Ok so we have people who I presume are decently veteran to have had a chance to come to an understanding of Alignment disagreeing here about what they mean. I'm assuming no one is lying about their opinion just to make a point. This is evidence supporting my statement that The Nine are so vague that even veterans can't agree on what they mean.
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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!
Of course, this runs into the problem of "My god requires me to sacrifice babies, and I'm just following the dictates of my god, so I'm LN", but RAW... it's correct.
Similar to previous questions, I don't think there's a "wrong" alignment for this concept. (Personally, I don't think there's a "right" alignment.) Were I to continue to flesh out the character, I'd add more information that could probably further inform people's guesses as to what alignment the character would have, but (were I playing the character) I would not care one whit what alignment other people chose for me, nor would I chose one for myself, nor would I reference alignment in my head when playing, nor would I listen to a DM trying to tell me my alignment changed at some point.
The brief description contains the answers I would give (one sentence per answer) to questions like “Does your character follow a specific code or defer to higher authority, act more in their whims, or fall somewhere in between?” and “Is your character more likely to put others first, put themselves first, or fall somewhere in between?” In that sense, those questions would do their job, and "alignment" would have no job left to do.
Ok so we have people who I presume are decently veteran to have had a chance to come to an understanding of Alignment disagreeing here about what they mean. I'm assuming no one is lying about their opinion just to make a point. This is evidence supporting my statement that The Nine are so vague that even veterans can't agree on what they mean.
That’s because morality itself is subjective. That doesn’t make any of us “wrong,” just of a different mind than one another when it comes to how we view things. That doesn’t make alignment useless. It just means it’s not a universal constant.
Ok so we have people who I presume are decently veteran to have had a chance to come to an understanding of Alignment disagreeing here about what they mean. I'm assuming no one is lying about their opinion just to make a point. This is evidence supporting my statement that The Nine are so vague that even veterans can't agree on what they mean.
That’s because morality itself is subjective. That doesn’t make any of us “wrong,” just of a different mind than one another when it comes to how we view things. That doesn’t make alignment useless. It just means it’s not a universal constant.
I don't think anyone is wrong here, I think the tool is vague. This does not by itself make it useless, but it is a strike against it and certainly makes it less useful.
I would argue that what use most people get out of it is supplied almost entirely from personal work rather than the tool. And that personal energy cost is another strike against the tool. There are enough cons to The Nine that I think they outweigh the pros, by quite a large margin. Maybe not useless, but there's enough anti-useful or counterproductive aspects to make it negatively useful.
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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!
If all you care about is you and yours and you hate everyone else then you’re Evil.
If you pick and choose which laws you follow you’re at best Neutral.
That's not actually what the definitions you gave say. You can hate everybody and everything and still be LG, because alignment is defined by actions. In practice most of the definitions in the PHB allow for cases that are extremely different from what our intuition says
"Lawful good (LG) creatures can be counted on to do the right thing as expected by society." So, if society says "to honor the gods, the third child of every family should be ritually sacrificed", I guess the LG character goes and does it?
"Neutral good (NG) folk do the best they can to help others according to their needs." This has fewer weird cases, though "I observe that you are hungry, so I will turn you into a cow so you can graze in the fields" appears to be legitimate.
"Chaotic good (CG) creatures act as their conscience directs, with little regard for what others expect." You aren't actually required to have a conscience, so I guess it's okay to set fire to buildings and listen to the occupants scream as long as you don't feel bad about doing it.
"Lawful neutral (LN) individuals act in accordance with law, tradition, or personal codes." runs into the same problems as LG: what it means is completely dependent on which laws you're acting in accordance with.
"Neutral (N) is the alignment of those who prefer to steer clear of moral questions and don’t take sides, doing what seems best at the time." means "you can do whatever you want as long as you don't think about the moral implications".
"Chaotic neutral (CN) creatures follow their whims, holding their personal freedom above all else." means "You can do whatever you want".
"Lawful evil (LE) creatures methodically take what they want, within the limits of a code of tradition, loyalty, or order." has the odd problem of being underinclusive, as someone who tortures people to death because that's what the law says to do, rather than based on personal desire, doesn't qualify.
