about the people, on these forums even, who have personally talked about how the portrayals of things in D&D have harmed us and how the changes are positive? For some of us, we don't have the luxury of being able to call something "just" political, because it affects our day to day living. It's a nice privilege to be able to be unaffected by something enough to think that it's just some sort of power play and not a real life impacting thing.
I can provide links to personal testimonies from real people here on the forums if you're interested in learning.
Well said. Your judicious words have left me regretful re. my rant. Know that rhetoric aside, I sympathize with those who feel harmed by subtle choices and differences of words - I truly do. But I believe that focusing on micro-sensitivities based on culture and race is divisive, dangerously fickle, and deters free and open dialog. People are being censored and cancelled, as well as being divested of their jobs and property based on shifting winds of sensitivity. That is a worrisome trend.
I don't think accommodation (separation into groups based on race and culture, each doing their best to accommodate each other's differences) is the best way to solve our differences. Instead, I believe in assimilation (a melting pot - building a shared culture). Ideally, we could debate the assimilation/accomodation issue freely and openly, without fear of repercussion. The problem is that assimilation vs. accommodation has not only become a toxic political issue, but also a toxic social issue. We need healing and dialog, rather than more people (and games) taking stances and drawing lines in the sand.
I have personally been harmed and faced discrimination as a result of accommodation - I suspect that's why I tend to escalate to toxic so quickly when discussing this issue - so please accept this as my apology for my vitrolic rant. I should be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
The subject of alignments is interesting. Those of us who are already a little old will remember that before the alignment was really a cosmic alignment. In the original version, the cosmic war was two-way (inherited from Moorcock and Anderson): Law vs. Chaos. And then there were the neutrals, who didn't line up. Later, in 1977, the Good vs Evil axis was added. This scheme was maintained more or less, but little by little it was losing its initial philosophy to become a guide of moral interpretation for the player. As an example, I think it was the 2nd edition, it penalized you if you behaved out of alignment (even making you change physically). And so we come to 5e, where the alignments have lost their reason for being. They have been kept as a vestige, but lacking in meaning and reference. To be honest, it must be said that almost no one used them for anything. Perhaps minimally as an interpretation guide, but little else. So the logical evolution was its disappearance. I'm not going to go into whether or not there are ideological reasons behind it. And besides, I don't care. The thing is, they didn't make sense anymore, and I don't see a problem with removing them. And yes, I know they haven't been removed, but simply no longer suggest alignament to playable races, and only remain for a few specific monsters. But that's the nail that definitely kills them. Sounds good to me, and it is the logical evolution.
That said, I did like the philosophy of the ancient alignments. I understand the problems involved. But, still, I also understand that we are mature enough to understand that this is a game. I liked the concept of war between cosmic forces. And I liked the idea that mortals, whether they want to or not, are also mired in that war. I liked that the alignment had an influence on your character (even physically), and that you were forced to follow it. But that is a personal taste, which does not compromise the game if it is not there.
I agree that 5e has kept alignment as merely a vestige, and I would even agree that its quite probable that if the designers had their way it would be eliminated entirely. But I disagree with your assertion that alignments don't make sense any more, and that their elimination is a logical evolution.
Alignment is a very important defining characteristic of intelligent beings - it should be strengthened in the game rather than dissolved. In our world, we are guided by our moral compass - while we may deviate from that alignment, it is the exception rather than the norm. Now D and D is, as you say, just a game - and it is indeed in a "fantasy" setting. But playing a game set in an amoral world where individuals are not bound in any way to an alignment would be every bit as fantastical as playing in a setting where the fundamental laws of nature are different (far beyond just the addition of magic). Doing so would sever our connection to and identification with said world and the character we are portraying. It fundamentally alters the game - and that is a problem with a game as steeped in tradition and longevity as D and D.
4th edition was a good warning sign of what happens when you drastically alter the nature of the game. The designer's choice to grey out alignments to the extent they have is a huge deviation as it is - to go further would mean to gain popularity in this generation at the expense of the game remaining popular when the ideology pendulum next swings.
Just to make it clear. That there are no alignments does not mean that the characters do not make moral choices, or that they do not follow a pattern of behavior (whatever it is). In fact, what I wanted to explain with my post is that alignment was not that in the firsts editions of the game, but an actually alignment with a cosmic forces. That is why it is called alignment and not "behavior", "idiosyncrasy", or something similar.
But of course you will continue making moral choices. I don't see how you could play an RPG in any other way, really. That would be, I don't know, a wargame.
