D&D 5E Do you care about setting "canon"?

[Elderbrain]

You're basically saying that because it costs you a minor bit of work, I can NEVER have anything that I want. Because I DON'T WANT standard D&D cosmology. I've never liked it and have always been forced to home-brew my own since my 1e days. ALWAYS. Then in 4e, I finally got a cosmology that I could work with and I liked, only to have that shut down and flushed down the toilet because you apparently can't be bothered to do any work.

We're not saying you can't or should have what you want, we're saying that you don't have the right to take away what WE want and substitute what YOU want instead. I have repeatedly outlined to you a way for you to get what you wanted without taking our stuff away, namely, follow the Ebberon model on introducing a new cosmology and new monsters in a separate book, thus giving you what you want without taking away the traditional material from those who like it. But no, you aren't happy unless your version is the ONLY one presented. Earlier, you argued that 4e players who didn't like the changes could use the material from the older books and adapt the monsters, and we are supposed to accept this, but when the tables are turned, you consider it unacceptable to have to do this yourself (using your 4e material about monsters and cosmology with the 5e rules). This seem hypocritical to me.

 

[Jer]

go far enough back and their origin involved a gnome & a troll...


... just in case anyone was harboring the misconception that this game was originally serious...

Hey, in my world gnolls are still the horrible result of some ancient magic-using culture that decided it was a smart idea to try to magically mix gnomes and trolls to try to create a slave race. Because nothing screams "advanced magic-using society" like mixing the blood of gnomes and trolls through a magical ritual and then injecting it into some helpless dog to see what happens.

Wizards of the Coast can't tell me what to do. They can give me suggestions, but I feel free to reject their suggestions as either "too dumb" or "not too dumb enough" as the whim suits me. And while their new origin for gnolls is pretty metal, it really isn't dumb enough for my table's high standards.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Tony Vargas]

Nope. In 4e, there's no such thing as "Chaotic Good", not if you go by the official (and only) alignments available to you in the books; Likewise, there is no "Lawful Evil" in 4e; if you are Lawful, you must be Lawful Good, because that is the only alignment with the word "Lawful" in it. Which is ridiculous.

New players often found the idea of 'Chaotic Good' or 'Lawful' Evil and even the various sorts of neutrality counter-intuitive or confusing. 4e simplified the presentation of alignments and made them more intuitive, but it didn't actually eliminate any of them, in fact, it expanded the options in a sense.

not if you go by the official (and only) alignments available to you in the books;

There were 5 alignment labels instead of 9, but they encompassed more possible moral/ethic systems. It was clear that Evil encompassed both LE and NE, and that 'Good' included both NG and CG, and that Unaligned worked as a catch-all for TN, CN & LN, as well as the unbelievably liberating option of chucking the whole alignment wardrobe of designer straightjackets and playing a character with complex motivations, instead.

Now, I missed the presence of Good/Evil and Law/Chaos as palpable forces built into the mechanics, but I admit, it did open up a much broader range of stories and character concepts - and, it was always possible to add back in 'team aligment' mechanics via exception-based design of items & monsters (either one off or pervasively - there were even a few small examples, like Righteous Weapons in AV1), if desired - just as it was always possible to purge them, before.

We're not saying you can't or should have what you want, we're saying that you don't have the right to take away what WE want and substitute what YOU want instead.

You can express that fear if you feel it, but there's no danger of it happening in 5e. From the moment the PH hit the stands, you had won the battle against things you didn't want that had been pointedly excluded from it. Anything appearing since, in UA, SCAG, everything that will appear in the future, will be op-in optional, and can't 'replace' anything. There's no "take away" implied.

Hey, in my world gnolls are still the horrible result of some ancient magic-using culture that decided it was a smart idea to try to magically mix gnomes and trolls to try to create a slave race.

Wizards of the Coast can't tell me what to do.

Exactly.
Even if they build some mechanical support for a given origin story into a race, it can be re-interpreted or simply removed.

