D&D 5E Removing alignments

[JWO]

I know some people might think this is "badwrongfun" but is anyone playing without alignments in 5e? How's it going if so? There was quite a big movement against alignments in Pathfinder in the Paizo forums, which was the cause of much heated debate (let's try to avoid going too far into the heated side of things).

I played in a Pathfinder game for a few months and I found that a few of the other players got pretty bogged down in what alignments people were. I remember one situation where one of the other players asked me what alignment I was and then said "well then you should do _____", which really got on my nerves (even though that was what I was planning on doing anyway).

I ran the starter set for some beginner roleplayers and didn't use alignments, but I also didn't use any of the roleplaying traits as I was hoping they'd be able to come up with their own backgrounds, motivations and personalities. Unfortunately, this never really happened and the adventure sort of ended up falling apart after everyone ended up losing interest. I think it would have been more successful to use one or the other, especially with beginner roleplayers with wargamer backgrounds.

Anyway, tl;dr, I don't like alignments, I think they're overly restrictive and unnecessary, and I think that if people need some sort of framework for their characters' personalities they now have the RP traits they could use instead which I think allow for more freedom.

The only thing that I think might be a bit tricky are spells and abilities that are alignment based (detect evil etc.), but 5th edition is the edition of DM empowerment right? Presumably the DM could just decide whether or not these abilities would work as and when they come up, or you could just cut these abilities out of the game.

 

[SilentWolf]

Unfortunately at the moment I haven't had the chance to play D&D 5e without Allignment, but I think it's something definitely doable.
99% of D&D 5e rules work independently from Allignment, which in most cases turns out to be just a roleplaying tool. Thats allow to removing Allignment without consequences. Players will still have the tools to manage their roleplaying: Background concept, Personality Traits, Ideal, Bond and Flaw.
Removing Allignment, rather, allows to manage moral issues in a more free way. Players will face their PCs Moral Quandaries reflecting on the implications concerning PCs' Personality Traits, Ideal, Bond and Flaw.

EDIT: Detect Evil and Good in D&D 5e is not tied to Allignment (allows to perceive Aberrations, Celestials, Fiends, Elementals, Fey and Undeads). Currently, really very few rules relate directly to Alignment, so few that it does not take much to fix them.
Mearls has repeatedly confirmed that this is intentional.

 

[Fralex]

Yeah, I never really cared for or about alignments much. In 3e there were a bunch of things that depended on them as consistent mechanics, like protection from evil or monks needing to be lawful to gain levels. This edition really only uses them as loose guidelines for roleplaying, which is fine by me. Now spells like detect good and evil don't actually sense alignment; they just identify creatures that came from other planes like fey, fiends, and celestials. Ignoring alignment entirely will cause so few problems for you you could probably just improvise their solutions as they come up with little effort.

 

[JWO]

Thanks for the tips! I hadn't yet read those spells but that's good news. Another positive mark against 5ed!

 

[was]

I have been in several campaigns where they simplified the alignments down to three(Good, Neutral and Evil). It worked pretty well without too many adjustments.

 

[trentonjoe]

My games have more or less been "alignment free" for years. We haven't noticed any hiccups in 5E because of that.

 

[Minigiant]

My family doesn't use D&D alignments. It uses Elemental Alignments.

Fire to Water. Air to Earth.

Works fine in 5e.

 

[S_Dalsgaard]

I kind of like alignments as a lose guideline for both characters and NPCs, as they give a basic understanding of where people are related to good/evil and law/chaos. But just as alignments aren't really enough to flesh out a creature's full personality, I don't see them as a hindrance either. As a DM the PCs' alignments are a good gauge of how they will react to what I throw at them.

 

[DammitVictor]

I'm not explicitly using alignments in my Shroompunk campaign, but I think a couple of my players marked them down on their sheets anyway.

I'm not as facile yet with 5e as I was with 3.X or AD&D, but I don't remember any 5e mechanics that refer to alignment, so it's already pretty optional.

 

[Fralex]

A friend of mine brought up using the five colors of Magic the Gathering philosophies in place of alignment.