The subject of alignments is interesting. Those of us who are already a little old will remember that before the alignment was really a cosmic alignment. In the original version, the cosmic war was two-way (inherited from Moorcock and Anderson): Law vs. Chaos. And then there were the neutrals, who didn't line up. Later, in 1977, the Good vs Evil axis was added. This scheme was maintained more or less, but little by little it was losing its initial philosophy to become a guide of moral interpretation for the player. As an example, I think it was the 2nd edition, it penalized you if you behaved out of alignment (even making you change physically). And so we come to 5e, where the alignments have lost their reason for being. They have been kept as a vestige, but lacking in meaning and reference. To be honest, it must be said that almost no one used them for anything. Perhaps minimally as an interpretation guide, but little else. So the logical evolution was its disappearance. I'm not going to go into whether or not there are ideological reasons behind it. And besides, I don't care. The thing is, they didn't make sense anymore, and I don't see a problem with removing them. And yes, I know they haven't been removed, but simply no longer suggest alignament to playable races, and only remain for a few specific monsters. But that's the nail that definitely kills them. Sounds good to me, and it is the logical evolution.
That said, I did like the philosophy of the ancient alignments. I understand the problems involved. But, still, I also understand that we are mature enough to understand that this is a game. I liked the concept of war between cosmic forces. And I liked the idea that mortals, whether they want to or not, are also mired in that war. I liked that the alignment had an influence on your character (even physically), and that you were forced to follow it. But that is a personal taste, which does not compromise the game if it is not there.
I agree that 5e has kept alignment as merely a vestige, and I would even agree that its quite probable that if the designers had their way it would be eliminated entirely. But I disagree with your assertion that alignments don't make sense any more, and that their elimination is a logical evolution.
Alignment is a very important defining characteristic of intelligent beings - it should be strengthened in the game rather than dissolved. In our world, we are guided by our moral compass - while we may deviate from that alignment, it is the exception rather than the norm. Now D and D is, as you say, just a game - and it is indeed in a "fantasy" setting. But playing a game set in an amoral world where individuals are not bound in any way to an alignment would be every bit as fantastical as playing in a setting where the fundamental laws of nature are different (far beyond just the addition of magic). Doing so would sever our connection to and identification with said world and the character we are portraying. It fundamentally alters the game - and that is a problem with a game as steeped in tradition and longevity as D and D.
4th edition was a good warning sign of what happens when you drastically alter the nature of the game. The designer's choice to grey out alignments to the extent they have is a huge deviation as it is - to go further would mean to gain popularity in this generation at the expense of the game remaining popular when the ideology pendulum next swings.
Characters and NPCs should in general have things like values, religious or political affiliations, etc where they make sense. But getting rid of, or deemphasizing, the three by three D&D alignment grid doesn't get rid of that. It was always too narrow to be very descriptive or good for much but the most basic of shorthand or to apply to extreme cosmic forces more so than individual people IMO. Removing the alignment system wouldn't mean characters no longer have believes, morals etc. These things always have and always will be part of RP and storytelling. It's just that there isn't as much of a need to try and fit them into a three by three box. Things can be as complex or narrow as the players and DM at a particular table want them to be.
Just because Lawful Good is no longer written on a paladin's sheet doesn't mean they're now amoral. IMO the biggest impact this will probably have on characters is reducing the number of arguments people have about where exactly on the 3 by 3 chart a particular character should be listed. All of the interesting things that actually determine a character's morality are still there. Their personal values, religious beliefs, political ties, all of that will still be there.
Alignment wasn't removed. Alignment as a cosmic force was removed, and alignment as a quantifiable and detectable personal quality was removed. Basically the stuff that frequently tripped up players and DMs because for it to work, alignments have to be properly defined and everyone had to have a similar understanding of those definitions, and that often wasn't the case. Now it's ok if you feel your character is LG, your DM thinks it's closer to TN, and your rogue buddy occasionally gets you to look the other way when they get up to some shenanigans as long as it's more antics than actual ill deeds. Nothing will fall apart because the lines are a little blurry and there's no consensus on who's where on the spectrum, instead of spells and items either working or not working depending on where the DM ends up ruling you're at, evil characters needing high level magic to hide this from paladins and others with alignment-detection magic, or characters losing class abilities because the DM feels they stepped out of line once too often. But alignment as a value system very much still applies, and reading monster descriptions or NPC writeups tends to make the alignment of the monster or NPC quite obvious.
