They are boxes, true, in that we are putting the whole spectrum of behaviour into one of nine boxes, but they are still useful. Remember that all models are wrong; what's important is whether they are useful.
As a GM, I want some sort of alignment in books. If I have a monster in a book and it says "alignment: LE" then that gives me an idea of how to play that monster. If I just have stats and no alignment then I have to make it up on the fly. Is this monster selfish, generous, conniving, social, individualistic, tradition-bound, etc?
The thing is alignment is not even useful to most GMs, and the usefulness of alignment goes competely out the window in Eberron, Exandria, and other settings, since that alignment status is only accurate for Faerun most of the time. Even if you are a die hard alignment fan in a Faerun game where it is important, you still have to deal with the fact that your fellow players and GM might not agree with you on how to interpret alignment.
I do not think anyone is calling for the elimination of alignment, but most agree that its current neglected state is more than preferable and fine. People who like it can use it, and people who do not can easily ignore it in most cases. I rather it not be in the statblock because it is just unnecessary clutter. In the cluttered text below the statblock where all the crap, flavor, and lore goes? Go wild and have at it.
They are boxes, true, in that we are putting the whole spectrum of behaviour into one of nine boxes, but they are still useful. Remember that all models are wrong; what's important is whether they are useful.
As a GM, I want some sort of alignment in books. If I have a monster in a book and it says "alignment: LE" then that gives me an idea of how to play that monster. If I just have stats and no alignment then I have to make it up on the fly. Is this monster selfish, generous, conniving, social, individualistic, tradition-bound, etc?
Sure, all models are wrong. The problem is that alignment isn't even useful. None of the traits you mention is actually forbidden to any alignment, though they're somewhat more likely for some alignments than others.
As a GM, I want some sort of alignment in books. If I have a monster in a book and it says "alignment: LE" then that gives me an idea of how to play that monster. If I just have stats and no alignment then I have to make it up on the fly. Is this monster selfish, generous, conniving, social, individualistic, tradition-bound, etc?
Except that that doesn't tell you all that much because a Lawful Evil bureaucrat, a Lawful Evil Hobgoblin warrior, and a Lawful Evil pit fiend are all going to act significantly different in a given situation (such as being confronted by adventurers). It's not the alignment that really tells you much about a given monster's general attitude, it's the one to two paragraph description after their stat block that's supposed to do that.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Reading through this thread it seems like one of the main issues is that some people can get a lot more from a lot less then others. So to some people those two words mean absolutely nothing and to others it's an incredibly useful short hand.
I am personally of the opinion that alignment is a really handy shorthand to tell you a creatures general vibe. Of course you have to take into consideration other factors like CR and some ability scores, but if you're reason for not liking alignment is that a CR 2 and a CR 20 creature can both be neutral evil then that's just silly. There are genuine complaints and reason against it (generalising a whole race, putting players in rp boxes, not being setting agnostic, etcetera) but as someone who mostly plays in generic fantasy land I like it, it's nice and handy.
Reading through this thread it seems like one of the main issues is that some people can get a lot more from a lot less then others. So to some people those two words mean absolutely nothing and to others it's an incredibly useful short hand.
I am personally of the opinion that alignment is a really handy shorthand to tell you a creatures general vibe. Of course you have to take into consideration other factors like CR and some ability scores, but if you're reason for not liking alignment is that a CR 2 and a CR 20 creature can both be neutral evil then that's just silly. There are genuine complaints and reason against it (generalising a whole race, putting players in rp boxes, not being setting agnostic, etcetera) but as someone who mostly plays in generic fantasy land I like it, it's nice and handy.
CR has nothing to do with it. In my goblin/succubus/green hag example for instance, it's not that these are different CR creatures. It's that they share the same alignment but are very different creatures. All of them can be interesting, but getting that interesting flavor requires delving deeper into what they want and how they go about getting it, and once you know the deeper stuff that actually makes them fun and interesting, the two word alignment is just outclassed by the actual context. It has nothing to do with the difference in power and everything to do with the difference in behavior not captured by the alignment system.
