I believe you are over complicating it. I get that because the order in which it is often presented in character creation. but it is short hand, it is not the end all be all. where character are concerned your alignment can change. really isn't that important except when it come to Paladins and Clerics.
It should not be important at all, even when it comes to paladins and clerics. It is situation exactly like these where issues arise, where the player and GM would disagree on how a character should act given their alignment and the GM would reassign the character's alignment against what the player wants.
PS-If anyone uses PFIB instead of alignment, then why not have both? Writing your alignment down takes just five seconds and it can work with the PFIB system to help determine how your character acts. It's not like it's one or the other, you can always have both.
You can have both, but alignment is about as relevant as piety and company positions and it is a potential landmine of problems.
Most settings do not care about alignment, and despite that, alignment still gets shoved into statblocks for all books and character creation in the BR/SRD like it is somehow relevant.
It is already bad enough that RAW technically allows GMs to suddenly unattune a PC's Robe of the Archmagi because the GM thinks the character no longer shares the cloak's alignment. Apply that to something more integral to a character like their class as mentioned in the situation above, it is going to really piss people off. Most GMs are not dumb enough to arbitrarily enforce alignment mechanics without consulting their players, but it happens often enough that RAW needs to be more clear on the subject and it should be intentionally boxed and buried in SCAG or something, and be neglected as an optional mechanic.
I believe you are over complicating it. I get that because the order in which it is often presented in character creation. but it is short hand, it is not the end all be all. where character are concerned your alignment can change. really isn't that important except when it come to Paladins and Clerics.
I know it's not the end all be all. I also think it's pretty unimportant. That's literally part of my argument that PFIB does everything Alignment does, but better.
Also, Ophidimancer, I genuinely don't understand, why, if you are fine with alignment for NPC's, are you not fine with it for PC's? What's the major difference on alignment between these two?
Player Characters and Non-Player Characters are fundamentally different and the tools and techniques we use with them are of course going to be different.
PS-If anyone uses PFIB instead of alignment, then why not have both? Writing your alignment down takes just five seconds and it can work with the PFIB system to help determine how your character acts. It's not like it's one or the other, you can always have both.
I mean sure, they can work together. I've been using them together for years. You know I don't hate Alignment, I'm mostly okay with it. But that doesn't mean I think it's a necessary or good part of the game's system. I think it's redundant and obsolete.
I believe you are over complicating it. I get that because the order in which it is often presented in character creation. but it is short hand, it is not the end all be all. where character are concerned your alignment can change. really isn't that important except when it come to Paladins and Clerics.
Religious characters (whether or not they happen to be a cleric or paladin) are expected to behave according to the precepts of their faith, but this is only moderately connected to the alignment axis and is likely to be unhelpful because different faiths have different definitions of good.
Disagreeing is not the same thing as not listening. I've heard. I've read. I disagree. Again, I don't thin it's complicated for a player to choose an alignment, I think it's complicated for a player to understand what alignment even is. Choosing alignment is as easy as picking one and then ignoring it ever after, that's not hard I'll give you that.
You start by saying that you've read what I said, and in the same paragraph prove you didn't by repeating claims I've already addressed multiple times now. This isn't a discussion if it isn't going anywhere, and right now it isn't.
"What you've just described there" is me summing up what I think your statement means, not me trying to put words in your mouth. I don't claim to know what your intentions are, but I can read and summarize. You're always free to correct me, just as I am always free to disagree. These things are not arguing in bad faith.
If you can't "sum up" what I said without changing its meaning then don't do it; I have asked you twice now not to, and instead of listening you've argued that as well. If you're not going to respond to what I've actually said, and instead are just looking for things to twist out of context and pretend they agree with your point when I'm making the opposite one, then that's arguing in bad faith.
It doesn't support your argument to do it, so it's just a waste of everybody's time.
For everyone else, thus far I'm seeing three main issues being raised and I'm going to try to address each of them again:
Choosing an Alignment is Difficult
While this might be true for some, it's clearly not true for the majority. Alignment has been a thing in D&D now for literally decades, so if it were universally maligned it would have been dropped a long time ago, especially in 4th- and 5th-editions where significant efforts were made to simplify the game.
And the idea that they're difficult just isn't true. An alignment is a choice of two keywords, while the book(s) could give a clearer way to make your initial choice, ultimately it boils down to two questions; I've given examples of the ones I use, but the simplest possible would be "is your character chaotic, lawful or neither?" and "is your character good, evil or neither?", if you can't answer either of these questions then the problem isn't the alignment, it's that you don't know who the character is yet.
But that's okay too; literally the first line on alignment is "a typical creature in the game world has an alignment". Your DM can let you start without an alignment, or start neutral, so long as you're happy that it means the events of the campaign may end up choosing it for you. This is a perfectly valid way to do it; it's not "throwing darts at a board", it's starting from a perspective of "I don't know yet".
There is one related issue which is the removal of recommended alignments from races; these provided players with a default alignment they could use (often with some reasoning for it). It's something I strongly disagree with, along with the removal of race-specific age, height, size and weight ranges, as removing these has is actually taking away diversity from the races, and simplicity from character building for those who just want to play "an Orc Fighter" or whatever and were happy to just have some defaults they can put on their sheet, or tweak as they see fit. It's a big reason why I probably won't be buying Mordenkainen's Monsters of the Multiverse, as there isn't really any other way to make clear I do not approve.
The Examples aren't That Helpful
This is a somewhat legitimate argument, I have literally said the same thing several times in this thread (from my second post in it iirc), that the examples need to be improved, and some of the descriptions could be as well.
For example, one of the worst is neutral good which says "folk do the best they can to help others according to their needs" which as a description only really makes sense when you compare it to lawful and chaotic good rather than being clear on its own. The example it includes meanwhile is "Many celestials are neutral good", well what does that mean to a player who doesn't know what celestials are? What new players really need here is an example of the type of person who fits this alignment.
On the other hand, there are some that are quite well described; chaotic good for example is a favourite of mine "creatures act as their conscience directs" as it paints a clear picture of what those types of individuals are like. The best is probably neutral; "the alignment of those who prefer to steer clear of moral questions and don’t take sides, doing what seems best at the time. Druids are traditionally neutral, as are typical townsfolk". Both the description and example are unambiguous on that one, and why it's the best default if you're not sure (as most 1st-level characters are only barely a step above townsfolk anyway).
The obvious solution is clearer descriptions and better examples in many cases; it's not that these alignments are actually hard to understand, it's that poor descriptions and examples add confusion where there didn't need to be any.
Alignment is Redundant
The main reason give for this seems to be the idea that Ideals fulfil the same role, but that simply isn't true; while an ideal can be informed by your alignment (or vice versa), and there can be overlap between them, they're also not mutually exclusive.
While some concrete ideals will unambiguously fall towards one alignment or another, others do not. For example, "I seek to do right by my friends and family" can be used as justification for just about any action, so alone it doesn't tell you if a character is good or evil, chaotic or lawful, so it does not overlap at all. A crime boss is just as capable of being kind to friends and family as a cleric, even the most capricious and chaotic of the archfey can be generous to its friends etc.