Alignment wasn't removed. Alignment as a cosmic force was removed, and alignment as a quantifiable and detectable personal quality was removed. Basically the stuff that frequently tripped up players and DMs because for it to work, alignments have to be properly defined and everyone had to have a similar understanding of those definitions, and that often wasn't the case. Now it's ok if you feel your character is LG, your DM thinks it's closer to TN, and your rogue buddy occasionally gets you to look the other way when they get up to some shenanigans as long as it's more antics than actual ill deeds. Nothing will fall apart because the lines are a little blurry and there's no consensus on who's where on the spectrum, instead of spells and items either working or not working depending on where the DM ends up ruling you're at, evil characters needing high level magic to hide this from paladins and others with alignment-detection magic, or characters losing class abilities because the DM feels they stepped out of line once too often. But alignment as a value system very much still applies, and reading monster descriptions or NPC writeups tends to make the alignment of the monster or NPC quite obvious.
I totally agree with the choice WOTC made in doing it this way.
Alignment wasn't removed. Alignment as a cosmic force was removed, and alignment as a quantifiable and detectable personal quality was removed. Basically the stuff that frequently tripped up players and DMs because for it to work, alignments have to be properly defined and everyone had to have a similar understanding of those definitions, and that often wasn't the case. Now it's ok if you feel your character is LG, your DM thinks it's closer to TN, and your rogue buddy occasionally gets you to look the other way when they get up to some shenanigans as long as it's more antics than actual ill deeds. Nothing will fall apart because the lines are a little blurry and there's no consensus on who's where on the spectrum, instead of spells and items either working or not working depending on where the DM ends up ruling you're at, evil characters needing high level magic to hide this from paladins and others with alignment-detection magic, or characters losing class abilities because the DM feels they stepped out of line once too often. But alignment as a value system very much still applies, and reading monster descriptions or NPC writeups tends to make the alignment of the monster or NPC quite obvious.
I played second, a lot. Our group(s) never had a problem with knowing alignment on a personal character level. I loved it. A better solution to all this would have been to drop race/species alignment but have reinforced personal alignment imo. It's not the end of the world if they drop it all together though but I liked it as a tool and resource to keep a new player informed of what they wanted their character to be like and later on to play it logically. Nowadays it seems, when I look at videos, people are playing chaotic selfish most of the time. So yeah that's also a reason it's going to go so it appeals to people who just want to play chaotic selfish improv theatre.
Alignment wasn't removed. Alignment as a cosmic force was removed, and alignment as a quantifiable and detectable personal quality was removed. Basically the stuff that frequently tripped up players and DMs because for it to work, alignments have to be properly defined and everyone had to have a similar understanding of those definitions, and that often wasn't the case. Now it's ok if you feel your character is LG, your DM thinks it's closer to TN, and your rogue buddy occasionally gets you to look the other way when they get up to some shenanigans as long as it's more antics than actual ill deeds. Nothing will fall apart because the lines are a little blurry and there's no consensus on who's where on the spectrum, instead of spells and items either working or not working depending on where the DM ends up ruling you're at, evil characters needing high level magic to hide this from paladins and others with alignment-detection magic, or characters losing class abilities because the DM feels they stepped out of line once too often. But alignment as a value system very much still applies, and reading monster descriptions or NPC writeups tends to make the alignment of the monster or NPC quite obvious.
I played second, a lot. Our group(s) never had a problem with knowing alignment on a personal character level. I loved it. A better solution to all this would have been to drop race/species alignment but have reinforced personal alignment imo. It's not the end of the world if they drop it all together though but I liked it as a tool and resource to keep a new player informed of what they wanted their character to be like and later on to play it logically. Nowadays it seems, when I look at videos, people are playing chaotic selfish most of the time. So yeah that's also a reason it's going to go so it appeals to people who just want to play chaotic selfish improv theatre.
Players knowing each others' alignments wasn't really much of an issue (the occasional secretly-evil PC notwithstanding, and that was more of a group issue than a game issue). NPCs knowing PC alignments and PCs knowing NPC alignments was more of a problem, even if just being evil isn't illegal and thus not something actionable. Coming up with reasons for NPCs to work with a party they knew was evil could be a drag, and players knowing the PC trying to hire them is evil changes the entire dynamic of the game. Also, things like bards or barbarians not being allowed to be lawful and monks having to be just cut down on a lot of perfectly fine character concepts. Alignment as a personal guideline is great and still works; alignment as a stick in the mud getting in the way of creativity and story, not so much.