1.) The axis aren't mortal constructions but more a framework of cosmic forces (it's why we have aligned planes, which actually does work or at least makes for some fun gaming). So law and chaos is not talking about tax returns and libertarians which is how lawful/chaos usually breaks down in forum discussions. It's more Integrity v Entropy. Are these cosmic moral elements essential to D&D. In terms of player character performance? Maybe not, but a lot of the higher level conflicts in the game? The alignment axis are in the DNA and I don't think you're going to see that "Ordning" (being silly) going away.
They were mortal constructions by the people that came up with them, thus mortals ought to be able to understand them. Alignment is like Zodiac signs. A lot of people think they know what they mean, and quite a few people can make pretty interesting/compelling arguments in favor of them, but that doesn't stop the system from being nonsense and harmful to more people than it helps.
2.) A lot of human behavior is often mapped by intelligent people on one axis, thinking of political science in particular. I think the error in a lot of interpretations of the alignment axis comes from folks thinking each access only has three points and your alignment identification places you in one of nine fixed positions ruling you. And if you see the alignment chart more as a series of spectrums, it's actually not a bad tool to charat a character's arcs, especially in a game that treats the four end points as elemental factors to the world.
Sure alignment was sometimes held as a prison of "thou shalts" and many D&D players finding themselves in a world where divine beings are more expressly literalized may have defaulted on alignment interpretations like they were handed down on stone tablets. But I think 5e does the best job of the editions in offering alignment as something that can be _played with_ in a game.
If anyone seriously thinks that the majority of someone's personality can be mapped to sorting them to the two axes of "Libertarian" vs "Authoritarian" and "Liberal" vs "Conservative", they're just as dumb as the people that think a character's main personality can be simplified to one of 9 alignments. People are way more complex than those simplified and ignorant systems. So, that's a bad example.
And if Alignment was held as a prison against character's, that is the fault of the system. If the system was so commonly abused and misunderstood, maybe it's the fault of the concept.
5e does the best job with alignment because it's easier than ever to ignore. WotC were smart enough to try something else and use that instead of relying on alignment.
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Reading through this thread it seems like one of the main issues is that some people can get a lot more from a lot less then others. So to some people those two words mean absolutely nothing and to others it's an incredibly useful short hand.
I am personally of the opinion that alignment is a really handy shorthand to tell you a creatures general vibe. Of course you have to take into consideration other factors like CR and some ability scores, but if you're reason for not liking alignment is that a CR 2 and a CR 20 creature can both be neutral evil then that's just silly. There are genuine complaints and reason against it (generalising a whole race, putting players in rp boxes, not being setting agnostic, etcetera) but as someone who mostly plays in generic fantasy land I like it, it's nice and handy.
CR has nothing to do with it. In my goblin/succubus/green hag example for instance, it's not that these are different CR creatures. It's that they share the same alignment but are very different creatures. All of them can be interesting, but getting that interesting flavor requires delving deeper into what they want and how they go about getting it, and once you know the deeper stuff that actually makes them fun and interesting, the two word alignment is just outclassed by the actual context. It has nothing to do with the difference in power and everything to do with the difference in behavior not captured by the alignment system.
Ok, but that's half the picture, factoring a creatures alignment, cr, ability scores, and features without looking further then there stat sheet, which you would need to run them at all, gives me at least a decent picture of how that monster functions.
For instance Goblins are very low cr neutral evil and not gifted in anything but dexterity also not very lacking, they also only really use weapons, they're the kind of enemy I'd use as either minions in a boss fight, or as an ambush maybe with some beefier boys to back them up. If players attacked their lair it'd have some basic (and probably vile) traps eg: fecal spike pit
Green hags are smarter, tougher and higher up the food chain, but their skill set is that of a trickster. so I'd have them mimic something, a crying child, a screaming woman, a dying soldier, to lure the party to them from a particular angle with a a magic trap of some kind inbetween them, or waiting under an illusion for the goody goody of the party to lend a helping hand before they pounce. Either way they put a guise up and then abandon it once no longer useful. What I'd never do is have a Green Hag approach the party, I'll always have it lure them in.
Then there's Succubi, honestly the Succubus is a bad example of this simply because they're bad villains for a random encounter table. But sometimes your party gets to your master manipulator faster then you expect, in which case I'd play the Succubus as a cocky, self assured, arrogant, and holding their action to charm whoever they think they can before going ethereal.
