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.
And driving a Maserati is significantly different from driving a Yugo. You can't expect them to perform the same just because they're painted the same color. And cars have significantly less diversity than "sentient beings of the same alignment."
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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).
It only implies that if you believe it does.
If it doesn't imply that, it shouldn't be listed on the monster writeup because it doesn't mean anything.
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.
If it doesn't imply that, it shouldn't be listed on the monster writeup because it doesn't mean anything.
That's not how it works. Creatures are influenced by their nature, but their actions are not dictated by it. The alignment system...the flaws/bonds/ideals/personality system...none of them dictate how a character must act, because nothing does that in real life. They influence how a character deals with a situation, can be used to help predict things...but anyone (owven thing) can be surprising and act contrary to their usual nature/personality. There isn't a dichotomy of "perfectly predicts and mandates a creature's behaviour" and "absolutely useless" with nothing in between.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
That's not how it works. Creatures are influenced by their nature, but their actions are not dictated by it. The alignment system...the flaws/bonds/ideals/personality system...none of them dictate how a character must act, because nothing does that in real life.
They indicate typical behavior, whether or not they require that behavior. The core problem is that listing an alignment for creatures is unproductive if a majority of creatures of that type are not of that alignment, and that's the expected state of affairs for sentient creatures (non-sentient creatures often have Alignment: Hungry).
So your argument now is there is no such thing as typical behaviour? Not every member will have a certain alignment, but they'll have their trends. I noticed it travelling between Switzerland and Italy every day. All Italian speaking, Ticino even used to be Italian territory...but even they joked about the differences...like how a train would leave Lugano (Switzerland) precisely on time and as it crossed the border would magically become late, and vice versa with late trains becoming on time. While not every Swiss would be lawful and not every Italian would be chaotic, there was definitely a bent towards each respectively...despite their similarities.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
So your argument now is there is no such thing as typical behaviour?
Not to a sufficient degree to justify listing alignment. Your examples are (a) cultural, and (b) too inaccurate to be useful even there.
a paragraph doesn't tell me the hopes and dreams of every individual or the differences between the the genders, the stages of maturation as well their key characteristics. how am I supposed to know the hearts and minds of every individual with a couple of sentences? ....its a game its made up, its make believe the text is there to add some flavor. so that the DM can easily throw mountains of fodder at the players to divvy out EXP the only thing that really matters is HP, Armor class, to hit, and damage. four numbers.....and humans are very predictable, else we wouldn't have magicians
If all you want is disposable cannon fodder with no depth, no nuance, no desires and no goals beyond "attack party until it or we are dead", you don't need alignment.
If what you want is to run the given creature true to its specific nature, with depth and nuance, with goals and fears and a desire to survive to see those goals satisfied? You don't need alignment. You need a description of the creature's basic nature and the time/improv skill to flesh out the individual creature from there.
At no point does someone need alignment. Some people want it because they want it. Very well. But it is not necessary, for many of us it is not helpful, and for some of that many it is actively an annoyance. If you've ever said to a DM "ummm, actually cambions are lawful evil, they would never betray their word to the party. This doesn't make sense for a cambion", then you are specifically why nobody wants to play with alignment anymore.
If all you want is disposable cannon fodder with no depth, no nuance, no desires and no goals beyond "attack party until it or we are dead", you don't need alignment.
If what you want is to run the given creature true to its specific nature, with depth and nuance, with goals and fears and a desire to survive to see those goals satisfied? You don't need alignment. You need a description of the creature's basic nature and the time/improv skill to flesh out the individual creature from there.
At no point does someone need alignment. Some people want it because they want it. Very well. But it is not necessary, for many of us it is not helpful, and for some of that many it is actively an annoyance. If you've ever said to a DM "ummm, actually cambions are lawful evil, they would never betray their word to the party. This doesn't make sense for a cambion", then you are specifically why nobody wants to play with alignment anymore.
Too many DM's like me, alignment is helpful. If you go with just a basic description, it's not exactly a very well designed and fleshed out character. If you find that you can make interesting, consistent, and imaginative characters with only a small description, then that's great for you.
However, not everyone can use a list of a creature's "basic nature," to create a character like that. Using alignment, personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws can help with that. This way, you have a good idea of how they'll act and behave in various situations, and their goals and what they're aiming for.