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Well said. Your judicious words have left me regretful re. my rant. Know that rhetoric aside, I sympathize with those who feel harmed by subtle choices and differences of words - I truly do. But I believe that focusing on micro-sensitivities based on culture and race is divisive, dangerously fickle, and deters free and open dialog. People are being censored and cancelled, as well as being divested of their jobs and property based on shifting winds of sensitivity. That is a worrisome trend.
If you focus on the particulars of what words are considered harmful this year as opposed to last year or ten years ago I suppose I can see why you might see it as a "fickle" trend, but what's been fairly constant is rather a stance of compassion and understanding. Trauma and what traumatizes people is subjective, but one must approach people with the attitude that one always has something to learn and one can never be too compassionate.
Also, when people are "cancelled" they are basically losing popularity ... for doing things that are rightly unpopular. This isn't some sort of unfair government enforcement, it is basically the shifting marketplace of public consumption. I don't find it to be a worrisome trend. I think we, as a species, have learned better about ourselves and thus are doing better to treat each other with kindness.
I don't think accommodation (separation into groups based on race and culture, each doing their best to accommodate each other's differences) is the best way to solve our differences. Instead, I believe in assimilation (a melting pot - building a shared culture). Ideally, we could debate the assimilation/accomodation issue freely and openly, without fear of repercussion. The problem is that assimilation vs. accommodation has not only become a toxic political issue, but also a toxic social issue. We need healing and dialog, rather than more people (and games) taking stances and drawing lines in the sand.
Hmm, but a lot of times assimilation looks a lot like erasure of minority culture because assimilation almost inevitably means regression toward what is considered "mainstream." Yes I do think we should come together and build a shared culture, but I believe it should be a multicultural one, where we can all be proud of our heritage and differences and not feel like we have to conform in order to succeed and thrive. How exactly is anyone drawing lines in sand? I mean ... I suppose "we will not tolerate bigotry of any kind" is a line, but I think it is one that is just, reasonable, and good.
I have personally been harmed and faced discrimination as a result of accommodation - I suspect that's why I tend to escalate to toxic so quickly when discussing this issue - so please accept this as my apology for my vitrolic rant. I should be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
Thank you very much for being open to a dialogue. I am sorry if you have experienced discrimination. Sometimes the steps taken to redress injustice can be heavy handed, even if the intent is good. I accept your apology and wholeheartedly want to help move the discussion forward.
I for one do not like the precedent of people changing, not to make corrections, content that I have paid for. By such a precedent, they certainly could create an errata that completely erases the 5e books as an incentive for us to buy new ones. Is it likely? No. But does this ability to unilaterally deprive us of content that we paid money for make it possible? Certainly does.
Besides, multiple version, in this instance refers to flavour texts and not mechanics. So, I'm not really sure how that substantiates a nightmare of administration.
Come now. There's no point in complaining about something WotC can do, when they haven't done so and haven't shown any indication they will. We'll see what happens when it's time for a new edition, but even 4E's digital content repositories where only closed down years after the launch of 5E and only due to technical reasons outside WotC's scope.
And it's not about a nightmare of administration. It's about showing new players a stack of versions and telling them to pick what they like best, rather than committing to a single official ruleset. Which has been changed already, multiple times, both in terms of flavour text and mechanics.
They've asserted their legal right to and that should be alarming enough.
It doesn't matter if I believe they will or whether I trust them not to abuse this right. But by doing so, they assert that they have a unilateral right to remove content from circulation and that right does not need to be qualified. It doesn't matter how much I value the content they removed and it doesn't matter how much I estimate they won't betray me. It only matters what they can do and that now includes deprive online sources of content without their consent to surrender them.
And considering the differences between the editions (to use the publishing term rather than the D&D variant) would be a few sentences of flavour text, you're trying to convince me that this is going to deter people from playing the game? When 99 out of 100 people will just buy the most recent edition (unless they can get one for cheaper second hand)? Ignoring that, in D&D terms, there are literally like 8 other editions of D&D floating around already, you're going to argue that people are going to be confused and not know which ones to buy? Did anyone here accidentally buy AD&D instead of 5E on their way here? Ignoring that, there are very likely multiple print editions for 5e floating around that incorporate previous errata. Did anyone agonise over which Player's handbook to buy? New players aren't having any trouble finding the latest version, so I hardly see how they benefit by denying them the option to choose for themselves. I generally find it bad to start from a position that assumes that people are too stupid to figure out what they want for themselves. It's just unneccessarily paternalistic.
1) It only matters what they can do and that now includes...