Once again this is a shorthand, so obviously it's not good for villains you intend to make an arc out of, but for random encounters or even just shaving off a bit of prep time it's quite handy. Also the green hag is purely from the shorthand, I've no idea what their lore is but that seems right.
I don't see what's bad about alignment. If you don't like it, you don't have to play with it. However, I think it's interesting to see how your characters actions effect their alignment, and it also, in conjunction with other features, helps you get a better sense of monsters/characters.
If I run I brief encounter, and my PC's try to deal their way out of things, I may not always have enough stuff prepared to know how the situation would work out. But as long as I have alignment, personality traits, ideals, flaws, and bonds, I can use it to help figure out the situation.
In addition, I think alignment can help create other aspects of your character, and help you get a better sense of whether your personality traits, ideals, etc, make sense with your character and how they function together.
To say that alignment forces you to shades of grey and white, or that it puts you in a box when thinking of what your character can do, doesn't make sense. If you view alignment as a tool and part of your character, that helps inform their actions, not limit them, then you will find it works a lot better than forcing your character to do something "because my alignment means I have to," or for similar reasons.
Again, if you don't like alignment, you don't have to play with it. After all, making sure everyone is having fun is the priority when playing D&D. But when I play, alignment helps me and my group have fun.
I don't see what's bad about alignment. If you don't like it, you don't have to play with it. However, I think it's interesting to see how your characters actions effect their alignment, and it also, in conjunction with other features, helps you get a better sense of monsters/characters.
If I run I brief encounter, and my PC's try to deal their way out of things, I may not always have enough stuff prepared to know how the situation would work out. But as long as I have alignment, personality traits, ideals, flaws, and bonds, I can use it to help figure out the situation.
There's a couple problems with alignment on monster writeups.
It implies that all creatures of a given type are similar. Most natural, sentient creatures should be Alignment: Any. Supernatural creatures might lack free will or have traits that force particular alignments (for example, a lot of undead are dependent on serial murder to survive, which puts them pretty consistently in the Evil camp, though Law vs Chaos seems like a tossup).
If I'm given an adequate description of a creature's motivations and tactics, I don't really need its alignment.
If I'm designing a creature, assigning an alignment is a big hassle. Is the merchant who sells short weight in his shop but also feeds orphans good, evil, or neutral, and does anyone care? Is the alderman who came up with the brilliant idea of using gelatinous cubes to keep the streets clean and figures that some beggars being swept up and digested is the price of progress lawful, chaotic, or neither, and again, does anyone care?
Reading through this thread it seems like one of the main issues is that some people can get a lot more from a lot less then others. So to some people those two words mean absolutely nothing and to others it's an incredibly useful short hand.
I am personally of the opinion that alignment is a really handy shorthand to tell you a creatures general vibe. Of course you have to take into consideration other factors like CR and some ability scores, but if you're reason for not liking alignment is that a CR 2 and a CR 20 creature can both be neutral evil then that's just silly. There are genuine complaints and reason against it (generalising a whole race, putting players in rp boxes, not being setting agnostic, etcetera) but as someone who mostly plays in generic fantasy land I like it, it's nice and handy.
CR has nothing to do with it. In my goblin/succubus/green hag example for instance, it's not that these are different CR creatures. It's that they share the same alignment but are very different creatures. All of them can be interesting, but getting that interesting flavor requires delving deeper into what they want and how they go about getting it, and once you know the deeper stuff that actually makes them fun and interesting, the two word alignment is just outclassed by the actual context. It has nothing to do with the difference in power and everything to do with the difference in behavior not captured by the alignment system.
Ok, but that's half the picture, factoring a creatures alignment, cr, ability scores, and features without looking further then there stat sheet, which you would need to run them at all, gives me at least a decent picture of how that monster functions.
For instance Goblins are very low cr neutral evil and not gifted in anything but dexterity also not very lacking, they also only really use weapons, they're the kind of enemy I'd use as either minions in a boss fight, or as an ambush maybe with some beefier boys to back them up. If players attacked their lair it'd have some basic (and probably vile) traps eg: fecal spike pit
Green hags are smarter, tougher and higher up the food chain, but their skill set is that of a trickster. so I'd have them mimic something, a crying child, a screaming woman, a dying soldier, to lure the party to them from a particular angle with a a magic trap of some kind inbetween them, or waiting under an illusion for the goody goody of the party to lend a helping hand before they pounce. Either way they put a guise up and then abandon it once no longer useful. What I'd never do is have a Green Hag approach the party, I'll always have it lure them in.