"Neutral evil (NE) is the alignment of those who do whatever they can get away with, without compassion or qualms." has the opposite problem of CG: it doesn't actually require you to want anything bad.
"Chaotic evil (CE) creatures act with arbitrary violence, spurred by their greed, hatred, or bloodlust." doesn't actually have any chaotic elements and overlaps with a lot of other alignments, though at least it does usually produce something that seems evil.
I know it's because of tradition and nostalgia. I just personally consider those to be two of the most insidiously poisonous words in the English language. Nobody thinks about Traditions, or Nostalgia. They short circuit people's brains and bypass all forms of critical thought, and nobody's immune to it. Any time you defend something by saying "that's just the way it's always been", it's a sign you desperately need to stop, sit down, and engage the grey matter on the issue. Tradition has its place, but never at the expense of critical thought.
Alignment alone doesn't tend to fully flesh out a character, but for some people it can be a useful tool. Especially if you're sticking to the actual definitions of the alignments in the 5E phb and not going off what you 'think' an alignment means based off of the words involved.
I personally don't really use it, but I can see how it's helpful for others. And now that the mechanical aspect of it has been stripped away in 5E, I see no harm in keeping it for individual pcs. It's really not doing any harm there, specifically talking about players giving their character their own alignment. Not talking about race alignment etc.
Character building is a creative endeavor and there's not going to be a one size fits all method that clicks with everyone. If it helps a good amount of people, then that's good enough to keep it in for individual PCs as far as I'm concerned. If it helps some people as a starting point to then extrapolate outwards and flesh the character out more, great. If someone just wants a simple character and let the alignment dictate their actions, if that's what they enjoy then great. If a DM finds it useful to quickly handle npcs or creatures they don't want to spend the time fully fleshing out, or are adding on the fly, then great why not. I'm all for removing race based alignment but when it comes to t he individual level, I don't think it does any harm, and if it helps people, then me finding it useless personally isn't really reason enough to have it removed entirely.
The way it is now, alignment is only as important or unimportant as the player makes it for their character. And that's fine.
The way I see it, it's not about other people being able to see your alignment and suddenly knowing everything about your character. It's about the player using it for their own character, along with other available tools written or unwritten. A tool to help a player RP THEIR character, not for others to be overly concerned with.
... if alignment is subjective and cannot be used as a way to define a character, why is anyone bothering?
Who says it cannot be used to define a character?
If it's subjective, then it can't be used to define a character, because then it has no real meaning. If it's objective, it's still just two words that cannot possibly define a character any more than a political compass chart can define one.
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... if alignment is subjective and cannot be used as a way to define a character, why is anyone bothering?
Who says it cannot be used to define a character?
If it's subjective, then it can't be used to define a character, because then it has no real meaning. If it's objective, it's still just two words that cannot possibly define a character any more than a political compass chart can define one.
It can help you define a character. I don't think anyone tool can define a human and all the main things that are important to them. But I think alignment, in conjunction with PTIBF can.
If you don't like alignment, you don't have to use it.
One alignment provides general details about a character. A lawful good character can be lawful good for fairly different reasons than someone with the same alignment. So therefore it's harder to pinpoint precise and specific details when given only an alignment. But that just shows the tool is flexible and that's why you use alignment in conjunction with other factors because it can't tell you everything about everything about your character on it's own. (Nothing can.)
Many PTBIF's are often precise and using them alone can often lead to you having more specific details, but not enough to use them in most situations. That's one of the places where alignment come in, especially for beginners who don't follow the argument "If I copy my alignment into one of the PTIBF's then I don't need alignment because it's too redundant."
PS-When I was responding to Yurei's "challenge" earlier, I wasn't saying that you can't use alignment to help learn/determine things about a character, I was saying that it doesn't tell you every single thing about a character completely on it's own. Just to clarify because people seem to have said that saying alignment doesn't tell you everything about a character means it must tell you nothing about them.
... if alignment is subjective and cannot be used as a way to define a character, why is anyone bothering?
Who says it cannot be used to define a character?
If it's subjective, then it can't be used to define a character, because then it has no real meaning. If it's objective, it's still just two words that cannot possibly define a character any more than a political compass chart can define one.