2) And considering the differences between the editions (to use the publishing term rather than the D&D variant) would be a few sentences of flavour text, you're trying to convince me that this is going to deter people from playing the game?
1) Hate to break it to you, but they always could. That "now" you put in there is completely meaningless.
2) It looks bad. Why keep older versions, does that mean the new version is bad, is something WotC can't put out there as the best version of their vision? Why have errata at all if the non-errata version is apparently just as good? What's WotC's QA like if they can't make up their mind and commit to something? How hard do they even try in development if in the end they just say "you know what, it doesn't really matter, it's all equally good and equally bad".
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... I generally find it bad to start from a position that assumes that people are too stupid to figure out what they want for themselves. It's just unneccessarily paternalistic.
I work tech support for a living, part of my job is assisting customers and talking to people. Take it from someone who's done that for eight and a half years now - it is impossible to underestimate the absolute, impenetrable, invulnerable, invincible stupidity of 'People'. As Agent K was known to say, a person can be smart. People are dumb, panicky animals. Individual customers should be treated with respect and care, yes. The customer base as a whole, i.e. what changes like this are targeted at? They cannot be dumber. Why do you think 5e divested itself of so many of 3.5 and 4e's rules, even the excellent ones?
People.
Are.
Idiots.
And game design needs to account for letting total bleeping idiots play, too.
... I generally find it bad to start from a position that assumes that people are too stupid to figure out what they want for themselves. It's just unneccessarily paternalistic.
I work tech support for a living, part of my job is assisting customers and talking to people. Take it from someone who's done that for eight and a half years now - it is impossible to underestimate the absolute, impenetrable, invulnerable, invincible stupidity of 'People'. As Agent K was known to say, a person can be smart. People are dumb, panicky animals. Individual customers should be treated with respect and care, yes. The customer base as a whole, i.e. what changes like this are targeted at? They cannot be dumber. Why do you think 5e divested itself of so many of 3.5 and 4e's rules, even the excellent ones?
People.
Are.
Idiots.
And game design needs to account for letting total bleeping idiots play, too.
I will second this. I worked customer support for ten months. Worst job I've ever had, because it was eight hours a day of dealing with people who were pissed because I wouldn't turn their phone back on just because they hadn't paid their phone bill in three months.
But even beyond that, it's a terrible business idea to have multiple, contradictory versions of the same rule. All that's going to do is make it harder and more incomprehensible, especially for new players.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Ah, customer service. You learn things about what makes people people real fast (in fairness, that includes some of the people working alongside you too). And if you ever needed a reason to play an escapist fantasy game, half a bad shift should have you covered and then some.
Keeping multiple versions of the rules around, even if they only differ slightly, raises questions. Questions any sensible business doesn't want their prospective customers wondering about.
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I for one do not like the precedent of people changing, not to make corrections, content that I have paid for. By such a precedent, they certainly could create an errata that completely erases the 5e books as an incentive for us to buy new ones. Is it likely? No. But does this ability to unilaterally deprive us of content that we paid money for make it possible? Certainly does.
Besides, multiple version, in this instance refers to flavour texts and not mechanics. So, I'm not really sure how that substantiates a nightmare of administration.
Come now. There's no point in complaining about something WotC can do, when they haven't done so and haven't shown any indication they will. We'll see what happens when it's time for a new edition, but even 4E's digital content repositories where only closed down years after the launch of 5E and only due to technical reasons outside WotC's scope.
And it's not about a nightmare of administration. It's about showing new players a stack of versions and telling them to pick what they like best, rather than committing to a single official ruleset. Which has been changed already, multiple times, both in terms of flavour text and mechanics.
They've asserted their legal right to and that should be alarming enough.
It doesn't matter if I believe they will or whether I trust them not to abuse this right. But by doing so, they assert that they have a unilateral right to remove content from circulation and that right does not need to be qualified.
Are you actually arguing that it’s alarming when an entity asserts its legal rights? That’s a pretty slippery slope.
And they do have a right to change things without qualification. They own it. It’s theirs. They’re just leasing it to dndbeyond, and they are subleasing it to you. Its in the terms of service. They warned you. Now, I know I just clicked yes without reading it, but that’s on me, not anyone else.
I don't know if I buy that Dow in settings external to the forgotten realms have different origins from those within. It seems the Great Wheel these days is linking together multiple prime material planes for adventures to be part of worlds spanning organizations. This implies that even if Lolth herself is staying in one area of the multivers'es cosmology, Drow might have made their way from Toril via extraplanar travel to other worlds like Kryn etc. to settle there. Those Drow societies do not necessarily have to be Native to the worlds they currently inhabit but rather decended from travelers whose origin is on Toril. This isn't to say that once seperated from Lolth's influence, they wouln't have been able to turn out alright; but I do prefer common origins rather than separate origins for species, even when they exist on multiple worlds.