Then there's Succubi, honestly the Succubus is a bad example of this simply because they're bad villains for a random encounter table. But sometimes your party gets to your master manipulator faster then you expect, in which case I'd play the Succubus as a cocky, self assured, arrogant, and holding their action to charm whoever they think they can before going ethereal.
Once again this is a shorthand, so obviously it's not good for villains you intend to make an arc out of, but for random encounters or even just shaving off a bit of prep time it's quite handy. Also the green hag is purely from the shorthand, I've no idea what their lore is but that seems right.
I"m a bit confused here because you seem to be agreeing with my point, that these are all creatures that would be run very differently. And yes, that's most of my point. They are very very different yet share the same alignment, ie their alignment tells me nothing useful about the specifics of how to use them, and once I delve in deeper to get those details on how they generally act, the alignment is superseded by the more detailed flavor and abilities.
If you just need quick filler for a fight without time to research the enemies you're throwing in, you don't really need alignment for that either. Just throw in whatever makes sense for the area your party is in. If you're just throwing in something quick for the party to fight as a random obstacle does their alignment really even matter at that point if you are doing it on the fly without time to delve into the creature's behavior etc? Just throw in whatever feels appropriate for the area and have them attack the party at that point.
For example, one time the party was escorting some refugees from an attacked town through a dark forest to a safer city. And I had a pack of werewolves attack, not because they're chaotic evil, but because it seemed like a fun and appropriate threat for a dark forest in the middle of the night.
I think the argument is "if it's not in the stat block I don't want to read it and hate having to care about it". Alignment, traditionally, is in the stat block; the few paragraphs of descriptive text for the critter generally is not. Whether or not you think a DM should never have to look beyond the basic stat block for any creature for their session prep is up to you I guess, but that seems to be what Zadron is speaking to - he looks at the stat block and uses alignments and an impression of what the stats/abilities are Good For to figure out the creature, whilst disregarding anything else.
Not an approach I'd endorse, but if it works for someone who cares if Internet randos endorse it.
In my line of work, I do a lot with psychological testing (the real kind, not the popular pseudo-science of things like Myers-Briggs). These tests are extremely useful tools for gauging an individual’s mental and emotional health, capacity, etc. but only if used alongside a battery of other tests and direct observation of the subject. You cannot just give an individual the MMPI and call it a day - you need to look at the testing in light of other factors. A lot of the times, these tests are less about finding answers, but more about giving the evaluator a jumping off point for other observation or treatment (i.e. “the test indicated they have narcissistic tendencies, let me look and see how those might actually manifest in a tangible way.”)
I see alignment as much the same way - it is one type of test in the in-game psychological evaluation of a character’s personality that provides some useful information, but information that is only useful in light of other data and information. It can be a helpful tool to DMs and players a jumping off point for more complex conceptualisations of identity, much as a real world test gives an evaluator a baseline to work with.
But it also becomes a problem if you treat it as the sole factor defining a character or somehow think alignment is an absolute. People - be they real or fantasy characters - are complex entities, and saying any facet of a personality can be codified in a single test or other metric simply ignores the multifaceted reality of realistic complex identity.
I don't see what's bad about alignment. If you don't like it, you don't have to play with it. However, I think it's interesting to see how your characters actions effect their alignment, and it also, in conjunction with other features, helps you get a better sense of monsters/characters.
If I run I brief encounter, and my PC's try to deal their way out of things, I may not always have enough stuff prepared to know how the situation would work out. But as long as I have alignment, personality traits, ideals, flaws, and bonds, I can use it to help figure out the situation.
There's a couple problems with alignment on monster writeups.
It implies that all creatures of a given type are similar. Most natural, sentient creatures should be Alignment: Any. Supernatural creatures might lack free will or have traits that force particular alignments (for example, a lot of undead are dependent on serial murder to survive, which puts them pretty consistently in the Evil camp, though Law vs Chaos seems like a tossup).
If I'm given an adequate description of a creature's motivations and tactics, I don't really need its alignment.