There is also the fact that alignment isn't simply a character trait, it can also be a game mechanic depending upon your setting and DM; good characters aren't going to find it easy to make deals with evil devils, lawful good deities and their servants may not support the actions of a chaotic neutral group and so-on. While you could try to compare these things on the basis of specific, detailed, individual goals and ideals, alignment is a quick and easy way to do it that isn't going to bog the game down in philosophy, because you are usually going to be either aligned, opposed, or neutral (to each other), and that's it. There are also magic items and spells that have alignment requirements or effects that likewise cannot be fulfilled by ideals without lengthy discussion; people have tried to complain that alignment is complicated, but it actually makes a number of things a lot simpler.
It's possible for it to be redundant in certain settings, or with certain DMs or groups, and in these cases you can absolutely rely on something else, or have the discussions if you need to, and that's fine. Like everything in D&D, alignment is part of the toolset, what you do with it is up to you.
But that it can be redundant (or more accurately, unused) in some cases is far from a convincing argument that it should be removed from the game.
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The issue, Haravikk, is that half the thread is stating that alignment is a splendid, perfect, fantastic tool that provides absolutely everything one could ever need to know about any entity in all of D&D. That once you know a person or creature's alignment, you know everything you could ever possibly want to know about them and everything else is just pointless frippery unimportant to the glorious and perfect truth that is alignment. That once I say something like "my tabaxi wizard is neutral good", any competent player and/or DM shouldn't ever need to hear another word because they know everything worth knowing about that character.
And the other half of the thread is smashing their faces against a cement wall trying to explain that to us, this is simply not true. And it will never be true, no matter how often people insist on trying to convince us that alignment is easy and simple and intuitive and comprehensive and perfect and essential to the D&D Experience.
I do not like picking one of nine prewritten, fixed, rigid, inflexible boxes to which an entity must conform or face censure by the universe itself. I never will. And frankly I don't give a damn about all the attempts to dismiss that argument by saying "alignment is a trend, not a railroad", "alignment is descriptive, not proscriptive", "alignment is something that works FOR you, not against you", or any of that hog swill. It's all dead wrong because as written, as most often used, and as played and memed by D&D players for forty years? Alignment is absolutely meant to be all of those things. Alignment is absolutely meant to be a proscriptive railroad working against me, and I don't bloody need it.
If y'all want it because Tradition, fine. Whatever. But don't try and cram it down the throats of people who've moved past the need for fifty year old moral absolutism. We're never not going to totally ignore alignment wherever it's printed, and we're never not going to be irritated when the books or other players try to force us to pick one of nine little personality prisons in which we have to live our lives.
The issue, Haravikk, is that half the thread is stating that alignment is a splendid, perfect, fantastic tool that provides absolutely everything one could ever need to know about any entity in all of D&D. [snip] And the other half of the thread is smashing their faces against a cement wall trying to explain that to us, this is simply not true.
Well one problem for a start is that neither of these things are true; unless I've missed it I haven't seen a single post where someone described the alignment system as perfect, it's mostly just people giving advice or examples of the characters that they've run that fit with different boxes, or addressing weird misconceptions about how alignment works.
I do not like picking one of nine prewritten, fixed, rigid, inflexible boxes to which an entity must conform or face censure by the universe itself. I never will. And frankly I don't give a damn about all the attempts to dismiss that argument by saying "alignment is a trend, not a railroad", "alignment is descriptive, not proscriptive", "alignment is something that works FOR you, not against you", or any of that hog swill. It's all dead wrong because as written, as most often used, and as played and memed by D&D players for forty years? Alignment is absolutely meant to be all of those things. Alignment is absolutely meant to be a proscriptive railroad working against me, and I don't bloody need it.
If you characterise every counterpoint as "hog swill" and describe the system as things that it's not then of course it will never work for you; literally in the first line in the rules on alignment it tells that an alignment "broadly describes [a creature's] moral and personal attitudes", so it's neither prescriptive, rigid or inflexible.
Alignment doesn't tell you who your character is exactly, it tells you who they're similar to, who they might be compatible with, in a very broad way; each "box" describes a wide range of creatures that you may have some things in common with, yet still be radically different to, it says this in the rules:
Individuals might vary significantly from that typical behavior, and few people are perfectly and consistently faithful to the precepts of their alignment.
While it's not a perfect system, it's not intended to be, it's intended to be simple, and it's a high level abstraction that you're supposed to add details to. Same as not every human is the same, nor every fighter, nor every human fighter and so-on.
Why make it more difficult for yourself when nothing tells you to do-so?
If y'all want it because Tradition, fine. Whatever. But don't try and cram it down the throats of people who've moved past the need for fifty year old moral absolutism. We're never not going to totally ignore alignment wherever it's printed, and we're never not going to be irritated when the books or other players try to force us to pick one of nine little personality prisons in which we have to live our lives.
I haven't noticed anyone argue that alignment should be retained for tradition's sake? Also I've not noticed anyone "cramming it down throats" (especially when subscribing to a thread is optional); there are lots of people saying why you can, or at most should, pick an alignment and how, but nobody that I've seen saying you must.
The only reason you must pick an alignment is if a magic item, feature, spell or deity or whatever requires it because in those cases its a gameplay mechanic, and that's only if the DM makes those a thing in your campaign. If you don't have a Paladin using Divine Sense then it's not going to come up, and if it does the DM can just assign an alignment for that purpose.
Alignment also isn't moral absolutism, nor a prison, in fact it's pretty far from it; again, it specifically tells you that it's broad categorisation, the specifics of what a character believes, how they act etc. is not bounded by it as long as you don't completely contradict it (a lawful good character who spends all day murdering the innocent). Your DM asking you to change your alignment is not a punishment, it's just a reflection of how your character has changed for that purpose, it doesn't change who they are beyond that.
And there is even an alignment that's smack in the middle that literally says you do what seems best at the time; that's what the Neutral alignment is. Depending upon what exactly you do your DM might ask you to change (if that's how they're running the game), but most characters can start Neutral if they're unsure, and even remain there if they don't regularly tilt towards any extreme.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
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If you can't "sum up" what I said without changing its meaning then don't do it; I have asked you twice now not to, and instead of listening you've argued that as well. If you're not going to respond to what I've actually said, and instead are just looking for things to twist out of context and pretend they agree with your point when I'm making the opposite one, then that's arguing in bad faith.
I have not been trying to twist anything out of context, I've been trying to reply to the things you've said. I apologize if I have taken anything out of context, but I've also gone back through and looked at my responses to you and I cannot see where I have done so. So I'm not understanding where it is I'm supposed to have taken you out of context, truly.
Choosing an Alignment is Difficult
I have not made this argument, and actually I don't think many others have either.
And the idea that they're difficult just isn't true. An alignment is a choice of two keywords, while the book(s) could give a clearer way to make your initial choice, ultimately it boils down to two questions; I've given examples of the ones I use, but the simplest possible would be "is your character chaotic, lawful or neither?" and "is your character good, evil or neither?", if you can't answer either of these questions then the problem isn't the alignment, it's that you don't know who the character is yet.
Or, that those spectra are badly defined and don't actually serve to help define or refine a character.