I would say that we're not looking for a tool with absolute objectivity or anything. It's not a problem for a tool that acts as a roleplay aid to be somewhat subjective, it's just that it shouldn't be so subjective that it cannot effectively communicate details about the character to other people. I think there is evidence in this very thread pointing at how ineffective Alignment is at communicating essential information about a character to other people.
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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!
... if alignment is subjective and cannot be used as a way to define a character, why is anyone bothering?
Who says it cannot be used to define a character?
If it's subjective, then it can't be used to define a character, because then it has no real meaning. If it's objective, it's still just two words that cannot possibly define a character any more than a political compass chart can define one.
I would say that we're not looking for a tool with absolute objectivity or anything. It's not a problem for a tool that acts as a roleplay aid to be somewhat subjective, it's just that it shouldn't be so subjective that it cannot effectively communicate details about the character to other people. I think there is evidence in this very thread pointing at how ineffective Alignment is at communicating essential information about a character to other people.
Yeah, I agree. Alignment is for the individual, not for the group. It's to help a player or DM play their characters better through how they see the alignment, by providing a groundwork for it. It's not supposed to be objective. It definitely can be, if you go by the written definitions for each alignment, but that's better for debating what alignments fictional characters would be anyways. For its use in D&D, it's not supposed to be mechanical. I agree that the last few mechanics that rely on alignment should be scrubbed, but alignment itself is just like character traits or flaws. Are they necessary? No, but people often like using them.
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Yeah, I agree. Alignment is for the individual, not for the group. It's to help a player or DM play their characters better through how they see the alignment, by providing a groundwork for it.
So you make a good point, roleplay tools are not always for external communication. Sometimes they are tools for self introspection, meant only to inspire the player's creativity, like a Rorschach test. There are definitely abstract games that do things like have the player pull a tarot card and look at the image for inspiration. D&D is not really such a game though. It's generally a game of action packed romps through a fantasy setting. I'm pretty sure The Nine were not meant to be artistic and abstract tools, but rather supposed to provide fairly clear guidelines to inform behavior and motivation for a character. I think it fails to accomplish this.
It's not supposed to be objective. It definitely can be, if you go by the written definitions for each alignment, but that's better for debating what alignments fictional characters would be anyways.
You can't say that it's not supposed to be objective and then point out that the written definitions are objective. If the authors wrote them to be objective that that's what is supposed to be. Any other ideas of what they are supposed to be outside of what they wrote is you putting your own ideas to work. Which again supports my theory that most of what people get out of The Nine is what they put into it themselves.
For its use in D&D, it's not supposed to be mechanical. I agree that the last few mechanics that rely on alignment should be scrubbed, but alignment itself is just like character traits or flaws.
Again if it wasn't "supposed" to be mechanical they wouldn't have made it mechanical. I'm here to critique the work as presented, not as it theoretically could be. It's hopeful that they seem to be moving away from hard coded alignment, but as it is its still an intrusive mechanic in parts of the game. Maybe that will change in 2024.
Are they necessary? No, but people often like using them.
We will see if tradition and nostalgia will be strong enough to keep something that I feel is a waste of word count.
The phb provides defines each alignment but also says "These brief summaries of the nine alignments describe the typical behavior of a creature with that alignment. Individuals might vary significantly from that typical behavior, and few people are perfectly and consistently faithful to the precepts of their alignment." to leave wiggle room. It's not meant to be an absolute, not meant to be the only thing to define a character
They're 'objective' in the sense that each alignment has its own definition laid out, but subjective in that creatures with alignment X do not hae to always adhere to alignment X and there is room for interpretation on how they uphold alignment X when they are. They have definitions laid out but leave room for interpretation on purpose because they are not intended to be absolutes. Just as a character won't always live up to their ideals and won't always succumb to their flaws.
The system as is, can be a useful tool for many people. In past editions, such wiggle room might be a flaw when pc alignment had mechanical implications, especially for paladins or certain spells etc. But in 5E with that all gone, it doesn't really matter anymore if the DM and player disagree on the player alignment, because outside of being an RP tool for the pc, it doesn't generally matter anymore.