If I'm designing a creature, assigning an alignment is a big hassle. Is the merchant who sells short weight in his shop but also feeds orphans good, evil, or neutral, and does anyone care? Is the alderman who came up with the brilliant idea of using gelatinous cubes to keep the streets clean and figures that some beggars being swept up and digested is the price of progress lawful, chaotic, or neither, and again, does anyone care?
Alignment is something that helps people, along with other factors, predict how monsters and characters will act. If you find alignment doesn't help you with that and just confuses you, you don't have to use it. But for DM's and players like me, alignment is an aspect of your character/monster that helps inform their decisions, and helps you play them.
1. No it doesn't. Again, alignment works in conjunction with other features. Just because someone has one alignment, doesn't imply they'll always act in one way. Alignment is a tool, if you don't need that tool than you can use other ones.
With creatures that have their alignment forced upon them, just make a note about that in parens or in the description, whichever you like better. It's just one or two more sentences to write.
2. You don't need it, but with alignment and the other factors I mentioned, you don't need that full description either. In addition, alignment could help you get a better sense of the monster along with the description, etc. If it confuses you as a DM, you can always just ignore alignment anyway.
3. In most situations, alignment helps. Since nothing is black and white, there are situations where it will be tricky to assign alignment. If you feel like alignment would be too much of an oversimplification, even in conjunction with other factors, then you don't have to do it for that one monster or characters alignment.
Also, you can make an alignment and later just change it in play if you feel that the creature's alignment becomes something you didn't envision when creating it.
Another thing you could do in this situation is assign an alignment and try to go off that (and the other motivations, etc., that you assigned them). This way, alignment could be a factor in you figuring out how to play this character/monster, and if you feel that this way of helping understand that creature doesn't work for you, then as I said above, you can always change or get rid of it.
Alignment is not supposed to constrain your character, it's supposed to help you play them. If it's not doing that, then their's not really any reason to use it.
The problem is that alignment is a Rorschach test. Ask four gamers what it means to be Lawful Good and you'll likely get five opinions. And the powers help you if you ask about Chaotic Neutral or any of the evil alignments.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
1. No it doesn't. Again, alignment works in conjunction with other features. Just because someone has one alignment, doesn't imply they'll always act in one way.
It implies that they'll act in a way that corresponds to their alignment. It should not be possible to determine the alignment of a freewilled sentient creature based on the type of creature it is (though it may be possible based on occupation).
The problem is that alignment is a Rorschach test. Ask four gamers what it means to be Lawful Good and you'll likely get five opinions. And the powers help you if you ask about Chaotic Neutral or any of the evil alignments.
I agree with this--as your post says "alignment is a controversial test that still remains a useful tool in one's evaluative arsenal, but which should only be considered in light of other factors. Its biggest problem, however, besides being of limited utility in a vacuum, is proliferation of perceived 'right' answers that can bias the testing result."
1. No it doesn't. Again, alignment works in conjunction with other features. Just because someone has one alignment, doesn't imply they'll always act in one way.
It implies that they'll act in a way that corresponds to their alignment. It should not be possible to determine the alignment of a free-willed sentient creature based on the type of creature it is (though it may be possible based on occupation).
Good people have bad days. Evil people do the right thing for all sorts of reasons.
In order for the 2nd sentence to be relevant, you have to prove that free will exists. I'll wait...
Good people have bad days. Evil people do the right thing for all sorts of reasons.
In order for the 2nd sentence to be relevant, you have to prove that free will exists. I'll wait...
It doesn't matter whether free will exists in the real world, just whether it exists in game. And the default is that creatures have free will unless they have a trait that says otherwise (most common for constructs and nearly mindless undead; for example, zombies are "devoid of thought and imagination").
The problem is that alignment is a Rorschach test. Ask four gamers what it means to be Lawful Good and you'll likely get five opinions. And the powers help you if you ask about Chaotic Neutral or any of the evil alignments.
That's fine. Ask four people to describe a red car and you'll likely get five opinions, because a Mustang, a Ferrari, a Accord, a Pinto, & a Tesla are all cars that can be red. You can get only so detailed when describing roughly 11% of all beings.
1. No it doesn't. Again, alignment works in conjunction with other features. Just because someone has one alignment, doesn't imply they'll always act in one way.