But that's okay too; literally the first line on alignment is "a typical creature in the game world has an alignment". Your DM can let you start without an alignment, or start neutral, so long as you're happy that it means the events of the campaign may end up choosing it for you. This is a perfectly valid way to do it; it's not "throwing darts at a board", it's starting from a perspective of "I don't know yet".
So here's where my years of experience have gotten in the way of understanding. I completely forgot that the 5E grid has Neutral instead of the old True Neutral "must maintain balance" alignment. Still, the inclusion of a "none of the above" option doesn't speak super well of the roleplaying aid system.
The Examples aren't That Helpful
This is a somewhat legitimate argument, I have literally said the same thing several times in this thread (from my second post in it iirc), that the examples need to be improved, and some of the descriptions could be as well.
For example, one of the worst is neutral good which says "folk do the best they can to help others according to their needs" which as a description only really makes sense when you compare it to lawful and chaotic good rather than being clear on its own. The example it includes meanwhile is "Many celestials are neutral good", well what does that mean to a player who doesn't know what celestials are? What new players really need here is an example of the type of person who fits this alignment.
On the other hand, there are some that are quite well described; chaotic good for example is a favourite of mine "creatures act as their conscience directs" as it paints a clear picture of what those types of individuals are like. The best is probably neutral; "the alignment of those who prefer to steer clear of moral questions and don’t take sides, doing what seems best at the time. Druids are traditionally neutral, as are typical townsfolk". Both the description and example are unambiguous on that one, and why it's the best default if you're not sure (as most 1st-level characters are only barely a step above townsfolk anyway).
The obvious solution is clearer descriptions and better examples in many cases; it's not that these alignments are actually hard to understand, it's that poor descriptions and examples add confusion where there didn't need to be any.
When the clearest example is the "I choose not to participate in this system" option, I think that's not a glowing recommendation for the system. Also I think your obvious solutions is only obvious when the assumption is that we want to keep Alignment, because to me it is more obvious that we already have a system that encompasses the function of The Nine. Both PFIB and The Nine are there to help people play their characters and get into character, correct? Do we agree on that?
Alignment is Redundant
The main reason give for this seems to be the idea that Ideals fulfil the same role, but that simply isn't true; while an ideal can be informed by your alignment (or vice versa), and there can be overlap between them, they're also not mutually exclusive.
Well yes, something that is mutually exclusive wouldn't be redundant, would it? Redundant means something that accomplishes the same or similar things. If they were mutually exclusive, they would be covering different ground by definition and thus not be redundant.
While some concrete ideals will unambiguously fall towards one alignment or another, others do not. For example, "I seek to do right by my friends and family" can be used as justification for just about any action, so alone it doesn't tell you if a character is good or evil, chaotic or lawful, so it does not overlap at all. A crime boss is just as capable of being kind to friends and family as a cleric, even the most capricious and chaotic of the archfey can be generous to its friends etc.
Ideals don't need to fall toward one alignment or another in order to take Alignment's place. What it does is tell you what the character values and what drives their morality. Making it a personalized statement allows it to be specific to the character, ignoring whether it lines up with an Alignment or not. This accomplishes the function of being a roleplaying aid for a player much better because it is customized. Your example of "I seek to do right by my friends and family" mean that this character values friends and family above outsiders or even the law. They may do things that look good or they may do things that look evil, depending on what the family needs. This is compelling and story driven and completely ignores the need for Good/Evil or Law/Chaos. This is the kind of thing that I dunno ... family centered crime dramas ... are built on. The father who will do anything to make sure a child is okay and goes to some dark places in order to do so? Is he evil? Is he good? Who cares! He has clear ideals that drive the narrative.
When I say that PFIB makes The Nine redundant, it's not because I think they do a good job explaining or helping or fleshing The Nine out. It's because I think they accomplish their function better for roleplaying purposes and thus make them irrelevant.
There is also the fact that alignment isn't simply a character trait, it can also be a game mechanic depending upon your setting and DM; good characters aren't going to find it easy to make deals with evil devils, lawful good deities and their servants may not support the actions of a chaotic neutral group and so-on. While you could try to compare these things on the basis of specific, detailed, individual goals and ideals, alignment is a quick and easy way to do it that isn't going to bog the game down in philosophy, because you are usually going to be either aligned, opposed, or neutral (to each other), and that's it. There are also magic items and spells that have alignment requirements or effects that likewise cannot be fulfilled by ideals without lengthy discussion; people have tried to complain that alignment is complicated, but it actually makes a number of things a lot simpler.
Yeah, this I find absolutely objectionable and want to go away forever. Alignment may usually be harmless, but when it determines actual mechanics is when it intrudes to a harmful level.
But that it can be redundant (or more accurately, unused) in some cases is far from a convincing argument that it should be removed from the game.
If something is redundant that means it's function is already being accomplished by something else. At the very least that makes it something of a waste of time and energy to include.
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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!
Quote from Haravikk>>The only reason you must pick an alignment is if a magic item, feature, spell or deity or whatever requires it because in those cases its a gameplay mechanic, and that's only if the DM makes those a thing in your campaign. If you don't have a Paladin using Divine Sense then it's not going to come up, and if it does the DM can just assign an alignment for that purpose.
In 5E, even things like divine sense, protection from good and evil etc don't require alignment. They work based on creature type instead such as fiends, undead, celestials etc. Off the top of my head I can't think of anywhere in 5E that alignment is mechanically enforced, though there may be some fringe outliers.
Quote from Haravikk>>The only reason you must pick an alignment is if a magic item, feature, spell or deity or whatever requires it because in those cases its a gameplay mechanic, and that's only if the DM makes those a thing in your campaign. If you don't have a Paladin using Divine Sense then it's not going to come up, and if it does the DM can just assign an alignment for that purpose.
In 5E, even things like divine sense, protection from good and evil etc don't require alignment. They work based on creature type instead such as fiends, undead, celestials etc. Off the top of my head I can't think of anywhere in 5E that alignment is mechanically enforced, though there may be some fringe outliers.
There are magic items that require certain alignments for attunement, like the Robe of the Archmagi or the Moonblade and also there is the Rakshasa, which has "Damage VulnerabilitiesPiercing from Magic Weapons Wielded by Good Creatures."
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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!
Quote from Haravikk>>The only reason you must pick an alignment is if a magic item, feature, spell or deity or whatever requires it because in those cases its a gameplay mechanic, and that's only if the DM makes those a thing in your campaign. If you don't have a Paladin using Divine Sense then it's not going to come up, and if it does the DM can just assign an alignment for that purpose.
In 5E, even things like divine sense, protection from good and evil etc don't require alignment. They work based on creature type instead such as fiends, undead, celestials etc. Off the top of my head I can't think of anywhere in 5E that alignment is mechanically enforced, though there may be some fringe outliers.
There’s a couple magic items, but I think that’s about it. Book of vile darkness, a sword that there’s 9 versions of each one keyed to an alignment, a couple others. Mostly holdovers from old editions. But you are right. Heck, detect good and evil doesn’t even work like the name would lead you to believe. Dang, Ninja’d by ophidimancer
In 5E, even things like divine sense, protection from good and evil etc don't require alignment. They work based on creature type instead such as fiends, undead, celestials etc. Off the top of my head I can't think of anywhere in 5E that alignment is mechanically enforced, though there may be some fringe outliers.