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I don't know if I buy that Dow in settings external to the forgotten realms have different origins from those within. It seems the Great Wheel these days is linking together multiple prime material planes for adventures to be part of worlds spanning organizations. This implies that even if Lolth herself is staying in one area of the multivers'es cosmology, Drow might have made their way from Toril via extraplanar travel to other worlds like Kryn etc. to settle there. Those Drow societies do not necessarily have to be Native to the worlds they currently inhabit but rather decended from travelers whose origin is on Toril. This isn't to say that once seperated from Lolth's influence, they wouln't have been able to turn out alright; but I do prefer common origins rather than separate origins for species, even when they exist on multiple worlds.
I think the multiverse may play out in that there are many wheels, so many Lolths ... many Drow so of which are Lloth's and some of which grew differently. As the Drow the discovered at Burger King "Have it Your Way" is a better more productive force in D&D than some entrenched singularity that forces precise lore or role. playing characterirzation. The book Fizban's dragons are an almost incarnation of this idea. Some of them are even aware of their iterations in other settings scattered about the multiverse, many of which have very different personalities than their own.
In other words, the future of D&D is being rendered kaleidoscopically. There are some rich foundational structures, but every game gets to make their own wonder via twisting the system to their liking.
If that's actually what's happening with MMM, i think that's pretty cool.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
...I generally find it bad to start from a position that assumes that people are too stupid to figure out what they want for themselves. It's just unneccessarily paternalistic.
Others have already responded to this, but I work in game development and I can assure you that it's absolutely necessary. Now, to be clear, it's not that people are too stupid to figure out what they want for themselves. It's that they are too uneducated to actually know how to engineer the product that will give them what they want. Knowing what players want better than they do is the foundational principle of game design. If games companies (for video games and tabletop games) actually just took players at their word, they would be much less successful, because game design is actually a complex skillset that requires training and experience to execute successfully, and players do not have that expertise.
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Personally I think those very same cosmic forces would benefit from being unmoored from the Alignment Axis. It would make them more mysterious, wondrous, terrifying, and alien if they were divorced from something so arbitrary, comprehensible, and mortal as a nine by nine grid of categories. They could still be driven by things that we limited beings might perceive as Law or Evil, but they'd also be free to be as weirdling and ineffable as future writers would like to make them, and I think that would be a good thing.
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!
And on top of that, big businesses tend to be run by people who lean more politically conservative than liberal. When a company makes a change to appeal to a more liberal audience, it's generally because they've done the math and decided that it's worth more money to be seen supporting that crowd than to be seen supporting the other side. The complaints and cries of "Woke" now are not all that dissimilar from the complaints and cries of "Political Correctness!" when the 3.0 Player's Handbook was released and people saw that the example PCs were made up of as many female characters as male characters and represented a broad array of ethnic types instead of all being white. Predictions were made of WotC's imminent failure, and the fact that we're having this conversation 21 years and two editions later should tell you how accurate they were.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Yeah. "Go woke go broke' doesn't actually tend to work out. These are generally calculated moves to appeal to a wider audience. A wider audience that has been doing quite well for WOTC in general with 5E's resounding success so far.
These errata changes are not going to be the end of WOTC, D&D or even 5E. Nor are they going to have to backpedal. Looking at the actual changes it feels like some people are just overreacting out of reflex.
Very well said.
Just to make it clear. That there are no alignments does not mean that the characters do not make moral choices, or that they do not follow a pattern of behavior (whatever it is). In fact, what I wanted to explain with my post is that alignment was not that in the firsts editions of the game, but an actually alignment with a cosmic forces. That is why it is called alignment and not "behavior", "idiosyncrasy", or something similar.
But of course you will continue making moral choices. I don't see how you could play an RPG in any other way, really. That would be, I don't know, a wargame.
Characters and NPCs should in general have things like values, religious or political affiliations, etc where they make sense. But getting rid of, or deemphasizing, the three by three D&D alignment grid doesn't get rid of that. It was always too narrow to be very descriptive or good for much but the most basic of shorthand or to apply to extreme cosmic forces more so than individual people IMO. Removing the alignment system wouldn't mean characters no longer have believes, morals etc. These things always have and always will be part of RP and storytelling. It's just that there isn't as much of a need to try and fit them into a three by three box. Things can be as complex or narrow as the players and DM at a particular table want them to be.