It implies that they'll act in a way that corresponds to their alignment. It should not be possible to determine the alignment of a freewilled sentient creature based on the type of creature it is (though it may be possible based on occupation).
It only implies that if you believe it does. People's alignments, personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws (usually) are all based off how a creature has acted in the past. Due to that, you can use a combination of them to predict how they'll act in the future.
As I said, alignment is one factor in determining a creature's actions. Using any of the factors alignment works with on its own, such a bond, isn't enough to predict one creature's actions, but using a bond with all those other things, you can. Alignment implies a few things, but it does not imply that they'll act only corresponding to their alignment. As I said, it implies that they'll act based off a combination of many factors, alignment being only one of them.
Also, you were responding to my response to your point 1 and brought your previous point 3 up again in the second sentence of your post. If you look further down in that original post you'll see four paragraphs of a response and various solutions to that.
The thing is alignment is not even useful to most GMs, and the usefulness of alignment goes competely out the window in Eberron, Exandria, and other settings, since that alignment status is only accurate for Faerun most of the time. Even if you are a die hard alignment fan in a Faerun game where it is important, you still have to deal with the fact that your fellow players and GM might not agree with you on how to interpret alignment.
I do not think anyone is calling for the elimination of alignment, but most agree that its current neglected state is more than preferable and fine. People who like it can use it, and people who do not can easily ignore it in most cases. I rather it not be in the statblock because it is just unnecessary clutter. In the cluttered text below the statblock where all the crap, flavor, and lore goes? Go wild and have at it.
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Sure, all models are wrong. The problem is that alignment isn't even useful. None of the traits you mention is actually forbidden to any alignment, though they're somewhat more likely for some alignments than others.
Except that that doesn't tell you all that much because a Lawful Evil bureaucrat, a Lawful Evil Hobgoblin warrior, and a Lawful Evil pit fiend are all going to act significantly different in a given situation (such as being confronted by adventurers). It's not the alignment that really tells you much about a given monster's general attitude, it's the one to two paragraph description after their stat block that's supposed to do that.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Reading through this thread it seems like one of the main issues is that some people can get a lot more from a lot less then others. So to some people those two words mean absolutely nothing and to others it's an incredibly useful short hand.
I am personally of the opinion that alignment is a really handy shorthand to tell you a creatures general vibe. Of course you have to take into consideration other factors like CR and some ability scores, but if you're reason for not liking alignment is that a CR 2 and a CR 20 creature can both be neutral evil then that's just silly. There are genuine complaints and reason against it (generalising a whole race, putting players in rp boxes, not being setting agnostic, etcetera) but as someone who mostly plays in generic fantasy land I like it, it's nice and handy.
CR has nothing to do with it. In my goblin/succubus/green hag example for instance, it's not that these are different CR creatures. It's that they share the same alignment but are very different creatures. All of them can be interesting, but getting that interesting flavor requires delving deeper into what they want and how they go about getting it, and once you know the deeper stuff that actually makes them fun and interesting, the two word alignment is just outclassed by the actual context. It has nothing to do with the difference in power and everything to do with the difference in behavior not captured by the alignment system.
They were mortal constructions by the people that came up with them, thus mortals ought to be able to understand them. Alignment is like Zodiac signs. A lot of people think they know what they mean, and quite a few people can make pretty interesting/compelling arguments in favor of them, but that doesn't stop the system from being nonsense and harmful to more people than it helps.
If anyone seriously thinks that the majority of someone's personality can be mapped to sorting them to the two axes of "Libertarian" vs "Authoritarian" and "Liberal" vs "Conservative", they're just as dumb as the people that think a character's main personality can be simplified to one of 9 alignments. People are way more complex than those simplified and ignorant systems. So, that's a bad example.
And if Alignment was held as a prison against character's, that is the fault of the system. If the system was so commonly abused and misunderstood, maybe it's the fault of the concept.
5e does the best job with alignment because it's easier than ever to ignore. WotC were smart enough to try something else and use that instead of relying on alignment.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Ok, but that's half the picture, factoring a creatures alignment, cr, ability scores, and features without looking further then there stat sheet, which you would need to run them at all, gives me at least a decent picture of how that monster functions.
