D&D 5E RIP alignment

[Remathilis]

Demonic spawn to be precise.

Edit: They come from a demonic dimension where they act a lot like the 40k version. A mix between true demon and mortal beings. They're like a plague of locust, retreating to breed to come back stronger and more numerous if they fail an invasion. But that is only one campaign that I ran. For some reasons, Flamestrike decided that I was a deviant for playing such orcs... Flame completely ignored my other campaigns where I have standard orcs as PC. But again, that is ok.

Sounds like the 5e gnoll, which I'm sad to say was also found to be racist.

The short rule is that if it walks on two legs, can speak, and breeds true, it's probably racist.

 

[Lanefan]

this is a description I'd write up for an individual for a specific scenario

Yes. THAT'S THE POINT.

Fine for describing an individual. Not much use for generally and simplistically describing the tendencies of a whole society at once, a description on which I can build further if I want to.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I have a very simple consideration a general conclusion over the years is alignment was never used properly perhaps a better system should be formulated as a shorthand for motivation would be useful but it is presently not fit for purpose anymore.

also if people want to have the what should orcs be I would suggest it get put in a different thread so we do not make this any more of an argument than it already is.

 

[Mecheon]

You're going to get discussion of orcs (or drow, or goblins) because of how hard-coded alignment has been to that 'You can kill these guys with no moral quandry' for decades.

I'd argue the core of it is that bad it should just be extracted for an edition or two and then maybe look if we want to put it back in, but we can't talk about alignment without talking about how its been used previously. And it has not been used well previously.

 

[Lanefan]

There are D&D-isms we’ve already lost that I think were more unique to the game.

Some of which should never have been lost, some of which still exist and have not been lost, and one of which never existed except as someone's house rule somewhere.

3d6 straight down for ability scores,

Can go either way on the particulars, but the idea of rolled ability scores (as opposed to point-buy or array) is a keeper.

ability scores having minor mechanical effect,

Lost? Ability scores have more effect now than they ever have.

rolling all hit dice at each level up,

This one's straight out of a houserule binder and has never been RAW that I know of in any edition.

characters being mostly or entirely locked into a class,

Should never have been lost. If you want to play a different class, roll up another character.

XP for treasure,

I'll give you this one.

“name level” and domain management,

Should never have been lost. Dumb design move to not even include it as an option in core 3e, 4e, or 5e.

 

[Oofta]

You're going to get discussion of orcs (or drow, or goblins) because of how hard-coded alignment has been to that 'You can kill these guys with no moral quandry' for decades.

I'd argue the core of it is that bad it should just be extracted for an edition or two and then maybe look if we want to put it back in, but we can't talk about alignment without talking about how its been used previously. And it has not been used well previously.

Whether or not it's ever okay to kill a creature just because of what they are is tangential to alignment at best.

Many games will always have monsters because it's simple escapism. It won't matter if we get rid of alignment.

 

[Mecheon]

Whether or not it's ever okay to kill a creature just because of what they are is tangential to alignment at best.

Its been a massive part of alignment for years. Let's not forget the paladin-gotchya 'Orc problem' of 'what do you do with baby orc?'. Or, the Book of Exalted Deeds from 3.5E which I still consider the strongest argument against alignment ever.

Many games will always have monsters because it's simple escapism. It won't matter if we get rid of alignment.

Monsters are fine. Opposing forces are fine. Alignment's issues have been in trying to clumsily appy it to everything and its subsequent failure at doing that

 

[EzekielRaiden]

No it’s not but experience has shown that racists are going to use real races rather than killing Orcs as a way to express their hatred.

Your experience has been with some pretty bold racists, for one.

Look at Jar Jar Binks, for example. Then look at the minstrel plays--which were a horrifically racist way of depicting black men as incompetent, weak, idiotic buffoons, originally used as a way to sanitize their enslavement and later used as a tool to remind white folks of their superiority to blacks after the Civil War. The entire Gungan species is built on a racist caricature. I sincerely doubt that George Lucas has any meaningful racist animus himself--but his ignorant use of a racist element of entertainment media is exactly the kind of problem that we're talking about. Not "crypto-racists sending covert messages through D&D antagonists," but rather "perpetuating harmful narratives by accident due to not thinking about them first."

Ok. I want wizards to cast healing magic. In my setting, wizards are the masters of all magic and should have access to every spell ever made. The PHB should accommodate that. Also, battle mages exist so wizards should get d20 HD and heavy armor proficiency for free. Lastly, not all wizards use spellbooks so they should be allowed to cast any spell they know without it. I'm sure none of that will be a problem as there should not be a default assumption that wizards are weak bookish glass cannons. Think of all the options you open up with this! The potential stories that D&D hasn't told yet. No reason to be bound to the traditions of yore, wizards can be whatever you want them to be!