Or, that those spectra are badly defined and don't actually serve to help define or refine a character.
This is simply not true. If I choose chaotic good, a character who acts on the basis of their conscience heedless of what others think, then I have an extremely good idea of what my character is going to be like, it's a basis that I can both easily build upon and use to compare that character to others.
That some of the descriptions and some of the examples could be improved, is not evidence that the system is flawed, it's evidence that some of the descriptions and some of the examples could be improved.
When the clearest example is the "I choose not to participate in this system" option, I think that's not a glowing recommendation for the system.
It's not an "I choose not to participate" option, it's a choice within the system that's every bit as legitimate as any other, as it's the middle ground some characters like druids, certain clerics etc. may aspire to, while others may simply start there. But thanks for proving my point about not actually reading what I say and just fishing for things to twist. Choosing neutral is not a non-choice, it's simply a choice; it can be a justified one, or a lazy one, but it's still a choice.
Just because it's the one I think is the best defined doesn't mean that all of the others are poorly defined; the majority of them are fine. There is a major difference between "needs improvement" and fundamentally flawed, and I'm starting to think that you either are unable to appreciate the difference, or refuse to.
Also I think your obvious solutions is only obvious when the assumption is that we want to keep Alignment, because to me it is more obvious that we already have a system that encompasses the function of The Nine. Both PFIB and The Nine are there to help people play their characters and get into character, correct? Do we agree on that?
No, because that's not all that alignment is for, your assertion that PFIB achieves the same thing is false as I have already pointed out repeatedly (and you have very pointedly ignored), and because you are very clearly fishing for something else to twist.
Just because there are two features for helping to inform character does not mean that they are identical and one must be redundant. If the problem is that not all of the alignments are as well defined as they could be then absolutely the obvious solution is to address that issue. If there are cracks in a road, the obvious solution is to patch them, not condemn the entire road.
Your example of "I seek to do right by my friends and family" mean that this character values friends and family above outsiders or even the law. They may do things that look good or they may do things that look evil, depending on what the family needs. This is compelling and story driven and completely ignores the need for Good/Evil or Law/Chaos. This is the kind of thing that I dunno ... family centered crime dramas ... are built on. The father who will do anything to make sure a child is okay and goes to some dark places in order to do so? Is he evil? Is he good? Who cares! He has clear ideals that drive the narrative.
What it is, is an example of an ideal that can fit any of the alignments, ergo not redundant, that being literally my entire point. But thanks for ignoring it.
But that it can be redundant (or more accurately, unused) in some cases is far from a convincing argument that it should be removed from the game.
If something is redundant that means it's function is already being accomplished by something else. At the very least that makes it something of a waste of time and energy to include.
I'm getting real tired of asking you to please read the text that you quote (and just what I say in general). So tired in fact that I'm just going to call it now; this will be my final reply to you, and most likely to this thread.
I have already said more than enough on the subject, and hopefully others at least find some of it helpful. I would ask that you try actually reading what I've said, but I'd be lying if I said I cared either way at this point. But thanks for reminding me why it is always a mistake to engage on issues like this; I've more than said my piece, it's on you if you never wanted to listen in the first place.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
I'm getting real tired of asking you to please read the text that you quote (and just what I say in general). So tired in fact that I'm just going to call it now; this will be my final reply to you, and most likely to this thread.
I mean, I can honestly say that I've tried to make everything I've said relevant to what you've written. Not sure where the miscommunication is, but if you feel like you need to back away from the conversation, that's okay.
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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!
Haravikk, can I ask what you would do if a player saud to you "I would rather not have any" when you as a DM asked them what their alignment was?
Would you acknowledge that and move on?
Or would you record their alignment as "Neutral", regardless of their wishes and possibly even without their knowledge because you feel it necessary for the game to work?
I don't want my characters reduced to a pick-two of five over-simplistic words. I know you and others say that's not how alignment works or is supposed to work. The problem is that many people disagree. They WANT alignment to work that way. They think that mode of play is an ideal to strive for, not a trap to be avoided, and I know that if I sit down at a table that strongly emphasizes alignment my best response is to stand right back up and move myself elsewhere. Because I do not need - EVER - a DM constantly chastising me, imposing penalties on my character, and inflicting traumatic nightmares and other 'soft' punishments for 'straying outside my alignment', all while the other players offer "helpful" tips on how to shift my play to better portray a cardboard mannequin rather than a person.
Taliesin Jaffe, arguably the best player on Critical Role, famously created the best character in that show by saying to his DM "I HATE alignment. How can we create a character that is the wrong alignment, no matter who or what is asking? Whatever an item wants, whatever a spell says, whatever a class ability does, it reads this guy as unaligned or the 'wrong' alignment?" The result was Mollymauk Tealeaf, an absolutely glorious example of raw style who will reign long indeed in our memories.
And he would never have happened had Matt Mercer listened to the advice of this thread, i.e. "everything ALWAYS has an alignment, and if you don't use it you're just not playing the game right. It should be a really super big deal and the main way you figure out what your character does"
Or, that those spectra are badly defined and don't actually serve to help define or refine a character.
This is simply not true. If I choose chaotic good, a character who acts on the basis of their conscience heedless of what others think, then I have an extremely good idea of what my character is going to be like, it's a basis that I can both easily build upon and use to compare that character to others.
<snip>
Also I think your obvious solutions is only obvious when the assumption is that we want to keep Alignment, because to me it is more obvious that we already have a system that encompasses the function of The Nine. Both PFIB and The Nine are there to help people play their characters and get into character, correct? Do we agree on that?
No, because that's not all that alignment is for, your assertion that PFIB achieves the same thing is false as I have already pointed out repeatedly (and you have very pointedly ignored), and because you are very clearly fishing for something else to twist.
Just because there are two features for helping to inform character does not mean that they are identical and one must be redundant. If the problem is that not all of the alignments are as well defined as they could be then absolutely the obvious solution is to address that issue. If there are cracks in a road, the obvious solution is to patch them, not condemn the entire road.
(I trimmed the quotes above heavily, to focus on those two bits, because I think it's illustrative. I read the rest, I assure you or anyone else.)
Let's say I'm playing this "chaotic good" character you mention. Let's compare two options:
I write down "chaotic good" under alignment. Presumably this means I need to remember that that is shorthand for "I act on the basis of my conscience heedless of what others think" but perhaps I've been playing D&D long enough to have already internalized that.
I write down "I act on the basis of my conscience heedless of what others think" as one of my personality traits (I could make it an ideal or a flaw, even, but let's keep this simple).
In terms of who my character is, or how they behave, is there a difference between those two? If so, what is the difference, and what is the reason for that difference?
I, like presumably Ophidimancer and others, hold that there is no difference between the two, thus they are redundant. Everything that I could communicate via alignment, I could communicate via PTIBFs. By dropping alignment, I could:
ditch the "CG" shorthand (consider whether or not your brain skips a beat when it sees "PTIBF" when deciding whether the shorthand is actually helping)
decide my character does not quite fit any of the nine summaries (hey, everyone seems to admit some of them could be improved, so perhaps this isn't a surprise), and write my own summary, without needing to commit to any of the nine
I'd chose both of those every single time, for my own reasons, thus alignment has no benefit for me. Were I required to use it, it would cause me nothing but grief. Luckily, I am not; however, I would still always advocate for its removal, much in the same way someone might advocate for changing or removing the True Strike spell...
