D&D 5E RIP alignment

[overgeeked]

For what it's worth, I tend to put races in D&D into three camps, the common races (your PHB races), the rare races (those from supplements that aren't common but aren't evil) and the monstrous races (which are common, but due to thier nature were antagonistic).

Imagine for a moment that a group of adventurers an elf, a goliath, and an orc entered a podunk town in Faerun. Most of the locals know what an elf is; they're typically considered peaceful if not a little strange but generally dismissed as a threat unless they start causing problems. The goliath is strange; not many people have seen one or they might have heard stories about one, but not a whole lot is known about them. They are viewed with a little suspcion but given the benefit out the doubt. The orc though has a reputation that precedes him, and most people will react fearfully. He will have to do a lot to earn thier trust.

When I say "as common as", I mean the assumption will be that all three races now upon entering podunk will be given the same welcome. There won't be any reason to assume a goliath, an orc, or an elf are anything but normal adventurers and treating them with difference is frowned upon. The orc will have no stygma of violence to contend with, the goliath no aura of exoticism, the elf no common familiarity. All will be treated the same.

The cool thing about D&D is it’s all in our heads. We can imagine things differently. So the only reason there is a reputation to precede the orc is you decide there is one. You as DM get to decide if there’s racism in your setting. You can just as easily decide there’s no racism as decide there is racism. So why not decide there’s no racism? We’ve had 40+ years of stories of racism in D&D. Besides actually being harmful to non-white players, it’s tired and boring. Try something different than simply retreading the same tired old tropes.

 

[Vaalingrade]

That’s amateurs vs pros. The pros know better and so avoid it. The amateurs still think it’s funny. Unless you’re already playing in pro circles, you’re stuck playing with amateurs.

I'm not talking about Critical Role or Oxventure, I'm talking about randos posting their Roll20 gameplay on Youtube.

And... why are we even trying to defend such a needlessly hyperbolic and inflammatory statement?

 

[Maxperson]

The difference between “some old rule we dropped” and “sacred cow” is the former was dropped while the latter was kept. The only reason alignment is a sacred cow now is because it was kept. It’s not awesome or core to the game. It’s just old and tired.

That's not at all correct. Alignment was kept because a lot of people like it and play with it. It's an amazing tool if you use it right(not as a straightjacket for PCs). Gender stat penalties were not something a lot of people liked and played with. I'm sure there were some, but I never encountered any, whereas I've played with several dozen(more than 100) players who liked alignment.

Alignment is a sacred cow because of how a huge number of players feel about it, not just because it was kept.

It’s a bad shorthand that is an easy excuse to continue using racist fantasy tropes. Good riddance when it’s gone.

Alignment has nothing to do with racism, fantasy or otherwise. Correlation does not equal causation. I mentioned that to you above when you very incorrectly conflated the orc lore saying that they struggle not to be evil, with alignment. You seem very confused about what alignment is and is not. It is not the orc temperament. It is not racism.

 

[overgeeked]

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.

I am calm. The market is evil. Capitalism is evil. Any even half-honest assessment of either would see them as evil. We wouldn’t have homeless people or hungry people without capitalism or the market. So yeah, pure evil.

I’m giving you a 2-for-1 deal on this warning for politics.

 

[loverdrive]

I am calm. The market is evil. Capitalism is evil. Any even half-honest assessment of either would see them as evil. We wouldn’t have homeless people or hungry people without capitalism or the market. So yeah, pure evil.

While I agree, there's place and time. I doubt that a discussion of alignments is either of those.

 

[overgeeked]

And this is just confused. Alignment has nothing to do with racism, fantasy or otherwise. Correlation does not equal causation. I mentioned that to you above when you very incorrectly conflated the orc lore saying that they struggle not to be evil, with alignment. You seem very confused about what alignment is and is not. It is not the orc temperament. It is not racism.

Talk to non-white gamers about orcs sometime.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Alignment has nothing to do with racism, fantasy or otherwise.

It's more like racism helper. It adds moral justification and systematic endorsement of it to the game.

You can murder all the orcs you want because they are bad people and evil is in their nature, says the game with the help of alignment.

 

[overgeeked]

While I agree, there's place and time. I doubt that a discussion of alignments is either of those.

If you’re expressing you opinion as a poster that it’s the wrong time and place, I disagree. If you’re telling me as a publisher/mod/etc, then sure.

 

[Maxperson]

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.

While that may be your answer, it most certainly isn't mine. Being LN, those being rude and blanky are breaking the rules of the establishment. Agarys is going to be against that and say or do something if he can, or go get the sheriff if he can't. If the PCs stand up to the gang, he may or may not side with them as vigilantism is probably also something he's against. It depends on what they do.

LN is enough for me to go on if I haven't had time to figure out those small extra details yet, so while you may not have a clue, alignment provides me with more than enough to go on.

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....

Sure. I did say that I will use the gnoll lore to fill in the rough edges around the CE alignment. Both are important and both provide me a lot to go on.

 

[Oofta]

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".

For me the real question is simple: is this a LN strawman or a LE one? While I admit that I don't use mods much I can't imagine why a mod would give you only alignment.

Even given that: the LN NPC will likely not go to a great deal of risk to save anyone else unless that person is of a higher station or they are duty bound to protect them for some reason. He will be less likely to intervene if he sees the gang members operating in a professional manner, explaining to everyone that if they stay calm everyone will be relieved of their coin but otherwise left along. Does the gang murder the waitress just because they can? Might be a different story.

If the dude has a letter he's carrying for his boss? He might fight back because he keeps his promise where a CN person would give it up to save their own skin unless they're more afraid of the boss than the bandits.

So even you're scenario that I've never seen does indeed give me a lot of behavioral defaults. Which is all it's intended to do: give a general idea of behavior.