D&D 5E RIP alignment

[Justice and Rule]

Dragonlance is also worse without alignment, so much of its themes are wrapped up in the balance of good and evil.

Can we not do games of "Good and evil" without alignment? I mean, it's not like Star Wars isn't a franchise that has dealt with good and evil without trying to fit people in to a weird ethical Punnett square.

 

[Lanefan]

Spells like detect evil/good don’t need alignment to work.

Er...at first glance that seems impossible. Please explain.

 

[MGibster]

As a DM, I tend to go with the rules/setting as written even when I'm not a fan of them. In Deadlands, a game sent in 1876 where undead gunslingers, mad scientist, and wizards exist in the American Old West where the Confederacy has managed to fight the Union to a standstill and still exists as an independent country I just kept the setting as is. Even though I thought wizards and undead gunslingers were far more realistic than the CSA being around in 1876.

When it comes to D&D, I pretty much just use the basis rules as written. As best I can at least. I do this in part because I'm kind of lazy and don't want to make a bunch of changes that might have an impact in areas I didn't expect. But also because the players have a reasonable expectation that we're using a standardized set of rules. If Dragonborn are a basic race in the PHB it isn't unreasonable that they would expect to be able to play one.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Er...at first glance that seems impossible. Please explain.

I mean, 5E changed it to basically detect Outsiders, Aberrations, and Undead. It was absolutely a fantastic change.

 

[Lanefan]

Some of it is. Some of it is making friends with the monsters and turning them to you allies.

That's what Charm Person and-or Charm Monster are for, isn't it?

 

[Justice and Rule]

As a DM, I tend to go with the rules/setting as written even when I'm not a fan of them. In Deadlands, a game sent in 1876 where undead gunslingers, mad scientist, and wizards exist in the American Old West where the Confederacy has managed to fight the Union to a standstill and still exists as an independent country I just kept the setting as is. Even though I thought wizards and undead gunslingers were far more realistic than the CSA being around in 1876.

Fun fact: back in 2019 they decided to change it so that the Confederacy fell in 1871 rather than it continuing on. The creator did a post on why they changed it.

Here's a link.

 

[MGibster]

Fun fact: back in 2019 they decided to change it so that the Confederacy fell in 1871 rather than continued on. The creator did a post on why they changed it.

Oh yeah, I was an enthusiastic supporter of the change and I just recently received my books from their last Kickstarter. I don't believe the folks at PEG, Inc. were Confederate sympathizers or anything, but keeping the CSA around and having them abolish slavery willingly played a little too close to the Lost Cause narrative for comfort. I understand the original setting was designed, in part, to have some awesome spy vs. spy shenanigans, but the conflict between the USA and CSA never played a very prominent role in any campaign I ever ran and as far as I was concerned was a completely unnecessary aspect of the setting. (I am sure there are some people who loved that aspect, and, bless their hearts, that's fine.)

 

[Lanefan]

I mean, 5E changed it to basically detect Outsiders, Aberrations, and Undead. It was absolutely a fantastic change.

Fantastic change in your eyes, maybe. For me it guts about 95% of the purpose of the spells.

Thing is, instead of getting rid of alignment I'd prefer to go the other way and lean further into it: aligned items, aligned places, a cosmology completely based on alignment (meaning divine-based classes are also very alignment-conscious); and to make all this work you also need aligned PCs in order to, for example, find out who the aligned item will accept and who it will bite, who feels icky in the evil-consecrated space and who doesn't, and so forth.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

Thus condemning those games to never rise above niche status, no matter ow good or bad their design might be.

That's more because:

1. Up until a few years ago, the entire tabletop RPG industry was niche, and
2. D&D is sucking all the air out of the room, much like Monopoly and Settlers of Catan are trampling over all the other (and quite frankly better designed) board games out there.

I'd much rather have one system that can do everything well enough rather than 100 systems that can each do one thing perfectly, for two reasons: one, I then only have to buy one system; and two, I then only have to learn one system.

Multiply that sentiment by a million and you get the current situation where a small number of games are dominating both the market and the cultural zeitgeist, leaving everybody else with no room to breath. Not a healthy creative environment, and the push towards monopoly rarely creates a healthy consumer environment either.

It also makes the assumption that one style of game development is also inherently superior.

No it doesn't. What it does acknowledge is that not everybody wants the same thing from their games, and that many styles of games exist to accommodate those differing preferences.

For many people a Porsche 911 is inherently superior to other vehicles, but it's kind of pointless if you need a kids-and-groceries hauler. A laser focused game could be good or bad but it's not what I want for an RPG because I want to tell my own story, not someone else's story.

A kid-and-groceries hauler is just as niche-focused as a Porsche 911 or whatever sports car you prefer. The people making these laser focused games are well aware that their games cannot be all things to all people, and they make that very clear up front.

 

[Imaculata]

Dragonlance is also worse without alignment, so much of its themes are wrapped up in the balance of good and evil.

You can still have good and evil without alignment.