It's not exactly taking up much space here either, and alignment is brief enough that it can be included in a quick reference section like this, where as ideals/flaws/bonds etc are wordier and need their own section.
I think alignment can help define a character. We can learn some details about them from their alignment. But as I explained to Yurei when she asked us to say every single thing about their character just by knowing their alignment, that's not how it works.
We can learn some details about a character based off their alignment, but some people on this thread are saying that if alignment doesn't tell you every single thing about a character, then clearly it must be useless. No tool does this: PTIBF's don't. One description of motives + methods doesn't.
You can't learn everything about a human based off of just one factor, so people please stop saying that if alignment doesn't do that, then alignment must be worthless.
The system as is, can be a useful tool for many people. In past editions, such wiggle room might be a flaw when pc alignment had mechanical implications, especially for paladins or certain spells etc. But in 5E with that all gone, it doesn't really matter anymore if the DM and player disagree on the player alignment, because outside of being an RP tool for the pc, it doesn't generally matter anymore.
It's not all gone. Robe of the Archmagi is just one magic item that is mechanically affected and Rakshasa is just one monster that is affected. There are more.
It's not exactly taking up much space here either, and alignment is brief enough that it can be included in a quick reference section like this, where as ideals/flaws/bonds etc are wordier and need their own section.
I mean fair point, but I'm talking about wasted word count in the core books. We already have the Personal Characteristics in there so it's not like we would need to add anything, just get ride of something that isn't even doing a good job at what it was designed to do.
I think alignment can help define a character. We can learn some details about them from their alignment. But as I explained to Yurei when he asked us to say every single thing about their character just by knowing their alignment, that's not how it works.
We can learn some details about a character based off their alignment, but some people on this thread are saying that if alignment doesn't tell you every single thing about a character, then clearly it must be useless. No tool does this: PTIBF's don't. One description of motives + methods doesn't.
I've been laying out all my reasoning in this thread as to why I think PIBF works well as a tool that gives sufficient guidelines to roleplay a character and why The Nine do not work very well and you haven't really been explaining yourself. Do you need me to lay out all my reasons again or do you have any sort of substantial response to them?
You can't learn everything about one human based off just one factor, so people please stop saying that if alignment doesn't do that, then alignment must be worthless.
Yeah my point had quite a bit more to it than that. Also I didn't say it was worthless, I said it is a waste of word count but you know all I'm doing is expressing my opinion and assessment of a gaming tool we've been given so if you want me to stop expressing my opinion then, all due respect 1) I don't have to, 2) I will not, and 3) stop asking.
Disagreeing with me is one thing, but telling me to stop expressing my opinion? Nope, not gonna.
It's not like I think PIBF gives every little detail about a character either, but it sure as heck gives me enough to roleplay them as compared to Alignment. Here's another example of an NPC from Radiant Citadel.
Personality Trait. “I’ve seen much and have a story for every occasion.” Ideal. “I lost most of my life to others’ corruption. I’ll risk what I have left to bring an end to it.” Bond. “San Citlán is my home, and no one will ever drive me out of my own home.” Flaw. “I don’t care who I endanger to further our cause.”
Do I know everything about this character? No, but I definitely get a strong enough feeling for them that I can hit the ground running. This character would be ... Chaotic Good, probably? But honestly that's irrelevant and something they didn't even put on the character, because the motivations and even some of the moment to moment behavior is hinted at in here. Of course everyone is going to roleplay this character differently, but there isn't going to be the kind of useless sophistry there usually is with Alignment.
And yet, I HAVE to. Because folks like Bard will tell me my character's not done, not real, until those two words are written down. And once they are? Nothing else matters. I could spend hours coming up with a perfectly concise-yet-rich backstory, perfectly blended QIBFs, a splendidly detailed HeroForge, and everything else. I could play that character to the nines, exert my all to make her engaging and rewarding to play with and DM for.
And per this thread, the only question anyone would ask is "what's her alignment?", and after forcing me to pick one of the four 'legal' alignments, everything else I've ever written disappears. Anything else I've ever done in-game disappears. Everything there ever was to that character just vanishes, on the spot, to be replaced by "[X]ish [Y] Character".