 

[Shasarak]

Nope. In 4e, there's no such thing as "Chaotic Good", not if you go by the official (and only) alignments available to you in the books; If you are good-aligned, you must either be Lawful Good or just Good. If you are Chaotic, you are automatically Chaotic Evil, because that's the only alignment in 4e with the word "Chaotic" in it. Likewise, there is no "Lawful Evil" in 4e; if you are Lawful, you must be Lawful Good, because that is the only alignment with the word "Lawful" in it. Which is ridiculous.

The only thing good from the 4e "alignment" debacle was the addition of Unaligned.

 

[pemerton]

In 4e, there's no such thing as "Chaotic Good"

There's no CG alignment. That doesn't mean that there can't be good beings who think that individual self-realisation, rather than collective action, is the best path to happiness and well-being!

EDIGT: I saw that Tony Vargas made the same point, but more pithily:

It's ridiculous to think morality & ethics exist only in labels.

 

[cbwjm]

The only thing good from the 4e "alignment" debacle was the addition of Unaligned.

I actually quite liked the simplification of alignment in 4e. Of course, now there are few, if any, items that really interact with alignment that it hardly seems worth keeping it in the game.

Sent from my SM-G925I using EN World mobile app

 

[Shasarak]

I actually quite liked the simplification of alignment in 4e. Of course, now there are few, if any, items that really interact with alignment that it hardly seems worth keeping it in the game.

Sent from my SM-G925I using EN World mobile app

There are plenty of games that dont have alignment so I imagine that you can run DnD without alignment.

 

[Imaro]

New players often found the idea of 'Chaotic Good' or 'Lawful' Evil and even the various sorts of neutrality counter-intuitive or confusing. 4e simplified the presentation of alignments and made them more intuitive, but it didn't actually eliminate any of them, in fact, it expanded the options in a sense.

Read the 5 alignments that were available and it's clear that Evil was LE (and NE), and that 'Good' was NG (and CG), and that Unaligned worked as a catch-all for all the N and N-component alignments, as well as the unbelievably liberating option of chucking the whole alignment wardrobe of designer straightjackets and playing a character with complex motivations, instead.

There's no CG alignment. That doesn't mean that there can't be good beings who think that individual self-realisation, rather than collective action, is the best path to happiness and well-being!

EDIGT: I saw that Tony Vargas made the same point, but more pithily:

It seems both of you (purposefully??) ignored the rest of [MENTION=6779993]Elderbrain[/MENTION] 's post, mainly...

not if you go by the official (and only) alignments available to you in the books

 

[pemerton]

It seems both of you (purposefully??) ignored the rest of [MENTION=6779993]Elderbrain[/MENTION] 's post, mainly...

I didn't ignore it. I refuted it.

The fact that the game provides only a broad label ("Good") rather than two narrower labels ("Neutral Good", "Chaotic Good"), doesn't stop a player or a GM from characterising a particular person in the game in such a way as to exemplify, under the broad label, the sort of behaviour that would also fall under the narrower label.

For completeness, here's the passage from the 4e PHB (p 19):

If you’re a good character, you believe it is right to aid and protect those in need. You’re not required to sacrifice yourself to help others or to completely ignore your own needs, but you might be asked to place others’ needs above your own . . .

[Y]ou’re keenly aware that power tends to corrupt those who wield it, too often leading them to exploit their power for selfish or evil ends. When that happens, you feel no obligation to follow the law blindly. It’s better for authority to rest in the members of a community rather than the hands of any individual or social class. When law becomes exploitation, it crosses into evil territory, and good characters feel compelled to fight it.​

Her is the description of CG alignment from the 2nd ed AD&D PHB (which is the edition in which Eladrin originate):

Chaotic good characters are strong individualists marked by a streak of kindness and benevolence. They believe in all the virtues of goodness and right, but they have little use for laws and regulations. They have no use for people who "try to push folk around and tell them what to do." Their actions are guided by their own moral compass which, although good, may not always be in perfect agreement with the rest of society.​

I'd be interested to learn what you and Elderbrain think are the significant differences between CG, thus described, and the quote from the 4e PHB.