If you can invent that all on the fly and not have to flesh any of that out, then you don't need alignment. But if someone can’t create a perfect character who you know how they will act in various situations on the fly and who feels like a real, complicated human, then alignment and the other things I mentioned can significantly help you to do that better.
However, not everyone can use a list of a creature's "basic nature," to create a character like that. Using alignment, personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws can help with that. This way, you have a good idea of how they'll act and behave in various situations, and their goals and what they're aiming for.
I think the point was that with personality, flaw, ideals, and bonds alignment is unnecessary.
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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!
However, not everyone can use a list of a creature's "basic nature," to create a character like that. Using alignment, personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws can help with that. This way, you have a good idea of how they'll act and behave in various situations, and their goals and what they're aiming for.
I think the point was that with personality, flaw, ideals, and bonds alignment is unnecessary.
But I don't really see how it is. If someone can write a few things about a characters basic nature and improv the rest, then that is not the amount of preparation a lot of DM's need.
To make a compelling, consistent, and 3d character, I think it requires a bit more than just a few details about that characters basic nature. And I'd argue that for characters that do show up a lot or could potentially play an important role in the plot, alignment, personality traits, ideals, bonds and flaws are probably necessary to make them a good and compelling character.
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There's a bit of a difference IMO between using alignment for player characters, and using it on monster stat blocks.
For a PC, I could see it being useful for character building if you don't have a more fleshed out character ready, though I think the ideals/bonds/flaws system is better than alignment for this. I don't get any use out of alignment for character building but I can see how it could help others.
In monster stat blocks, the information is more there to determine how this type of creature acts, mostly for combat purposes. Unless you're using a creature as a recurring big bad type or something, this information is usually for one and done encounters, and it's less about fleshing them out as individual creatures and a more general 'how do these things act.' This is where I have a harder time seeing the value because creatures of the same alignment can act vastly differently in value.
Personality, Flaw, Ideals, and Bonds tells me so much more specific information than alignment that they cover everything I would ever need from alignment anyway and do a better job, making alignment irrelevant. Personality gives me mannerisms and how to roleplay them in the moment, Flaw gives me a hook to draw or pull the character into a story, Ideals tells me their motivations and is probably the one that most closely resembles alignment and yet does a better job, while Bonds tells me the connections the character has with the world and their place in it.
I don't need alignment with all those details.
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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!
There's a bit of a difference IMO between using alignment for player characters, and using it on monster stat blocks.
For a PC, I could see it being useful for character building if you don't have a more fleshed out character ready, though I think the ideals/bonds/flaws system is better than alignment for this. I don't get any use out of alignment for character building but I can see how it could help others.
In monster stat blocks, the information is more there to determine how this type of creature acts, mostly for combat purposes. Unless you're using a creature as a recurring big bad type or something, this information is usually for one and done encounters, and it's less about fleshing them out as individual creatures and a more general 'how do these things act.' This is where I have a harder time seeing the value because creatures of the same alignment can act vastly differently in value.
That's true, I suppose for monster statblocks I can use alignment as a starting point for really quick decisions.
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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!
There's a bit of a difference IMO between using alignment for player characters, and using it on monster stat blocks.
For a PC, I could see it being useful for character building if you don't have a more fleshed out character ready, though I think the ideals/bonds/flaws system is better than alignment for this. I don't get any use out of alignment for character building but I can see how it could help others.
In monster stat blocks, the information is more there to determine how this type of creature acts, mostly for combat purposes. Unless you're using a creature as a recurring big bad type or something, this information is usually for one and done encounters, and it's less about fleshing them out as individual creatures and a more general 'how do these things act.' This is where I have a harder time seeing the value because creatures of the same alignment can act vastly differently in value.
I see what you mean there. A short description for a monster could probably be used to run just one encounter.
But just saying, alignment can always be used to help influence the creation of that description. Alignment could also be used in conjunction with the description to help predict how a monster will act, especially if characters try to make peace with it, but it might be a little clunky.
When compared with other means of describing personality or behavior, alignment is just 5 words: good, evil, lawful, chaotic, and neutral.
Even for simple monsters, you could just list 2 or 3 words that best describe them. Sure, sometimes some of those words will include some of the above 5, but you have the whole English language, and no reason to limit yourself. Maybe a monster is "hungry, methodical" or "territorial, fierce, honest" or "talkative, cowardly, murderous." That way, if something really is "chaotic, evil" I know what those mean, because the infinite variety of behavior has not been reduced to two crappy, low-resolution axes that I have to interpret.