So, considering the original post was merely a question about the psychology leading to the trend towards eliminating alignment in D&D altogether. I think the previous 10 pages have sufficiently answered that. To summarize: alignment is perceived as vague and unhelpful. Alignment is also seen as restrictive and limiting. Cool.
Can we end this thread now?
If there is discussion still to be had, can we discuss the other point of the OP?: "...the definite trend towards eliminating the idea of good and evil themselves, like there can't / shouldn't be a standard of absolute good or evil. I get a sense that a belief in good and evil is considered a sign of immaturity. Am I misreading that? Is there another reason good and evil in D&D are being erased?"
I answered that on page 1. Good and evil aren't "being erased from D&D". What's happening is that genetically coded, moral absolutist "Pink Man Good, Green Man Bad" oversimplifications are being phased out. Evil absolutely still exists. It's simply not baked into the DNA of supposedly free-thinking creatures anymore.
Also, Ophidimancer, I genuinely don't understand, why, if you are fine with alignment for NPC's, are you not fine with it for PC's? What's the major difference on alignment between these two?
Player Characters and Non-Player Characters are fundamentally different and the tools and techniques we use with them are of course going to be different
Yes, I get that, but just as alignment can be used to help determine a PC's actions, it can be used in the same way to help determine an NPC's. I don't understand the difference on how alignment can help PC's but not NPC's. Yes, they are different, but alignment can still be used to help you predict what your NPC could do, and help you get a better sense of them. Why use it for PC's but not NPC's?
PS-If anyone uses PFIB instead of alignment, then why not have both? Writing your alignment down takes just five seconds and it can work with the PFIB system to help determine how your character acts. It's not like it's one or the other, you can always have both.
You can have both, but alignment is about as relevant as piety and company positions and it is a potential landmine of problems.
Most settings do not care about alignment, and despite that, alignment still gets shoved into statblocks for all books and character creation in the BR/SRD like it is somehow relevant.
It is already bad enough that RAW technically allows GMs to suddenly unattune a PC's Robe of the Archmagi because the GM thinks the character no longer shares the cloak's alignment. Apply that to something more integral to a character like their class as mentioned in the situation above, it is going to really piss people off. Most GMs are not dumb enough to arbitrarily enforce alignment mechanics without consulting their players, but it happens often enough that RAW needs to be more clear on the subject and it should be intentionally boxed and buried in SCAG or something, and be neglected as an optional mechanic.
(A) I am fine with getting rid of alignment for large groups of people/monsters. But it can still be very helpful for individual NPC's and PC's.
(B) What specific problems do you have with alignment? If you don't like it, you don't have to use it, but it can help other people loads.
(C) Just because the DM can abuse alignment to unattune magic items from their doesn't mean they will. DM's have dozens and dozens of ways to remove items from their players and millions of powers that they could abuse.. Just because the DM technically has that power, doesn't mean they're going to see it and forget how DMing works, and then use it to hurt their players as best they can.
If a DM feels a character is straying from their alignment, while equipped to something like a Robe of the Archmagi, then they'll talk to their player and explain, that if they keep acting in this way, their alignment may change, and then they may not be able to still remain attuned to the robe. If a player ignores numerous warning's and continues down this course anyway, then worst comes to worst, another member of the party attunes to the item.
Haravikk, can I ask what you would do if a player saud to you "I would rather not have any" when you as a DM asked them what their alignment was?
Would you acknowledge that and move on?
Or would you record their alignment as "Neutral", regardless of their wishes and possibly even without their knowledge because you feel it necessary for the game to work?
I don't want my characters reduced to a pick-two of five over-simplistic words. I know you and others say that's not how alignment works or is supposed to work. The problem is that many people disagree. They WANT alignment to work that way. They think that mode of play is an ideal to strive for, not a trap to be avoided, and I know that if I sit down at a table that strongly emphasizes alignment my best response is to stand right back up and move myself elsewhere. Because I do not need - EVER - a DM constantly chastising me, imposing penalties on my character, and inflicting traumatic nightmares and other 'soft' punishments for 'straying outside my alignment', all while the other players offer "helpful" tips on how to shift my play to better portray a cardboard mannequin rather than a person.
Taliesin Jaffe, arguably the best player on Critical Role, famously created the best character in that show by saying to his DM "I HATE alignment. How can we create a character that is the wrong alignment, no matter who or what is asking? Whatever an item wants, whatever a spell says, whatever a class ability does, it reads this guy as unaligned or the 'wrong' alignment?" The result was Mollymauk Tealeaf, an absolutely glorious example of raw style who will reign long indeed in our memories.
And he would never have happened had Matt Mercer listened to the advice of this thread, i.e. "everything ALWAYS has an alignment, and if you don't use it you're just not playing the game right. It should be a really super big deal and the main way you figure out what your character does"
Again, if you don't like alignment, you don't have to use it. As a DM, if a player says, "I don't like alignment, may I please not use it?"-of course the answer would be "Sure, it's a tool made to help you, if you don't find it helpful, no one's going to make you sue it."
There are 50 million or so people who play D&D, of course there will always be some people who turn helpful things into torture devices.
Your whole argument is based off this 1% of D&D players who use alignment in the most egregious and ridiculous ways. But almost everyone else, doesn't actually play this way.
If your playing group forces alignment down your throat and demands you make use of it when you find it unhelpful, then just leave the group.
However, alignment is actually a productive and helpful tool to many people, and to say that the game should eradicate alignment just because a tiny percent of the D&D population uses it as an excuse to ruin other's games, is simply unfair to everyone else who uses alignment as a helpful tool, that if you don't like, you don't have to use.
PS- Sorry for the delay to this post, my device was not letting me post, private message, or even start any threads, yesterday. I'm using another device currently, hopefully the other one is just having a temporary glitch.
I use Alignment in my own games as a guideline, not a rule. My current DM feels the same way.
When you think about a real person, some of the choices they have to make, the pressures they might be under, you can begin to understand how someone with X Alignment go a little against the grain or they might throw a complete nutter and jump the rails entirely.
Walter White in Breaking Bad. Started out as pretty much a Lawful Good guy and by the end he was about as True Neutral as you could get with a leaning toward his Evil side. In the beginning, he made a choice that he felt that Fate had forced him into and many stories begin the same way.
As far as the game is concerned, I treat all Aligned magic items as cursed. How the curse manifests itself depends on the Alignment of the item and the Alignment of the wielder. Before you begin your rebuttal...Yes, a Good or Lawfully-Aligned magic item is still cursed...it's just that most people might call it a blessing instead.
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It should not be important at all, even when it comes to paladins and clerics. It is situation exactly like these where issues arise, where the player and GM would disagree on how a character should act given their alignment and the GM would reassign the character's alignment against what the player wants.
You can have both, but alignment is about as relevant as piety and company positions and it is a potential landmine of problems.
Most settings do not care about alignment, and despite that, alignment still gets shoved into statblocks for all books and character creation in the BR/SRD like it is somehow relevant.