Just because Lawful Good is no longer written on a paladin's sheet doesn't mean they're now amoral. IMO the biggest impact this will probably have on characters is reducing the number of arguments people have about where exactly on the 3 by 3 chart a particular character should be listed. All of the interesting things that actually determine a character's morality are still there. Their personal values, religious beliefs, political ties, all of that will still be there.
Alignment wasn't removed. Alignment as a cosmic force was removed, and alignment as a quantifiable and detectable personal quality was removed. Basically the stuff that frequently tripped up players and DMs because for it to work, alignments have to be properly defined and everyone had to have a similar understanding of those definitions, and that often wasn't the case. Now it's ok if you feel your character is LG, your DM thinks it's closer to TN, and your rogue buddy occasionally gets you to look the other way when they get up to some shenanigans as long as it's more antics than actual ill deeds. Nothing will fall apart because the lines are a little blurry and there's no consensus on who's where on the spectrum, instead of spells and items either working or not working depending on where the DM ends up ruling you're at, evil characters needing high level magic to hide this from paladins and others with alignment-detection magic, or characters losing class abilities because the DM feels they stepped out of line once too often. But alignment as a value system very much still applies, and reading monster descriptions or NPC writeups tends to make the alignment of the monster or NPC quite obvious.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
I totally agree with the choice WOTC made in doing it this way.
I played second, a lot. Our group(s) never had a problem with knowing alignment on a personal character level. I loved it. A better solution to all this would have been to drop race/species alignment but have reinforced personal alignment imo. It's not the end of the world if they drop it all together though but I liked it as a tool and resource to keep a new player informed of what they wanted their character to be like and later on to play it logically. Nowadays it seems, when I look at videos, people are playing chaotic selfish most of the time. So yeah that's also a reason it's going to go so it appeals to people who just want to play chaotic selfish improv theatre.
Players knowing each others' alignments wasn't really much of an issue (the occasional secretly-evil PC notwithstanding, and that was more of a group issue than a game issue). NPCs knowing PC alignments and PCs knowing NPC alignments was more of a problem, even if just being evil isn't illegal and thus not something actionable. Coming up with reasons for NPCs to work with a party they knew was evil could be a drag, and players knowing the PC trying to hire them is evil changes the entire dynamic of the game. Also, things like bards or barbarians not being allowed to be lawful and monks having to be just cut down on a lot of perfectly fine character concepts. Alignment as a personal guideline is great and still works; alignment as a stick in the mud getting in the way of creativity and story, not so much.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
If you focus on the particulars of what words are considered harmful this year as opposed to last year or ten years ago I suppose I can see why you might see it as a "fickle" trend, but what's been fairly constant is rather a stance of compassion and understanding. Trauma and what traumatizes people is subjective, but one must approach people with the attitude that one always has something to learn and one can never be too compassionate.
Also, when people are "cancelled" they are basically losing popularity ... for doing things that are rightly unpopular. This isn't some sort of unfair government enforcement, it is basically the shifting marketplace of public consumption. I don't find it to be a worrisome trend. I think we, as a species, have learned better about ourselves and thus are doing better to treat each other with kindness.
Hmm, but a lot of times assimilation looks a lot like erasure of minority culture because assimilation almost inevitably means regression toward what is considered "mainstream." Yes I do think we should come together and build a shared culture, but I believe it should be a multicultural one, where we can all be proud of our heritage and differences and not feel like we have to conform in order to succeed and thrive. How exactly is anyone drawing lines in sand? I mean ... I suppose "we will not tolerate bigotry of any kind" is a line, but I think it is one that is just, reasonable, and good.
Thank you very much for being open to a dialogue. I am sorry if you have experienced discrimination. Sometimes the steps taken to redress injustice can be heavy handed, even if the intent is good. I accept your apology and wholeheartedly want to help move the discussion forward.
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!
They've asserted their legal right to and that should be alarming enough.
It doesn't matter if I believe they will or whether I trust them not to abuse this right. But by doing so, they assert that they have a unilateral right to remove content from circulation and that right does not need to be qualified. It doesn't matter how much I value the content they removed and it doesn't matter how much I estimate they won't betray me. It only matters what they can do and that now includes deprive online sources of content without their consent to surrender them.