When compared with other means of describing personality or behavior, alignment is just 5 words: good, evil, lawful, chaotic, and neutral.
Even for simple monsters, you could just list 2 or 3 words that best describe them. Sure, sometimes some of those words will include some of the above 5, but you have the whole English language, and no reason to limit yourself. Maybe a monster is "hungry, methodical" or "territorial, fierce, honest" or "talkative, cowardly, murderous." That way, if something really is "chaotic, evil" I know what those mean, because the infinite variety of behavior has not been reduced to two crappy, low-resolution axes that I have to interpret.
You could also just do one sentence explaining their alignment. Or just put those adjectives in the monster description.
When compared with other means of describing personality or behavior, alignment is just 5 words: good, evil, lawful, chaotic, and neutral.
Even for simple monsters, you could just list 2 or 3 words that best describe them. Sure, sometimes some of those words will include some of the above 5, but you have the whole English language, and no reason to limit yourself. Maybe a monster is "hungry, methodical" or "territorial, fierce, honest" or "talkative, cowardly, murderous." That way, if something really is "chaotic, evil" I know what those mean, because the infinite variety of behavior has not been reduced to two crappy, low-resolution axes that I have to interpret.
You could also just do one sentence explaining their alignment. Or say in the monster description why they are that way, and bring up and explain some of those other adjectives that make sense or helps explain their alignment.
What purpose would "explaining their alignment" serve, independent of just describing their behavior? If I don't think the good/evil axis is relevant to a monster, for example, why would I care about labeling them "neutral"?
Yeah, if you have to add a sentence or two explaining the alignment, why not just scrap the alignment and have the sentence explaining their behavior itself? Or the few select adjetives specific to the creature instead of picking one of nine alignments. (Or 10 if we count unaligned.) Two to five words chosen for each creature I think could paint a better picture than an alignment.
As above posters say, if you have a sentence describing the alignment, then why bother with the alignment tag, and just write the sentence? Moreover, if you need a sentence to explain the alignment, isn’t that in itself a recognition that the alignment tag isn’t giving you sufficient information?
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And driving a Maserati is significantly different from driving a Yugo. You can't expect them to perform the same just because they're painted the same color. And cars have significantly less diversity than "sentient beings of the same alignment."
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.
If it doesn't imply that, it shouldn't be listed on the monster writeup because it doesn't mean anything.
That's not how it works. Creatures are influenced by their nature, but their actions are not dictated by it. The alignment system...the flaws/bonds/ideals/personality system...none of them dictate how a character must act, because nothing does that in real life. They influence how a character deals with a situation, can be used to help predict things...but anyone (owven thing) can be surprising and act contrary to their usual nature/personality. There isn't a dichotomy of "perfectly predicts and mandates a creature's behaviour" and "absolutely useless" with nothing in between.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
They indicate typical behavior, whether or not they require that behavior. The core problem is that listing an alignment for creatures is unproductive if a majority of creatures of that type are not of that alignment, and that's the expected state of affairs for sentient creatures (non-sentient creatures often have Alignment: Hungry).
So your argument now is there is no such thing as typical behaviour? Not every member will have a certain alignment, but they'll have their trends. I noticed it travelling between Switzerland and Italy every day. All Italian speaking, Ticino even used to be Italian territory...but even they joked about the differences...like how a train would leave Lugano (Switzerland) precisely on time and as it crossed the border would magically become late, and vice versa with late trains becoming on time. While not every Swiss would be lawful and not every Italian would be chaotic, there was definitely a bent towards each respectively...despite their similarities.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Not to a sufficient degree to justify listing alignment. Your examples are (a) cultural, and (b) too inaccurate to be useful even there.
a paragraph doesn't tell me the hopes and dreams of every individual or the differences between the the genders, the stages of maturation as well their key characteristics. how am I supposed to know the hearts and minds of every individual with a couple of sentences? ....its a game its made up, its make believe the text is there to add some flavor. so that the DM can easily throw mountains of fodder at the players to divvy out EXP the only thing that really matters is HP, Armor class, to hit, and damage. four numbers.....and humans are very predictable, else we wouldn't have magicians
If all you want is disposable cannon fodder with no depth, no nuance, no desires and no goals beyond "attack party until it or we are dead", you don't need alignment.
If what you want is to run the given creature true to its specific nature, with depth and nuance, with goals and fears and a desire to survive to see those goals satisfied? You don't need alignment. You need a description of the creature's basic nature and the time/improv skill to flesh out the individual creature from there.