It's ******* awful, I ******* haye it, and I'll never stop hating it every single time someone insists it's the best/only way to play the game. It is no such god damned thing.
And yet, I HAVE to. Because folks like Bard will tell me my character's not done, not real, until those two words are written down. And once they are? Nothing else matters. I could spend hours coming up with a perfectly concise-yet-rich backstory, perfectly blended QIBFs, a splendidly detailed HeroForge, and everything else. I could play that character to the nines, exert my all to make her engaging and rewarding to play with and DM for.
And per this thread, the only question anyone would ask is "what's her alignment?", and after forcing me to pick one of the four 'legal' alignments, everything else I've ever written disappears. Anything else I've ever done in-game disappears. Everything there ever was to that character just vanishes, on the spot, to be replaced by "[X]ish [Y] Character".
It's ******* awful, I ******* haye it, and I'll never stop hating it every single time someone insists it's the best/only way to play the game. It is no such god damned thing.
Who here has insisted it’s the “best/only way to play the game?!?” Nobody. Everyone here who is in favor of alignment is saying that it’s just a useful quick reference.
Ok so we have people who I presume are decently veteran to have had a chance to come to an understanding of Alignment disagreeing here about what they mean. I'm assuming no one is lying about their opinion just to make a point. This is evidence supporting my statement that The Nine are so vague that even veterans can't agree on what they mean.
Canto alla vita
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ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
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The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Similar to previous questions, I don't think there's a "wrong" alignment for this concept. (Personally, I don't think there's a "right" alignment.) Were I to continue to flesh out the character, I'd add more information that could probably further inform people's guesses as to what alignment the character would have, but (were I playing the character) I would not care one whit what alignment other people chose for me, nor would I chose one for myself, nor would I reference alignment in my head when playing, nor would I listen to a DM trying to tell me my alignment changed at some point.
The brief description contains the answers I would give (one sentence per answer) to questions like “Does your character follow a specific code or defer to higher authority, act more in their whims, or fall somewhere in between?” and “Is your character more likely to put others first, put themselves first, or fall somewhere in between?” In that sense, those questions would do their job, and "alignment" would have no job left to do.
That’s because morality itself is subjective. That doesn’t make any of us “wrong,” just of a different mind than one another when it comes to how we view things. That doesn’t make alignment useless. It just means it’s not a universal constant.
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... if alignment is subjective and cannot be used as a way to define a character, why is anyone bothering?
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I don't think anyone is wrong here, I think the tool is vague. This does not by itself make it useless, but it is a strike against it and certainly makes it less useful.
I would argue that what use most people get out of it is supplied almost entirely from personal work rather than the tool. And that personal energy cost is another strike against the tool. There are enough cons to The Nine that I think they outweigh the pros, by quite a large margin. Maybe not useless, but there's enough anti-useful or counterproductive aspects to make it negatively useful.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I think it's because of tradition and nostalgia.
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!
That's not actually what the definitions you gave say. You can hate everybody and everything and still be LG, because alignment is defined by actions. In practice most of the definitions in the PHB allow for cases that are extremely different from what our intuition says
I know it's because of tradition and nostalgia. I just personally consider those to be two of the most insidiously poisonous words in the English language. Nobody thinks about Traditions, or Nostalgia. They short circuit people's brains and bypass all forms of critical thought, and nobody's immune to it. Any time you defend something by saying "that's just the way it's always been", it's a sign you desperately need to stop, sit down, and engage the grey matter on the issue. Tradition has its place, but never at the expense of critical thought.
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Who says it cannot be used to define a character?
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Alignment alone doesn't tend to fully flesh out a character, but for some people it can be a useful tool. Especially if you're sticking to the actual definitions of the alignments in the 5E phb and not going off what you 'think' an alignment means based off of the words involved.
I personally don't really use it, but I can see how it's helpful for others. And now that the mechanical aspect of it has been stripped away in 5E, I see no harm in keeping it for individual pcs. It's really not doing any harm there, specifically talking about players giving their character their own alignment. Not talking about race alignment etc.