And considering the differences between the editions (to use the publishing term rather than the D&D variant) would be a few sentences of flavour text, you're trying to convince me that this is going to deter people from playing the game? When 99 out of 100 people will just buy the most recent edition (unless they can get one for cheaper second hand)? Ignoring that, in D&D terms, there are literally like 8 other editions of D&D floating around already, you're going to argue that people are going to be confused and not know which ones to buy? Did anyone here accidentally buy AD&D instead of 5E on their way here? Ignoring that, there are very likely multiple print editions for 5e floating around that incorporate previous errata. Did anyone agonise over which Player's handbook to buy? New players aren't having any trouble finding the latest version, so I hardly see how they benefit by denying them the option to choose for themselves. I generally find it bad to start from a position that assumes that people are too stupid to figure out what they want for themselves. It's just unneccessarily paternalistic.
1) Hate to break it to you, but they always could. That "now" you put in there is completely meaningless.
2) It looks bad. Why keep older versions, does that mean the new version is bad, is something WotC can't put out there as the best version of their vision? Why have errata at all if the non-errata version is apparently just as good? What's WotC's QA like if they can't make up their mind and commit to something? How hard do they even try in development if in the end they just say "you know what, it doesn't really matter, it's all equally good and equally bad".
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
I work tech support for a living, part of my job is assisting customers and talking to people. Take it from someone who's done that for eight and a half years now - it is impossible to underestimate the absolute, impenetrable, invulnerable, invincible stupidity of 'People'. As Agent K was known to say, a person can be smart. People are dumb, panicky animals. Individual customers should be treated with respect and care, yes. The customer base as a whole, i.e. what changes like this are targeted at? They cannot be dumber. Why do you think 5e divested itself of so many of 3.5 and 4e's rules, even the excellent ones?
People.
Are.
Idiots.
And game design needs to account for letting total bleeping idiots play, too.
Please do not contact or message me.
I will second this. I worked customer support for ten months. Worst job I've ever had, because it was eight hours a day of dealing with people who were pissed because I wouldn't turn their phone back on just because they hadn't paid their phone bill in three months.
But even beyond that, it's a terrible business idea to have multiple, contradictory versions of the same rule. All that's going to do is make it harder and more incomprehensible, especially for new players.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Ah, customer service. You learn things about what makes people people real fast (in fairness, that includes some of the people working alongside you too). And if you ever needed a reason to play an escapist fantasy game, half a bad shift should have you covered and then some.
Keeping multiple versions of the rules around, even if they only differ slightly, raises questions. Questions any sensible business doesn't want their prospective customers wondering about.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Are you actually arguing that it’s alarming when an entity asserts its legal rights? That’s a pretty slippery slope.
And they do have a right to change things without qualification. They own it. It’s theirs. They’re just leasing it to dndbeyond, and they are subleasing it to you. Its in the terms of service. They warned you. Now, I know I just clicked yes without reading it, but that’s on me, not anyone else.
I don't know if I buy that Dow in settings external to the forgotten realms have different origins from those within. It seems the Great Wheel these days is linking together multiple prime material planes for adventures to be part of worlds spanning organizations. This implies that even if Lolth herself is staying in one area of the multivers'es cosmology, Drow might have made their way from Toril via extraplanar travel to other worlds like Kryn etc. to settle there. Those Drow societies do not necessarily have to be Native to the worlds they currently inhabit but rather decended from travelers whose origin is on Toril. This isn't to say that once seperated from Lolth's influence, they wouln't have been able to turn out alright; but I do prefer common origins rather than separate origins for species, even when they exist on multiple worlds.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
I think the multiverse may play out in that there are many wheels, so many Lolths ... many Drow so of which are Lloth's and some of which grew differently. As the Drow the discovered at Burger King "Have it Your Way" is a better more productive force in D&D than some entrenched singularity that forces precise lore or role. playing characterirzation. The book Fizban's dragons are an almost incarnation of this idea. Some of them are even aware of their iterations in other settings scattered about the multiverse, many of which have very different personalities than their own.
In other words, the future of D&D is being rendered kaleidoscopically. There are some rich foundational structures, but every game gets to make their own wonder via twisting the system to their liking.
If that's actually what's happening with MMM, i think that's pretty cool.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Others have already responded to this, but I work in game development and I can assure you that it's absolutely necessary. Now, to be clear, it's not that people are too stupid to figure out what they want for themselves. It's that they are too uneducated to actually know how to engineer the product that will give them what they want. Knowing what players want better than they do is the foundational principle of game design. If games companies (for video games and tabletop games) actually just took players at their word, they would be much less successful, because game design is actually a complex skillset that requires training and experience to execute successfully, and players do not have that expertise.