At no point does someone need alignment. Some people want it because they want it. Very well. But it is not necessary, for many of us it is not helpful, and for some of that many it is actively an annoyance. If you've ever said to a DM "ummm, actually cambions are lawful evil, they would never betray their word to the party. This doesn't make sense for a cambion", then you are specifically why nobody wants to play with alignment anymore.
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Too many DM's like me, alignment is helpful. If you go with just a basic description, it's not exactly a very well designed and fleshed out character. If you find that you can make interesting, consistent, and imaginative characters with only a small description, then that's great for you.
However, not everyone can use a list of a creature's "basic nature," to create a character like that. Using alignment, personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws can help with that. This way, you have a good idea of how they'll act and behave in various situations, and their goals and what they're aiming for.
If you can invent that all on the fly and not have to flesh any of that out, then you don't need alignment. But if someone can’t create a perfect character who you know how they will act in various situations on the fly and who feels like a real, complicated human, then alignment and the other things I mentioned can significantly help you to do that better.
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!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.I think the point was that with personality, flaw, ideals, and bonds alignment is unnecessary.
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!
But I don't really see how it is. If someone can write a few things about a characters basic nature and improv the rest, then that is not the amount of preparation a lot of DM's need.
To make a compelling, consistent, and 3d character, I think it requires a bit more than just a few details about that characters basic nature. And I'd argue that for characters that do show up a lot or could potentially play an important role in the plot, alignment, personality traits, ideals, bonds and flaws are probably necessary to make them a good and compelling character.
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!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.There's a bit of a difference IMO between using alignment for player characters, and using it on monster stat blocks.
For a PC, I could see it being useful for character building if you don't have a more fleshed out character ready, though I think the ideals/bonds/flaws system is better than alignment for this. I don't get any use out of alignment for character building but I can see how it could help others.
In monster stat blocks, the information is more there to determine how this type of creature acts, mostly for combat purposes. Unless you're using a creature as a recurring big bad type or something, this information is usually for one and done encounters, and it's less about fleshing them out as individual creatures and a more general 'how do these things act.' This is where I have a harder time seeing the value because creatures of the same alignment can act vastly differently in value.
Personality, Flaw, Ideals, and Bonds tells me so much more specific information than alignment that they cover everything I would ever need from alignment anyway and do a better job, making alignment irrelevant. Personality gives me mannerisms and how to roleplay them in the moment, Flaw gives me a hook to draw or pull the character into a story, Ideals tells me their motivations and is probably the one that most closely resembles alignment and yet does a better job, while Bonds tells me the connections the character has with the world and their place in it.
I don't need alignment with all those details.
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 true, I suppose for monster statblocks I can use alignment as a starting point for really quick decisions.
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 see what you mean there. A short description for a monster could probably be used to run just one encounter.
But just saying, alignment can always be used to help influence the creation of that description. Alignment could also be used in conjunction with the description to help predict how a monster will act, especially if characters try to make peace with it, but it might be a little clunky.
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!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.When compared with other means of describing personality or behavior, alignment is just 5 words: good, evil, lawful, chaotic, and neutral.
Even for simple monsters, you could just list 2 or 3 words that best describe them. Sure, sometimes some of those words will include some of the above 5, but you have the whole English language, and no reason to limit yourself. Maybe a monster is "hungry, methodical" or "territorial, fierce, honest" or "talkative, cowardly, murderous." That way, if something really is "chaotic, evil" I know what those mean, because the infinite variety of behavior has not been reduced to two crappy, low-resolution axes that I have to interpret.
You could also just do one sentence explaining their alignment. Or just put those adjectives in the monster description.
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!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.What purpose would "explaining their alignment" serve, independent of just describing their behavior? If I don't think the good/evil axis is relevant to a monster, for example, why would I care about labeling them "neutral"?
Yeah, if you have to add a sentence or two explaining the alignment, why not just scrap the alignment and have the sentence explaining their behavior itself? Or the few select adjetives specific to the creature instead of picking one of nine alignments. (Or 10 if we count unaligned.) Two to five words chosen for each creature I think could paint a better picture than an alignment.
As above posters say, if you have a sentence describing the alignment, then why bother with the alignment tag, and just write the sentence? Moreover, if you need a sentence to explain the alignment, isn’t that in itself a recognition that the alignment tag isn’t giving you sufficient information?