D&D 5E RIP alignment

[overgeeked]

You are asking Athens* and Jerusalem** to get together and reach a mutually-agreed (but not perfect) conclusion, then go have a similar conversation with Lake Geneva WI***

* home of classical philosophy
** holy city to multiple religions
*** home of Gary Gygax, creator of D&D

Dave Arneson created the RPG that Gary took and packaged as D&D.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Hes LE. Anyone that says differently is confusing his status as a protagonist with his alignment.

He may have (warped) good ends in mind, but thats irrelevant. He's a mass murdering sociopath prepared to engage in brutal torture, who follows a strict code, and is highly disciplined and strongly believes in order.

No, I see the Punisher as Neutral. He works within the Law when he needs to and breaks the Law when he needs to, but he has a personal code and is not truly Chaotic. He does what some people define as Good and what some others define as Evil. He is a vigilante. And I see Batman the same way. But I am going on their classic comic book depictions, and not more recent TV and movie appearances.

Now, back to the actual topic in general, I have seen where something as simple as all the alignment names being capitalized makes people think they are absolutes and must be represented that way. Maybe something as simple as no longer capping the names and calling them tendencies, rather than definites, would show people they have more flexibility than they think they have. For example, Orcs have a tendency toward evil, but can also be neutral or good.

 

[Flamestrike]

Run these same characters by someone else who likewise "understands alignment perfectly" and they could just easily come out with different alignments for these characters. But then it becomes the predictably circular matter of Person A dismissing Person B as not understanding alignment as well as Person A does.

Of course. Youre asking people to make objective statements about morality. Some people classify genocide as 'good'.

For mine its clear though.

 

[Flamestrike]

No, I see the Punisher as Neutral. He works within the Law when he needs to and breaks the Law when he needs to, but he has a personal code and is not truly Chaotic.

Youre wrong, and whether he breaks the law or not is irrelevant to his status of Lawful as I defined earlier.

If you want to classify a mass murdering mass sociopath who tortures and murders helpless people as 'morally neutral' im disturbed

He is clearly ordered and disciplined and follows a strict code and works for order. He only murders criminals as if that somehow justifies his own murders

He is Evil and Lawful going by the definitions I layed out above.

 

[loverdrive]

It's not one or the other. LN gives me a large stepping off point for filling in those other details. As a DM, if I see that Agarys Baltabay is LN, the I can use that as a large foundation for the few details that will create the code and such. I have to do very little work to get the same character you get designing the character from scratch. Without that LN, not only do I have to do much more work to get to the same spot, but I have to figure out if I want him to have a code and such that would be LN in D&D, or whether I want to develop a more LG personality or CN or, or, or.

Then I have to do that dozens more times for all the various monsters and NPCs. Having a base alignment for me to build off of is a huge time saver, and if I really don't want this particular gnoll to be CE, I can ditch it and develop a LN personality and quirks.

Well, imagine, you're sipping beer, reading an adventure module and prepping notes. There, this guy is mentioned in passing, like "Inside a tavern is only one person, Aqarys Baltabay, (LN human)". Cool, now you need to stop for a moment and think "who the hell is this guy?". You continue to read: "Few moments after the PCs buy their drinks, a group of bandits from the Fiends gang barges in, being rude and naughty word".

"Ok, now how that Aqarys guy is gonna react", -- you think. The answer is, I don't have a clue, figure it out. Put work into it.

Now, imagine the same guy being introduced as Aqarys Batlabay (human, law-abiding, "please, leave me alone"). Or Aqarys Baltabay (human, good cop, no-nonsense attitude). Now you don't have to put any work, you pretty much have all the answers.


Now let's flip a couple of pages back and talk about scale broader than one guy.

"There is a bitter rivalry between the Southern Circle gang (mostly humans, CE) and the Red Tigers gang (mostly humans, CE)". The only possible reaction is "WTF, it should be explained later". And then it isn't. "What a moron wrote this", -- you'd think and I'd agree.

Now, in alternate reality version of this adventure it instead starts as "There is a bitter rivalry between the Fiends gang (mostly humans, drug-crazed, violent, numerous) and the Red Tigers gang (mostly humans, disowned war criminals, sadists, close-knit)". Even if the moron who wrote it never elaborates further, it's still something substantial to work with.


Like, yeah, alignments are shorthand, but they are very, hm, lossy shorthand -- one that blurs too much details, and, more importantly -- fail to highlight what's important and what's not. The fact that gnolls live in close-knit packs and value their bloodkin is at least as important as the fact that they kill and enslave people with zero remorse. And then there are different shades of evil and different shades of chaos....

 

[Flamestrike]

Neutral good is a better descriptor for John Snow. He abandoned his post and killed his queen (who was part of his family). He also when against, tradition, convention and the law to side with the wildlings. He did those things for the right reasons, but they were against tradition, family etc.

Raistlin is true neutral in the Dragonlance modules and I believe he is neutral evil after his fall. I am not as sure about the second, but I am sure about the first.

Re Jon, he generally acts honourably and with strong regard for family and tradition. He generally keeps his word and honors his oaths. His occasional unconcenrional act outside this doesn't make him suddenly neutral with respect to Law - Chaos, just like an evil person who helps out a friend from time to time doesn't suddenly become Neutral.

 

[Parmandur]

I like Alignment as a tool for acting prompts yo ease prep and improvisation.

But man, this thread is making a great case against Alignment...

 

[Oofta]

There are constructs, demons, and undead that make for easily identifiable bad guys that can be used for escapism.

I'm not going to get into this argument.

I will say though that no one has ever seen a female or juvenile orc in my campaign world. They aren't naturally born creatures any more than gnolls for my games.

 

[overgeeked]

Neutral perhaps? I mean, those people that continue to call me to extend my car warranty are evil incarnate, but they [stock brokers] don't necessarily kick puppies just because they can.

They actively put their own greed ahead of the lives and well-being of just about every other living thing on the planet. So yeah, pure LE. No question.

 

[Flamestrike]

They actively put their own greed ahead of the lives and well-being of just about every other living thing on the planet. So yeah, pure LE. No question.

Dude calm down. Youre alleging now that investing in the market is Evil.

A corporate tycoon that doesn't give a naughty word about polluting the nearby river or the fact his product causes cancer is likely Evil. A person investing in an IT or pharmaceuticals company to make a profit is likely neutral. A person donating money to a charity to help them house the homeless is likely good.