For instance Goblins are very low cr neutral evil and not gifted in anything but dexterity also not very lacking, they also only really use weapons, they're the kind of enemy I'd use as either minions in a boss fight, or as an ambush maybe with some beefier boys to back them up. If players attacked their lair it'd have some basic (and probably vile) traps eg: fecal spike pit
Green hags are smarter, tougher and higher up the food chain, but their skill set is that of a trickster. so I'd have them mimic something, a crying child, a screaming woman, a dying soldier, to lure the party to them from a particular angle with a a magic trap of some kind inbetween them, or waiting under an illusion for the goody goody of the party to lend a helping hand before they pounce. Either way they put a guise up and then abandon it once no longer useful. What I'd never do is have a Green Hag approach the party, I'll always have it lure them in.
Then there's Succubi, honestly the Succubus is a bad example of this simply because they're bad villains for a random encounter table. But sometimes your party gets to your master manipulator faster then you expect, in which case I'd play the Succubus as a cocky, self assured, arrogant, and holding their action to charm whoever they think they can before going ethereal.
Once again this is a shorthand, so obviously it's not good for villains you intend to make an arc out of, but for random encounters or even just shaving off a bit of prep time it's quite handy. Also the green hag is purely from the shorthand, I've no idea what their lore is but that seems right.
I don't see what's bad about alignment. If you don't like it, you don't have to play with it. However, I think it's interesting to see how your characters actions effect their alignment, and it also, in conjunction with other features, helps you get a better sense of monsters/characters.
If I run I brief encounter, and my PC's try to deal their way out of things, I may not always have enough stuff prepared to know how the situation would work out. But as long as I have alignment, personality traits, ideals, flaws, and bonds, I can use it to help figure out the situation.
In addition, I think alignment can help create other aspects of your character, and help you get a better sense of whether your personality traits, ideals, etc, make sense with your character and how they function together.
To say that alignment forces you to shades of grey and white, or that it puts you in a box when thinking of what your character can do, doesn't make sense. If you view alignment as a tool and part of your character, that helps inform their actions, not limit them, then you will find it works a lot better than forcing your character to do something "because my alignment means I have to," or for similar reasons.
Again, if you don't like alignment, you don't have to play with it. After all, making sure everyone is having fun is the priority when playing D&D. But when I play, alignment helps me and my group have fun.
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HERE.There's a couple problems with alignment on monster writeups.
I"m a bit confused here because you seem to be agreeing with my point, that these are all creatures that would be run very differently. And yes, that's most of my point. They are very very different yet share the same alignment, ie their alignment tells me nothing useful about the specifics of how to use them, and once I delve in deeper to get those details on how they generally act, the alignment is superseded by the more detailed flavor and abilities.
If you just need quick filler for a fight without time to research the enemies you're throwing in, you don't really need alignment for that either. Just throw in whatever makes sense for the area your party is in. If you're just throwing in something quick for the party to fight as a random obstacle does their alignment really even matter at that point if you are doing it on the fly without time to delve into the creature's behavior etc? Just throw in whatever feels appropriate for the area and have them attack the party at that point.
For example, one time the party was escorting some refugees from an attacked town through a dark forest to a safer city. And I had a pack of werewolves attack, not because they're chaotic evil, but because it seemed like a fun and appropriate threat for a dark forest in the middle of the night.
I think the argument is "if it's not in the stat block I don't want to read it and hate having to care about it". Alignment, traditionally, is in the stat block; the few paragraphs of descriptive text for the critter generally is not. Whether or not you think a DM should never have to look beyond the basic stat block for any creature for their session prep is up to you I guess, but that seems to be what Zadron is speaking to - he looks at the stat block and uses alignments and an impression of what the stats/abilities are Good For to figure out the creature, whilst disregarding anything else.
Not an approach I'd endorse, but if it works for someone who cares if Internet randos endorse it.
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In my line of work, I do a lot with psychological testing (the real kind, not the popular pseudo-science of things like Myers-Briggs). These tests are extremely useful tools for gauging an individual’s mental and emotional health, capacity, etc. but only if used alongside a battery of other tests and direct observation of the subject. You cannot just give an individual the MMPI and call it a day - you need to look at the testing in light of other factors. A lot of the times, these tests are less about finding answers, but more about giving the evaluator a jumping off point for other observation or treatment (i.e. “the test indicated they have narcissistic tendencies, let me look and see how those might actually manifest in a tangible way.”)