1. Does it really actually help make your point to be facetious and rude? I'm pretty sure the only thing this does is score points with people who already agree with you. Being facetious and rude generally gets the other person's back up. Even if you have a great point, you may encourage the other person to dismiss it or fight back purely out of their dislike for being spoken to that way. I have not done this to you, and have endeavored not to do it to anyone else.
2. Does the fact that the Wizard doesn't have these attributes lead to extensive, tedious, tendentious, acrimonious debate amongst people interested in discussing the game? Does it lead to serious problem behaviors from player and DMs alike (regardless of whether this is because the system is being used badly or because the system is hard to use well)? Do the things you're affecting have no meaningful mechanical impact on the game, the way alignment lacks such impact now? Because I'm pretty sure the answer to every single one of those questions is "no," which kind of pokes a hole in your attempt to make the "sure, remove racial inherent alignments" position look like "OMG make my favorite class the BESTEST EVAR!" In fact it pretty clearly shows this to be a strawman, relying on the reader presuming an equivalence between "break the mechanical balance of the game" and "don't use inherent racial alignments," which you have failed to show in any way.

Fine for describing an individual. Not much use for generally and simplistically describing the tendencies of a whole society at once, a description on which I can build further if I want to.

Why is it valuable to describe whole sapient species in such a way? Do you disagree that sweeping moral judgments of entire physiological groups has a somewhat sordid history in real life?

Even at the sociocultural level, fully ignoring the physiology side of things, why is it valuable to have "these are Good societies and those are Bad societies"? Would it not be both more accurate and, in principle, more useful to describe the actual values (or absence of particular values) than to use sweeping shorthands that rarely have consistent meaning even when used in two different settings run by the same person for the same table?

E.g., in my Jewel of the Desert game, you...really can't call Jinnistani culture ANY of the alignments, because they have certain attributes that could go with any of them. They avoid lethal force more or less whenever possible...because it's messy and tends to disrupt trade, not because they value life all that much. They have a very strong but intentionally unwritten code of conduct they pretty seriously enforce among the noble genies (the few but very powerful and nigh-immortal genies that rule their people), not because they value laws for any reason nor because they like consistency, but because they NEEDED such a background assumption to prevent being constantly at one another's throats. They are quite casual about the truth in general, but some verge on "brutally honest" while others are more "every truth is partially a lie and every lie is partially true" smooth-talkers. They're extremely acquisitive, and more importantly they zealously guard and shore up their status and importance in high society; a loss of face is often more harmful than a loss of both wealth AND manpower combined. Physical appearance and fashion are hugely important to them, and their fashion whims change on a dime.

Collectively, they aren't really Evil (they can be quite cruel, sure, but they're rarely malicious unless seriously provoked). They definitely aren't Good. They don't strike me as Lawful Neutral (most love to bend the rules to get away with something), and they definitely don't seem Chaotic Neutral what with their emphasis on decorum and keeping up appearances. But it seems far too weak to call them Neutral, since they definitely aren't the "balance uber alles" type, they're much to interventionist to be the uninterested type, and they don't make every decision totally pragmatically all the time either.

But I could easily summarize them with a couple sentences: "Jinnistani culture values mystery, cleverness, decorum, and physical appearance--which often gets extended for the 'noble genies' to the appearances of their demesnes and the people thereof, thus mitigating some of the usual problems with feudal societies. They do not place much premium on honesty, mortal lives, or forgiveness, but strongly dislike losing face. Violence is seen as a particularly crude tool, and thus employed only sparingly."

Or, more simply...
Values: Appearances, Cleverness, Decorum, Economic/Diplomatic Power
Vices: Dishonesty, Indifference to Violence, Grudges, Acquisitiveness

 

[FrozenNorth]

So alignment does not detract from the story for you. Removing alignment could make it less compelling for others. Why not leave it in?

Because many, many, many gamers have alignment horror stories. And the response by proponents of alignment is always that the people involved either were themselves problematic, or that they didn’t understand alignment.

At the end of the day, if you have a bread knife that cuts bread poorly and cuts you regularly, you throw it out, you don’t keep it because “tradition”.

Alignment is redundant anyway. Personality trait, ideal, bond, flaw is a better way of getting a handle on a character (and should me used more for NPCs), and fir monsters, there is generally a handy description of what they are like.

I also like @loverdrive ‘s approach (one sentence description). Personally, I use a similar shorthand (liken NPCs to a fictional character and use that as a base).

 

[Lanefan]

Maybe you never asked for it, but there are absolutely people who did. If you want the [your favorite setting] exactly the way it appeared in [your favorite edition], good news. It exists.

In and for that edition.

Which leaves those people a no-win choice: either play that setting in that edition, or do a crapton of conversion work to make that setting fit in with 5e - which is what most people seem to want to play these days.

For folks who want a different take on the concepts those settings explored, there are the new re-imagined takes.

That's just it, though: many people don't necessarily want a different take on a setting, they just want that existing setting converted to suit the mechanics of the new edition.