It is already bad enough that RAW technically allows GMs to suddenly unattune a PC's Robe of the Archmagi because the GM thinks the character no longer shares the cloak's alignment. Apply that to something more integral to a character like their class as mentioned in the situation above, it is going to really piss people off. Most GMs are not dumb enough to arbitrarily enforce alignment mechanics without consulting their players, but it happens often enough that RAW needs to be more clear on the subject and it should be intentionally boxed and buried in SCAG or something, and be neglected as an optional mechanic.
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I know it's not the end all be all. I also think it's pretty unimportant. That's literally part of my argument that PFIB does everything Alignment does, but better.
Player Characters and Non-Player Characters are fundamentally different and the tools and techniques we use with them are of course going to be different.
I mean sure, they can work together. I've been using them together for years. You know I don't hate Alignment, I'm mostly okay with it. But that doesn't mean I think it's a necessary or good part of the game's system. I think it's redundant and obsolete.
Uhh no, I disagree with your premise.
Canto alla vita
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ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
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Religious characters (whether or not they happen to be a cleric or paladin) are expected to behave according to the precepts of their faith, but this is only moderately connected to the alignment axis and is likely to be unhelpful because different faiths have different definitions of good.
You start by saying that you've read what I said, and in the same paragraph prove you didn't by repeating claims I've already addressed multiple times now. This isn't a discussion if it isn't going anywhere, and right now it isn't.
If you can't "sum up" what I said without changing its meaning then don't do it; I have asked you twice now not to, and instead of listening you've argued that as well. If you're not going to respond to what I've actually said, and instead are just looking for things to twist out of context and pretend they agree with your point when I'm making the opposite one, then that's arguing in bad faith.
It doesn't support your argument to do it, so it's just a waste of everybody's time.
For everyone else, thus far I'm seeing three main issues being raised and I'm going to try to address each of them again:
Choosing an Alignment is Difficult
While this might be true for some, it's clearly not true for the majority. Alignment has been a thing in D&D now for literally decades, so if it were universally maligned it would have been dropped a long time ago, especially in 4th- and 5th-editions where significant efforts were made to simplify the game.
And the idea that they're difficult just isn't true. An alignment is a choice of two keywords, while the book(s) could give a clearer way to make your initial choice, ultimately it boils down to two questions; I've given examples of the ones I use, but the simplest possible would be "is your character chaotic, lawful or neither?" and "is your character good, evil or neither?", if you can't answer either of these questions then the problem isn't the alignment, it's that you don't know who the character is yet.
But that's okay too; literally the first line on alignment is "a typical creature in the game world has an alignment". Your DM can let you start without an alignment, or start neutral, so long as you're happy that it means the events of the campaign may end up choosing it for you. This is a perfectly valid way to do it; it's not "throwing darts at a board", it's starting from a perspective of "I don't know yet".
There is one related issue which is the removal of recommended alignments from races; these provided players with a default alignment they could use (often with some reasoning for it). It's something I strongly disagree with, along with the removal of race-specific age, height, size and weight ranges, as removing these has is actually taking away diversity from the races, and simplicity from character building for those who just want to play "an Orc Fighter" or whatever and were happy to just have some defaults they can put on their sheet, or tweak as they see fit. It's a big reason why I probably won't be buying Mordenkainen's Monsters of the Multiverse, as there isn't really any other way to make clear I do not approve.
The Examples aren't That Helpful
This is a somewhat legitimate argument, I have literally said the same thing several times in this thread (from my second post in it iirc), that the examples need to be improved, and some of the descriptions could be as well.
For example, one of the worst is neutral good which says "folk do the best they can to help others according to their needs" which as a description only really makes sense when you compare it to lawful and chaotic good rather than being clear on its own. The example it includes meanwhile is "Many celestials are neutral good", well what does that mean to a player who doesn't know what celestials are? What new players really need here is an example of the type of person who fits this alignment.
On the other hand, there are some that are quite well described; chaotic good for example is a favourite of mine "creatures act as their conscience directs" as it paints a clear picture of what those types of individuals are like. The best is probably neutral; "the alignment of those who prefer to steer clear of moral questions and don’t take sides, doing what seems best at the time. Druids are traditionally neutral, as are typical townsfolk". Both the description and example are unambiguous on that one, and why it's the best default if you're not sure (as most 1st-level characters are only barely a step above townsfolk anyway).
The obvious solution is clearer descriptions and better examples in many cases; it's not that these alignments are actually hard to understand, it's that poor descriptions and examples add confusion where there didn't need to be any.
Alignment is Redundant
The main reason give for this seems to be the idea that Ideals fulfil the same role, but that simply isn't true; while an ideal can be informed by your alignment (or vice versa), and there can be overlap between them, they're also not mutually exclusive.
While some concrete ideals will unambiguously fall towards one alignment or another, others do not. For example, "I seek to do right by my friends and family" can be used as justification for just about any action, so alone it doesn't tell you if a character is good or evil, chaotic or lawful, so it does not overlap at all. A crime boss is just as capable of being kind to friends and family as a cleric, even the most capricious and chaotic of the archfey can be generous to its friends etc.
There is also the fact that alignment isn't simply a character trait, it can also be a game mechanic depending upon your setting and DM; good characters aren't going to find it easy to make deals with evil devils, lawful good deities and their servants may not support the actions of a chaotic neutral group and so-on. While you could try to compare these things on the basis of specific, detailed, individual goals and ideals, alignment is a quick and easy way to do it that isn't going to bog the game down in philosophy, because you are usually going to be either aligned, opposed, or neutral (to each other), and that's it. There are also magic items and spells that have alignment requirements or effects that likewise cannot be fulfilled by ideals without lengthy discussion; people have tried to complain that alignment is complicated, but it actually makes a number of things a lot simpler.
It's possible for it to be redundant in certain settings, or with certain DMs or groups, and in these cases you can absolutely rely on something else, or have the discussions if you need to, and that's fine. Like everything in D&D, alignment is part of the toolset, what you do with it is up to you.
But that it can be redundant (or more accurately, unused) in some cases is far from a convincing argument that it should be removed from the game.
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The issue, Haravikk, is that half the thread is stating that alignment is a splendid, perfect, fantastic tool that provides absolutely everything one could ever need to know about any entity in all of D&D. That once you know a person or creature's alignment, you know everything you could ever possibly want to know about them and everything else is just pointless frippery unimportant to the glorious and perfect truth that is alignment. That once I say something like "my tabaxi wizard is neutral good", any competent player and/or DM shouldn't ever need to hear another word because they know everything worth knowing about that character.
And the other half of the thread is smashing their faces against a cement wall trying to explain that to us, this is simply not true. And it will never be true, no matter how often people insist on trying to convince us that alignment is easy and simple and intuitive and comprehensive and perfect and essential to the D&D Experience.
I do not like picking one of nine prewritten, fixed, rigid, inflexible boxes to which an entity must conform or face censure by the universe itself. I never will. And frankly I don't give a damn about all the attempts to dismiss that argument by saying "alignment is a trend, not a railroad", "alignment is descriptive, not proscriptive", "alignment is something that works FOR you, not against you", or any of that hog swill. It's all dead wrong because as written, as most often used, and as played and memed by D&D players for forty years? Alignment is absolutely meant to be all of those things. Alignment is absolutely meant to be a proscriptive railroad working against me, and I don't bloody need it.