Character building is a creative endeavor and there's not going to be a one size fits all method that clicks with everyone. If it helps a good amount of people, then that's good enough to keep it in for individual PCs as far as I'm concerned. If it helps some people as a starting point to then extrapolate outwards and flesh the character out more, great. If someone just wants a simple character and let the alignment dictate their actions, if that's what they enjoy then great. If a DM finds it useful to quickly handle npcs or creatures they don't want to spend the time fully fleshing out, or are adding on the fly, then great why not. I'm all for removing race based alignment but when it comes to t he individual level, I don't think it does any harm, and if it helps people, then me finding it useless personally isn't really reason enough to have it removed entirely.
The way it is now, alignment is only as important or unimportant as the player makes it for their character. And that's fine.
The way I see it, it's not about other people being able to see your alignment and suddenly knowing everything about your character. It's about the player using it for their own character, along with other available tools written or unwritten. A tool to help a player RP THEIR character, not for others to be overly concerned with.
If it's subjective, then it can't be used to define a character, because then it has no real meaning. If it's objective, it's still just two words that cannot possibly define a character any more than a political compass chart can define one.
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It can help you define a character. I don't think anyone tool can define a human and all the main things that are important to them. But I think alignment, in conjunction with PTIBF can.
If you don't like alignment, you don't have to use it.
One alignment provides general details about a character. A lawful good character can be lawful good for fairly different reasons than someone with the same alignment. So therefore it's harder to pinpoint precise and specific details when given only an alignment. But that just shows the tool is flexible and that's why you use alignment in conjunction with other factors because it can't tell you everything about everything about your character on it's own. (Nothing can.)
Many PTBIF's are often precise and using them alone can often lead to you having more specific details, but not enough to use them in most situations. That's one of the places where alignment come in, especially for beginners who don't follow the argument "If I copy my alignment into one of the PTIBF's then I don't need alignment because it's too redundant."
PS-When I was responding to Yurei's "challenge" earlier, I wasn't saying that you can't use alignment to help learn/determine things about a character, I was saying that it doesn't tell you every single thing about a character completely on it's own. Just to clarify because people seem to have said that saying alignment doesn't tell you everything about a character means it must tell you nothing about them.
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HERE.I would say that we're not looking for a tool with absolute objectivity or anything. It's not a problem for a tool that acts as a roleplay aid to be somewhat subjective, it's just that it shouldn't be so subjective that it cannot effectively communicate details about the character to other people. I think there is evidence in this very thread pointing at how ineffective Alignment is at communicating essential information about a character to other people.
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!
Yeah, I agree. Alignment is for the individual, not for the group. It's to help a player or DM play their characters better through how they see the alignment, by providing a groundwork for it. It's not supposed to be objective. It definitely can be, if you go by the written definitions for each alignment, but that's better for debating what alignments fictional characters would be anyways. For its use in D&D, it's not supposed to be mechanical. I agree that the last few mechanics that rely on alignment should be scrubbed, but alignment itself is just like character traits or flaws. Are they necessary? No, but people often like using them.
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So you make a good point, roleplay tools are not always for external communication. Sometimes they are tools for self introspection, meant only to inspire the player's creativity, like a Rorschach test. There are definitely abstract games that do things like have the player pull a tarot card and look at the image for inspiration. D&D is not really such a game though. It's generally a game of action packed romps through a fantasy setting. I'm pretty sure The Nine were not meant to be artistic and abstract tools, but rather supposed to provide fairly clear guidelines to inform behavior and motivation for a character. I think it fails to accomplish this.
You can't say that it's not supposed to be objective and then point out that the written definitions are objective. If the authors wrote them to be objective that that's what is supposed to be. Any other ideas of what they are supposed to be outside of what they wrote is you putting your own ideas to work. Which again supports my theory that most of what people get out of The Nine is what they put into it themselves.
Again if it wasn't "supposed" to be mechanical they wouldn't have made it mechanical. I'm here to critique the work as presented, not as it theoretically could be. It's hopeful that they seem to be moving away from hard coded alignment, but as it is its still an intrusive mechanic in parts of the game. Maybe that will change in 2024.
