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WotC's Jeremy Crawford Talks D&D Alignment Changes
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<blockquote data-quote="Haldrik" data-source="post: 8041845" data-attributes="member: 6694221"><p>The alignments call attention to two different kinds of struggle.</p><p></p><p>Good-versus-Evil is a journey.</p><p></p><p>The Good-versus-Evil alignments heighten a story about the ethical conflict between light versus emptiness. I view this conflict as starting with mostly emptiness and trying to reveal as much light as sustainably possible. It is an evolution toward illumination, difficult and protracted, but overall more and more light in more and more creative ways.</p><p></p><p>Law-versus-Chaos is a harmony.</p><p></p><p>The Law-versus-Chaos alignments are a different kind of conflict. Here the opposing forces are a dialectic. Each side has benefits and costs, yet are mostly mutually exclusive. The effort is to optimize a dynamic equilibrium that can benefit from both forces as much as possible. For example, ethically, the opposing forces are collective justice and fairness versus individual compassion and personal initiative. These forces are conflictive, but the ideal is to somehow figure out ways to do both sides well. I prefer to refer to this optimization between Law and Chaos as "True", hence True Good, True Neutral, and True Evil.</p><p></p><p>A D&D setting can focus on only Good-versus-Evil, or only Law-versus-Chaos, or both conflicts simultaneously.</p><p></p><p>Both of these oppositional polarities emerge from deep human archetypes. They each inform worldviews and can feel cosmic in scope. I am glad the alignments are available as story telling tools in D&D, to organize and heighten these different kinds of conflicts. The alignments can make D&D adventures feel epic.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Haldrik, post: 8041845, member: 6694221"] The alignments call attention to two different kinds of struggle. Good-versus-Evil is a journey. The Good-versus-Evil alignments heighten a story about the ethical conflict between light versus emptiness. I view this conflict as starting with mostly emptiness and trying to reveal as much light as sustainably possible. It is an evolution toward illumination, difficult and protracted, but overall more and more light in more and more creative ways. Law-versus-Chaos is a harmony. The Law-versus-Chaos alignments are a different kind of conflict. Here the opposing forces are a dialectic. Each side has benefits and costs, yet are mostly mutually exclusive. The effort is to optimize a dynamic equilibrium that can benefit from both forces as much as possible. For example, ethically, the opposing forces are collective justice and fairness versus individual compassion and personal initiative. These forces are conflictive, but the ideal is to somehow figure out ways to do both sides well. I prefer to refer to this optimization between Law and Chaos as "True", hence True Good, True Neutral, and True Evil. A D&D setting can focus on only Good-versus-Evil, or only Law-versus-Chaos, or both conflicts simultaneously. Both of these oppositional polarities emerge from deep human archetypes. They each inform worldviews and can feel cosmic in scope. I am glad the alignments are available as story telling tools in D&D, to organize and heighten these different kinds of conflicts. The alignments can make D&D adventures feel epic. [/QUOTE]
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Community
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WotC's Jeremy Crawford Talks D&D Alignment Changes
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