If y'all want it because Tradition, fine. Whatever. But don't try and cram it down the throats of people who've moved past the need for fifty year old moral absolutism. We're never not going to totally ignore alignment wherever it's printed, and we're never not going to be irritated when the books or other players try to force us to pick one of nine little personality prisons in which we have to live our lives.
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Well one problem for a start is that neither of these things are true; unless I've missed it I haven't seen a single post where someone described the alignment system as perfect, it's mostly just people giving advice or examples of the characters that they've run that fit with different boxes, or addressing weird misconceptions about how alignment works.
If you characterise every counterpoint as "hog swill" and describe the system as things that it's not then of course it will never work for you; literally in the first line in the rules on alignment it tells that an alignment "broadly describes [a creature's] moral and personal attitudes", so it's neither prescriptive, rigid or inflexible.
Alignment doesn't tell you who your character is exactly, it tells you who they're similar to, who they might be compatible with, in a very broad way; each "box" describes a wide range of creatures that you may have some things in common with, yet still be radically different to, it says this in the rules:
While it's not a perfect system, it's not intended to be, it's intended to be simple, and it's a high level abstraction that you're supposed to add details to. Same as not every human is the same, nor every fighter, nor every human fighter and so-on.
Why make it more difficult for yourself when nothing tells you to do-so?
I haven't noticed anyone argue that alignment should be retained for tradition's sake? Also I've not noticed anyone "cramming it down throats" (especially when subscribing to a thread is optional); there are lots of people saying why you can, or at most should, pick an alignment and how, but nobody that I've seen saying you must.
The only reason you must pick an alignment is if a magic item, feature, spell or deity or whatever requires it because in those cases its a gameplay mechanic, and that's only if the DM makes those a thing in your campaign. If you don't have a Paladin using Divine Sense then it's not going to come up, and if it does the DM can just assign an alignment for that purpose.
Alignment also isn't moral absolutism, nor a prison, in fact it's pretty far from it; again, it specifically tells you that it's broad categorisation, the specifics of what a character believes, how they act etc. is not bounded by it as long as you don't completely contradict it (a lawful good character who spends all day murdering the innocent). Your DM asking you to change your alignment is not a punishment, it's just a reflection of how your character has changed for that purpose, it doesn't change who they are beyond that.
And there is even an alignment that's smack in the middle that literally says you do what seems best at the time; that's what the Neutral alignment is. Depending upon what exactly you do your DM might ask you to change (if that's how they're running the game), but most characters can start Neutral if they're unsure, and even remain there if they don't regularly tilt towards any extreme.
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I have not been trying to twist anything out of context, I've been trying to reply to the things you've said. I apologize if I have taken anything out of context, but I've also gone back through and looked at my responses to you and I cannot see where I have done so. So I'm not understanding where it is I'm supposed to have taken you out of context, truly.
I have not made this argument, and actually I don't think many others have either.
Or, that those spectra are badly defined and don't actually serve to help define or refine a character.
So here's where my years of experience have gotten in the way of understanding. I completely forgot that the 5E grid has Neutral instead of the old True Neutral "must maintain balance" alignment. Still, the inclusion of a "none of the above" option doesn't speak super well of the roleplaying aid system.
When the clearest example is the "I choose not to participate in this system" option, I think that's not a glowing recommendation for the system. Also I think your obvious solutions is only obvious when the assumption is that we want to keep Alignment, because to me it is more obvious that we already have a system that encompasses the function of The Nine. Both PFIB and The Nine are there to help people play their characters and get into character, correct? Do we agree on that?
Well yes, something that is mutually exclusive wouldn't be redundant, would it? Redundant means something that accomplishes the same or similar things. If they were mutually exclusive, they would be covering different ground by definition and thus not be redundant.
Ideals don't need to fall toward one alignment or another in order to take Alignment's place. What it does is tell you what the character values and what drives their morality. Making it a personalized statement allows it to be specific to the character, ignoring whether it lines up with an Alignment or not. This accomplishes the function of being a roleplaying aid for a player much better because it is customized. Your example of "I seek to do right by my friends and family" mean that this character values friends and family above outsiders or even the law. They may do things that look good or they may do things that look evil, depending on what the family needs. This is compelling and story driven and completely ignores the need for Good/Evil or Law/Chaos. This is the kind of thing that I dunno ... family centered crime dramas ... are built on. The father who will do anything to make sure a child is okay and goes to some dark places in order to do so? Is he evil? Is he good? Who cares! He has clear ideals that drive the narrative.
When I say that PFIB makes The Nine redundant, it's not because I think they do a good job explaining or helping or fleshing The Nine out. It's because I think they accomplish their function better for roleplaying purposes and thus make them irrelevant.
Yeah, this I find absolutely objectionable and want to go away forever. Alignment may usually be harmless, but when it determines actual mechanics is when it intrudes to a harmful level.
If something is redundant that means it's function is already being accomplished by something else. At the very least that makes it something of a waste of time and energy to include.
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!
In 5E, even things like divine sense, protection from good and evil etc don't require alignment. They work based on creature type instead such as fiends, undead, celestials etc. Off the top of my head I can't think of anywhere in 5E that alignment is mechanically enforced, though there may be some fringe outliers.
There are magic items that require certain alignments for attunement, like the Robe of the Archmagi or the Moonblade and also there is the Rakshasa, which has "Damage Vulnerabilities Piercing from Magic Weapons Wielded by Good Creatures."
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!
There’s a couple magic items, but I think that’s about it. Book of vile darkness, a sword that there’s 9 versions of each one keyed to an alignment, a couple others. Mostly holdovers from old editions.
But you are right. Heck, detect good and evil doesn’t even work like the name would lead you to believe.
Dang, Ninja’d by ophidimancer
A Paladin's Divine Sense registers both good and evil:
This is simply not true. If I choose chaotic good, a character who acts on the basis of their conscience heedless of what others think, then I have an extremely good idea of what my character is going to be like, it's a basis that I can both easily build upon and use to compare that character to others.
That some of the descriptions and some of the examples could be improved, is not evidence that the system is flawed, it's evidence that some of the descriptions and some of the examples could be improved.
It's not an "I choose not to participate" option, it's a choice within the system that's every bit as legitimate as any other, as it's the middle ground some characters like druids, certain clerics etc. may aspire to, while others may simply start there. But thanks for proving my point about not actually reading what I say and just fishing for things to twist. Choosing neutral is not a non-choice, it's simply a choice; it can be a justified one, or a lazy one, but it's still a choice.
Just because it's the one I think is the best defined doesn't mean that all of the others are poorly defined; the majority of them are fine. There is a major difference between "needs improvement" and fundamentally flawed, and I'm starting to think that you either are unable to appreciate the difference, or refuse to.
No, because that's not all that alignment is for, your assertion that PFIB achieves the same thing is false as I have already pointed out repeatedly (and you have very pointedly ignored), and because you are very clearly fishing for something else to twist.
Just because there are two features for helping to inform character does not mean that they are identical and one must be redundant. If the problem is that not all of the alignments are as well defined as they could be then absolutely the obvious solution is to address that issue. If there are cracks in a road, the obvious solution is to patch them, not condemn the entire road.