We will see if tradition and nostalgia will be strong enough to keep something that I feel is a waste of word count.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
The phb provides defines each alignment but also says "These brief summaries of the nine alignments describe the typical behavior of a creature with that alignment. Individuals might vary significantly from that typical behavior, and few people are perfectly and consistently faithful to the precepts of their alignment." to leave wiggle room. It's not meant to be an absolute, not meant to be the only thing to define a character
They're 'objective' in the sense that each alignment has its own definition laid out, but subjective in that creatures with alignment X do not hae to always adhere to alignment X and there is room for interpretation on how they uphold alignment X when they are. They have definitions laid out but leave room for interpretation on purpose because they are not intended to be absolutes. Just as a character won't always live up to their ideals and won't always succumb to their flaws.
The system as is, can be a useful tool for many people. In past editions, such wiggle room might be a flaw when pc alignment had mechanical implications, especially for paladins or certain spells etc. But in 5E with that all gone, it doesn't really matter anymore if the DM and player disagree on the player alignment, because outside of being an RP tool for the pc, it doesn't generally matter anymore.
https://i.imgur.com/11iikq8.png
It's not exactly taking up much space here either, and alignment is brief enough that it can be included in a quick reference section like this, where as ideals/flaws/bonds etc are wordier and need their own section.
I think alignment can help define a character. We can learn some details about them from their alignment. But as I explained to Yurei when she asked us to say every single thing about their character just by knowing their alignment, that's not how it works.
We can learn some details about a character based off their alignment, but some people on this thread are saying that if alignment doesn't tell you every single thing about a character, then clearly it must be useless. No tool does this: PTIBF's don't. One description of motives + methods doesn't.
You can't learn everything about a human based off of just one factor, so people please stop saying that if alignment doesn't do that, then alignment must be worthless.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
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HERE.It's not all gone. Robe of the Archmagi is just one magic item that is mechanically affected and Rakshasa is just one monster that is affected. There are more.
I mean fair point, but I'm talking about wasted word count in the core books. We already have the Personal Characteristics in there so it's not like we would need to add anything, just get ride of something that isn't even doing a good job at what it was designed to do.
I've been laying out all my reasoning in this thread as to why I think PIBF works well as a tool that gives sufficient guidelines to roleplay a character and why The Nine do not work very well and you haven't really been explaining yourself. Do you need me to lay out all my reasons again or do you have any sort of substantial response to them?
Yeah my point had quite a bit more to it than that. Also I didn't say it was worthless, I said it is a waste of word count but you know all I'm doing is expressing my opinion and assessment of a gaming tool we've been given so if you want me to stop expressing my opinion then, all due respect 1) I don't have to, 2) I will not, and 3) stop asking.
Disagreeing with me is one thing, but telling me to stop expressing my opinion? Nope, not gonna.
It's not like I think PIBF gives every little detail about a character either, but it sure as heck gives me enough to roleplay them as compared to Alignment. Here's another example of an NPC from Radiant Citadel.
Do I know everything about this character? No, but I definitely get a strong enough feeling for them that I can hit the ground running. This character would be ... Chaotic Good, probably? But honestly that's irrelevant and something they didn't even put on the character, because the motivations and even some of the moment to moment behavior is hinted at in here. Of course everyone is going to roleplay this character differently, but there isn't going to be the kind of useless sophistry there usually is with Alignment.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I don't want to record alignment on my sheets.
And yet, I HAVE to. Because folks like Bard will tell me my character's not done, not real, until those two words are written down. And once they are? Nothing else matters. I could spend hours coming up with a perfectly concise-yet-rich backstory, perfectly blended QIBFs, a splendidly detailed HeroForge, and everything else. I could play that character to the nines, exert my all to make her engaging and rewarding to play with and DM for.
And per this thread, the only question anyone would ask is "what's her alignment?", and after forcing me to pick one of the four 'legal' alignments, everything else I've ever written disappears. Anything else I've ever done in-game disappears. Everything there ever was to that character just vanishes, on the spot, to be replaced by "[X]ish [Y] Character".
It's ******* awful, I ******* haye it, and I'll never stop hating it every single time someone insists it's the best/only way to play the game. It is no such god damned thing.
Please do not contact or message me.
Who here has insisted it’s the “best/only way to play the game?!?” Nobody. Everyone here who is in favor of alignment is saying that it’s just a useful quick reference.
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