I see alignment as much the same way - it is one type of test in the in-game psychological evaluation of a character’s personality that provides some useful information, but information that is only useful in light of other data and information. It can be a helpful tool to DMs and players a jumping off point for more complex conceptualisations of identity, much as a real world test gives an evaluator a baseline to work with.
But it also becomes a problem if you treat it as the sole factor defining a character or somehow think alignment is an absolute. People - be they real or fantasy characters - are complex entities, and saying any facet of a personality can be codified in a single test or other metric simply ignores the multifaceted reality of realistic complex identity.
Alignment is something that helps people, along with other factors, predict how monsters and characters will act. If you find alignment doesn't help you with that and just confuses you, you don't have to use it. But for DM's and players like me, alignment is an aspect of your character/monster that helps inform their decisions, and helps you play them.
1. No it doesn't. Again, alignment works in conjunction with other features. Just because someone has one alignment, doesn't imply they'll always act in one way. Alignment is a tool, if you don't need that tool than you can use other ones.
With creatures that have their alignment forced upon them, just make a note about that in parens or in the description, whichever you like better. It's just one or two more sentences to write.
2. You don't need it, but with alignment and the other factors I mentioned, you don't need that full description either. In addition, alignment could help you get a better sense of the monster along with the description, etc. If it confuses you as a DM, you can always just ignore alignment anyway.
3. In most situations, alignment helps. Since nothing is black and white, there are situations where it will be tricky to assign alignment. If you feel like alignment would be too much of an oversimplification, even in conjunction with other factors, then you don't have to do it for that one monster or characters alignment.
Also, you can make an alignment and later just change it in play if you feel that the creature's alignment becomes something you didn't envision when creating it.
Another thing you could do in this situation is assign an alignment and try to go off that (and the other motivations, etc., that you assigned them). This way, alignment could be a factor in you figuring out how to play this character/monster, and if you feel that this way of helping understand that creature doesn't work for you, then as I said above, you can always change or get rid of it.
Alignment is not supposed to constrain your character, it's supposed to help you play them. If it's not doing that, then their's not really any reason to use it.
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HERE.The problem is that alignment is a Rorschach test. Ask four gamers what it means to be Lawful Good and you'll likely get five opinions. And the powers help you if you ask about Chaotic Neutral or any of the evil alignments.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
It implies that they'll act in a way that corresponds to their alignment. It should not be possible to determine the alignment of a freewilled sentient creature based on the type of creature it is (though it may be possible based on occupation).
I agree with this--as your post says "alignment is a controversial test that still remains a useful tool in one's evaluative arsenal, but which should only be considered in light of other factors. Its biggest problem, however, besides being of limited utility in a vacuum, is proliferation of perceived 'right' answers that can bias the testing result."
Good people have bad days. Evil people do the right thing for all sorts of reasons.
In order for the 2nd sentence to be relevant, you have to prove that free will exists. I'll wait...
It doesn't matter whether free will exists in the real world, just whether it exists in game. And the default is that creatures have free will unless they have a trait that says otherwise (most common for constructs and nearly mindless undead; for example, zombies are "devoid of thought and imagination").
That's fine. Ask four people to describe a red car and you'll likely get five opinions, because a Mustang, a Ferrari, a Accord, a Pinto, & a Tesla are all cars that can be red. You can get only so detailed when describing roughly 11% of all beings.
It only implies that if you believe it does. People's alignments, personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws (usually) are all based off how a creature has acted in the past. Due to that, you can use a combination of them to predict how they'll act in the future.
As I said, alignment is one factor in determining a creature's actions. Using any of the factors alignment works with on its own, such a bond, isn't enough to predict one creature's actions, but using a bond with all those other things, you can. Alignment implies a few things, but it does not imply that they'll act only corresponding to their alignment. As I said, it implies that they'll act based off a combination of many factors, alignment being only one of them.
Also, you were responding to my response to your point 1 and brought your previous point 3 up again in the second sentence of your post. If you look further down in that original post you'll see four paragraphs of a response and various solutions to that.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
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Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.