D&D 5E RIP alignment

[EzekielRaiden]

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Even if alignment CAN be done well and CAN be useful, it so frequently goes wrong or leads to new and thorny disagreements that it has never seemed worth the effort. If a creature is evil, describe how. If it is good, describe how. Etc.

 

[Remathilis]

Goblins and Orcs both seem popular enough in the rising popular consciousness of mainstream Fantasy RP to include as core playable ancestries/lineages.

Yup. I'd wager there while removing racist stereotypes is a big part of this push, there is an equally large part that grew up on World of Warcraft and want carte-blanche to play cute gobbos, meaty orcs, and sexy drow without the stigma of playing a "monster" race. The line between what PC races and monstrous humanoids is gone: drow, orc, goblin PCs are now going to be as common as elves, dwarves and halflings.

 

[Oofta]

Well this exploded quickly. Surprise, surprise it's also pretty predictable. So I'll just throw my completely predictable response.

Alignment as it is currently used is fine. It's a general descriptor, one of many. In most cases for incidental side characters it gives me enough to understand general behavior. It's one more simplification that makes things easy to grasp at a glance like most of D&D.

At the same time it has little or no in-game impact so you can ignore it if you don't care for it. If you want or need more depth, add it in. Probably 80% of the time, I don't need much more because the complex details of any individual NPC isn't going to surface anyway. If I have to read a paragraph or two on every monster and NPC in the game to get a general idea of how they fit into the game by default, the game rules lose significant value.

I want easy and simple starting point most of the time so I can focus on adding details where necessary.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Yup. I'd wager there while removing racist stereotypes is a big part of this push, there is an equally large part that grew up on World of Warcraft and want carte-blanche to play cute gobbos, meaty orcs, and sexy drow without the stigma of playing a "monster" race. The line between what PC races and monstrous humanoids is gone: drow, orc, goblin PCs are now going to be as common as elves, dwarves and halflings.

From what little I've seen, it seems rather more the opposite: interests are spread so thinly now that, apart from the small number of especially popular races, the formerly-dominant ones are now dropping to be similar to the mass of "former monster" options. That is, dwarves and halflings are just as much falling down to the percentages of half-orcs and drow as it is the latter rising up to the former.

Humans remain by far the most common choice, and variations of elf (counting half-elves but not drow) remain the second most common choice. The only real change is that tieflings and dragonborn have climbed up into the big leagues, clearly earning their 3rd and 4th places (typically tieflings in 3rd place and dragonborn in 4th, with dwarves having slowly declined over time from narrow 4th place to a clear 5th).

Time marches on. People will always love Tolkien because his work is good, but there is a significant pattern of short races being less popular than human-sized ones (no surprise there, since height is often seen as a positive trait and there are many correlations between height and other positive traits, for a host of reasons that I'd rather not dwell upon). Dragons are cool because they've always been cool, as symbols of power across dozens of cultures; and a fiend turned hero is an inherent "complex antagonist goes good" story, which is perennially popular. It's hard to argue against those as popular things, and I doubt we'll see that meaningfully change for a long time yet. It's not like D&D invented these trends of popularity!

If I have to read a paragraph or two on every monster and NPC in the game to get a general idea of how they fit into the game by default, the game rules lose significant value.

Maybe there shouldn't be a default. Maybe it's better for us as both players and creators that we have to choose to think about it, at least once, before creating our own default.

 

[loverdrive]

Now they need to get rid of ability scores and for the first time since forever, people in charge of D&D would look like they know what they are doing.

 

[Oofta]

Maybe there shouldn't be a default. Maybe it's better for us as both players and creators that we have to choose to think about it, at least once, before creating our own default.

Don't like alignment, don't use it. It's just a default and general guideline anyway. I don't see why we have to throw out something just because a vocal minority don't want to use it.

I don't want to think too much about the bare-bones outlines I initially throw together when designing my world. I want to put a cottage here, next to a lake and a stream. Most of the time that's enough. Sometimes I'll want to know how wide the stream is and how hard is it to cross. Is the lake deep? Shallow? What kind of fish? Same with alignment.

Sometimes I just want a generic CE bully. I know he's evil, he doesn't care much about the letter of the law, contracts, none of that. Other times I want a mob tough guy. Just as evil, but he has certain rules and he follows a chain of command because he has respect for the organization. Two bad guys, different world views all from going from a "C" to an "L". I can't imagine a system that could replace that simplicity that would tell me as much.

 

[Remathilis]

Now they need to get rid of ability scores and for the first time since forever, people in charge of D&D would look like they know what they are doing.

Lets get rid of classes while we're at it; just give everyone a pool of points and let them build whateverthehelltheywant.

 

[loverdrive]

Take a complete noob. Tell the noob that Lawful means a tendency towards order and socialization. Tell the noob that chaos means freedom and not following restrictions. Then tell the noob that neutral means no particular tendency. Good and evil do not need description and never did.

Now take that noob, sit him in the DM's chair and make him run a lawful evil group of creatures... Yep, the noob will run the mob as intended without having to read the whole crearure's description in the MM. Just the stat block will be enough.

Write a couple of one-word descriptors and now you don't even need to explain what Chaotic and Lawful means.
Medium humanoid. Loyal; violent.
Huge dragon. Greedy; opportunistic.
Large aberration. Cunning; apex predator.
Large giant. Strong; dumb

Lets get rid of classes while we're at it; just give everyone a pool of points and let them build whateverthehelltheywant.

Nah, classes do work. Though I'd thrown sorcerers, bards, barbarians, monks and warlock out.

 

[Remathilis]

Nah, classes do work. Though I'd thrown sorcerers, bards, barbarians, monks and warlock out.

"Classes work, I've just removed a quarter of them." (PS: you missed paladin; the biggest alignment-on-a-stick class).

It we're gutting sacred cows now, just go with Adept/Warrior/Expert and let people make thier own classes using points/feats/whatever. Same with lineage.

 

[Oofta]

Write a couple of one-word descriptors and now you don't even need to explain what Chaotic and Lawful means.
Medium humanoid. Loyal; violent.
Huge dragon. Greedy; opportunistic.
Large aberration. Cunning; apex predator.
Large giant. Strong; dumb


Nah, classes do work. Though I'd thrown sorcerers, bards, barbarians, monks and warlock out.

Those don't tell me squat. Loyal and violent? Okay. Captain America or Harley Quinn? No clue. Greedy, opportunistic? Okay, stock market guy who nonetheless is a good guy or someone who is going to mug me in a dark alley because they can get away with it?