What it is, is an example of an ideal that can fit any of the alignments, ergo not redundant, that being literally my entire point. But thanks for ignoring it.
I'm getting real tired of asking you to please read the text that you quote (and just what I say in general). So tired in fact that I'm just going to call it now; this will be my final reply to you, and most likely to this thread.
I have already said more than enough on the subject, and hopefully others at least find some of it helpful. I would ask that you try actually reading what I've said, but I'd be lying if I said I cared either way at this point. But thanks for reminding me why it is always a mistake to engage on issues like this; I've more than said my piece, it's on you if you never wanted to listen in the first place.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
I mean, I can honestly say that I've tried to make everything I've said relevant to what you've written. Not sure where the miscommunication is, but if you feel like you need to back away from the conversation, that's okay.
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!
Sentence 1 says that. Sentence 2 and 3 then clarify what that means, which is "detect Celestial, Fiend, Undead".
Haravikk, can I ask what you would do if a player saud to you "I would rather not have any" when you as a DM asked them what their alignment was?
Would you acknowledge that and move on?
Or would you record their alignment as "Neutral", regardless of their wishes and possibly even without their knowledge because you feel it necessary for the game to work?
I don't want my characters reduced to a pick-two of five over-simplistic words. I know you and others say that's not how alignment works or is supposed to work. The problem is that many people disagree. They WANT alignment to work that way. They think that mode of play is an ideal to strive for, not a trap to be avoided, and I know that if I sit down at a table that strongly emphasizes alignment my best response is to stand right back up and move myself elsewhere. Because I do not need - EVER - a DM constantly chastising me, imposing penalties on my character, and inflicting traumatic nightmares and other 'soft' punishments for 'straying outside my alignment', all while the other players offer "helpful" tips on how to shift my play to better portray a cardboard mannequin rather than a person.
Taliesin Jaffe, arguably the best player on Critical Role, famously created the best character in that show by saying to his DM "I HATE alignment. How can we create a character that is the wrong alignment, no matter who or what is asking? Whatever an item wants, whatever a spell says, whatever a class ability does, it reads this guy as unaligned or the 'wrong' alignment?" The result was Mollymauk Tealeaf, an absolutely glorious example of raw style who will reign long indeed in our memories.
And he would never have happened had Matt Mercer listened to the advice of this thread, i.e. "everything ALWAYS has an alignment, and if you don't use it you're just not playing the game right. It should be a really super big deal and the main way you figure out what your character does"
Please do not contact or message me.
(I trimmed the quotes above heavily, to focus on those two bits, because I think it's illustrative. I read the rest, I assure you or anyone else.)
Let's say I'm playing this "chaotic good" character you mention. Let's compare two options:
In terms of who my character is, or how they behave, is there a difference between those two? If so, what is the difference, and what is the reason for that difference?
I, like presumably Ophidimancer and others, hold that there is no difference between the two, thus they are redundant. Everything that I could communicate via alignment, I could communicate via PTIBFs. By dropping alignment, I could:
I'd chose both of those every single time, for my own reasons, thus alignment has no benefit for me. Were I required to use it, it would cause me nothing but grief. Luckily, I am not; however, I would still always advocate for its removal, much in the same way someone might advocate for changing or removing the True Strike spell...
So, considering the original post was merely a question about the psychology leading to the trend towards eliminating alignment in D&D altogether. I think the previous 10 pages have sufficiently answered that. To summarize: alignment is perceived as vague and unhelpful. Alignment is also seen as restrictive and limiting. Cool.
Can we end this thread now?
If there is discussion still to be had, can we discuss the other point of the OP?: "...the definite trend towards eliminating the idea of good and evil themselves, like there can't / shouldn't be a standard of absolute good or evil. I get a sense that a belief in good and evil is considered a sign of immaturity. Am I misreading that? Is there another reason good and evil in D&D are being erased?"
C. Foster Payne
"If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around."
Good grief.
I answered that on page 1. Good and evil aren't "being erased from D&D". What's happening is that genetically coded, moral absolutist "Pink Man Good, Green Man Bad" oversimplifications are being phased out. Evil absolutely still exists. It's simply not baked into the DNA of supposedly free-thinking creatures anymore.
Please do not contact or message me.
Cool... no arguments.
C. Foster Payne
"If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around."
Yes, I get that, but just as alignment can be used to help determine a PC's actions, it can be used in the same way to help determine an NPC's. I don't understand the difference on how alignment can help PC's but not NPC's. Yes, they are different, but alignment can still be used to help you predict what your NPC could do, and help you get a better sense of them. Why use it for PC's but not NPC's?
(A) I am fine with getting rid of alignment for large groups of people/monsters. But it can still be very helpful for individual NPC's and PC's.
(B) What specific problems do you have with alignment? If you don't like it, you don't have to use it, but it can help other people loads.
(C) Just because the DM can abuse alignment to unattune magic items from their doesn't mean they will. DM's have dozens and dozens of ways to remove items from their players and millions of powers that they could abuse.. Just because the DM technically has that power, doesn't mean they're going to see it and forget how DMing works, and then use it to hurt their players as best they can.
If a DM feels a character is straying from their alignment, while equipped to something like a Robe of the Archmagi, then they'll talk to their player and explain, that if they keep acting in this way, their alignment may change, and then they may not be able to still remain attuned to the robe. If a player ignores numerous warning's and continues down this course anyway, then worst comes to worst, another member of the party attunes to the item.
Again, if you don't like alignment, you don't have to use it. As a DM, if a player says, "I don't like alignment, may I please not use it?"-of course the answer would be "Sure, it's a tool made to help you, if you don't find it helpful, no one's going to make you sue it."
There are 50 million or so people who play D&D, of course there will always be some people who turn helpful things into torture devices.
Your whole argument is based off this 1% of D&D players who use alignment in the most egregious and ridiculous ways. But almost everyone else, doesn't actually play this way.
If your playing group forces alignment down your throat and demands you make use of it when you find it unhelpful, then just leave the group.
However, alignment is actually a productive and helpful tool to many people, and to say that the game should eradicate alignment just because a tiny percent of the D&D population uses it as an excuse to ruin other's games, is simply unfair to everyone else who uses alignment as a helpful tool, that if you don't like, you don't have to use.
PS- Sorry for the delay to this post, my device was not letting me post, private message, or even start any threads, yesterday. I'm using another device currently, hopefully the other one is just having a temporary glitch.
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HERE.I use Alignment in my own games as a guideline, not a rule. My current DM feels the same way.
When you think about a real person, some of the choices they have to make, the pressures they might be under, you can begin to understand how someone with X Alignment go a little against the grain or they might throw a complete nutter and jump the rails entirely.
Walter White in Breaking Bad. Started out as pretty much a Lawful Good guy and by the end he was about as True Neutral as you could get with a leaning toward his Evil side. In the beginning, he made a choice that he felt that Fate had forced him into and many stories begin the same way.
As far as the game is concerned, I treat all Aligned magic items as cursed. How the curse manifests itself depends on the Alignment of the item and the Alignment of the wielder. Before you begin your rebuttal...Yes, a Good or Lawfully-Aligned magic item is still cursed...it's just that most people might call it a blessing instead.