D&D 5E A different take on Alignment

[Chaosmancer]

Then it fails at what @pemerton says is the goal of ideals. You can't tell whether that person has any particular moral compass direction. Worthless ideal.

I'm sorry, but how do you figure?

@Helldritch point is that you can use the same two ideals and differentiate them only by alignment. Therefore:

"Hunting down and killing every foe who ever raises a sword against the weak and salting the earth behind you," LG

Would be different than

"Hunting down and killing every foe who ever raises a sword against the weak and salting the earth behind you," LE

However, I can find no functional difference between these two points. They are doing the exact same thing. @pemerton 's point is that looking just at the ideal (you know, the hunting, killing, and salting) tells you about the persons moral compass. Which it does. It tells us far more about this person than we ever get from writing LG/LE next to the their name.

Unless you can somehow show me how LG differs from LE in this manner of hunting, killing and salting.

That might be because it wasn't a defense of alignment.

You seemed to be putting it forth as a bandage for serial killer paladins, because "Gygax Said" as though that somehow makes him right about how we treat things in the modern day.

Aaaaaaaand you've also made my point. If you have to go beyond the ideal to figure it out, it has failed as an ideal to show anything to do with the PC's morals.

It is not a worthless ideal, because it would be attached to a character whom the information we are asking about would be automatically provided. In a non-white room situation, the character's faith is a known factor.

Additionally, knowing their alignment does not neccesarily tell us everything about how they will go about achieving their goal. And, like I said, even providing their alignment without their faith is incomplete, Banites are very different from the followers of Wee-Jas.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Like myriad of people have said prior, repeatedly, it is a short-hand, a quick tool, all-encompassing aid.

Ideals/Bonds/Flaws/Traits are a great addition to the D&D game and a step in the right direction (my opinion). They are not perfect. Not everyone uses them or uses them fully. Not everyone ties them to Inspiration. Alignment is not perfect. Not everyone uses it. I'm sure there are creative types who could to expand on Alignment and make it a more central feature.

Do other games do certain things better, in some people's opinions, sure. But a lot of games can do other things better - whether it be skills, the health system, defenses....etc.

If one wants to incorporate other mechanics into their D&D game they most certainly can. I do. The D&D community does - hence we have a litany of products in the DMs Guild which do just that. So the question is why pick on Alignment?

Because it accomplishes nothing.

Seriously, for all of the "it is a shorthand aid" it accomplishes nothing. Let me demonstrate using the cleric example.

You have a cleric. You decide that you want the story of your character to be their quest to achieve the highest rank possible within their church. Then, you pick their church, probably based on the mechanics from the Domain you want. Maybe you specifically choose a domain that isn't normally associated with that deity, going with a bit of dissonance. Then you start thinking about what tenants of your deity you follow, and which ones you don't. How far are you willing to go to achieve your goal. What kind of conflicts you might have with the current hieracrchy, or even your deity.

Then, after all of that work, you look at the assembled pieces, and label them with an alignment.

But... you never picked an alignment. You never made "I am going to be Lawful Neutral" one of your pieces. You built the character, then looked for the label. And without the label... you still have the character you built.

Now, is it possible to pick the alignment first? Sure. But... then you are just deciding which pieces you want to build with, and it isn't really different than picking the alignment last. Because you are picking that alignment with an image and a goal in mind. You want to be power-hungry and driven, maybe even a liar, and so you pick evil, but you picked evil traits first, power-hungry, driven and maybe a liar.

As I said in an earlier post, alignment is a machine that tells you that the blue ball you put into the machine is blue. That is only useful if you can't see that the blue ball is blue. And while you can say "but it is a useful tool for new players". well, I've never had a person sit down at my table who didn't understand the difference between good and evil, or the difference between following the rules or breaking them. Of being selfish or of working together. These are all things that they understand before they sit down at the table.

 

[Chaosmancer]

No, I wrote down the ideals/bonds/flaws I was given as they are presented in the book. One simple sentence. I just gave extra detail on how those are implemented based on alignment.

And how did you know what alignment the church was? This is the recursive part. I know this ideal needs to be changed to be evil, because the church is evil because of their ideals, because they are evil they have evil ideals which cause them to be evil.

You are chasing your own tail. But if you separate them "Evil" doesn't tell you anything except it gives you pre-printed ideals to guess at. Ideals can define that you are evil.

 

[Oofta]

And how did you know what alignment the church was? This is the recursive part. I know this ideal needs to be changed to be evil, because the church is evil because of their ideals, because they are evil they have evil ideals which cause them to be evil.

You are chasing your own tail. But if you separate them "Evil" doesn't tell you anything except it gives you pre-printed ideals to guess at. Ideals can define that you are evil.

Okeley dokeley. If the bond is "my church" and that's all then it tells me absolutely nothing useful.

On the other hand, I know that if someone is LE, I know a fair amount of how they think and a basis for reactions, even if I don't know specifics. So I know someone who is LE probably isn't going to be a follower of Pelor.

It's kind of like vehicles. There's the general categorization of sports car, sedan, pickup, SUV, crossover and so on. Based on those, much like alignment I have a general idea. Then add in model, I have a bit more info, trim level a bit more, color and I have a pretty good idea.

Can I figure out the category based on the model? Maybe, if I already know what the model is. Quick, without looking it up do you know what a Volkswagen Tiguan is? But even then without the trim level, there can be a pretty vast variation. There's a vast, vast difference between a Jeep Wrangler 2-door Sport and some of the high end Jeep Wrangler 4-door Rubicon*. No single aspect is going to tell you the whole picture. Then again they don't need to.

Alignment doesn't give you the whole picture, it's not meant to. But ideals/bonds/flaws don't give you the whole picture either. You need fluff text to fill in details.

But of course it doesn't matter. You're like Lucy with the football, if I give an answer you'll just move the goalposts to the other side of the field.

*We used to have a little 2 door Wrangler Rubicon ... it was awesome off road even if it was kind of a crap car the rest of the time.

 

[Chaosmancer]

This is avoiding the issue. We either go by what the Ideal, Bond, Flaw system has written, just like alignments. Or we can look at other things in addition to those systems to help find out what the PCs are about, just like alignments.

And quite frankly, if we're going to be looking at various revolutions, faiths, etc. to figure out what the character is about, the entire Ideal, Bond, Flaw system is just as necessary for character development as alignment is. You can toss both and just play the character looking at faiths, revolutions, etc. and not even both with ideals and bonds.

Max, you are constantly missing the point. You are declaring that IBF are useless because you need more context... but so does alignment. You have to go outside of alignment to understand alignment too. You can't just say Neutral Evil, you have to go and say that Nuetral Evil means selfishness and getting away with what you can. You have gone outside of the alignment literally as written "Neutral Evil"

And while I'm sure you are going to tell me how wrong I am, because that is the definition, that is ignoring what @pemerton is saying. If you say "I support the Revolution" then you have provided inadequate information, just like if you simply said "Neutral Evil" but refused to define what that means. It doesn't feel the same to you, because you have internalized the definition, but it is the same thing.

This doesn't make IBF useless, this makes it so you need the context of the character. Which, outside of white room crafting, you automatically have. If I write a character who has the Bond "I will defend my Country" in the white room you can declare that useless because it doesn't tell you which country I am defending. But, if I was sitting down to play the game and said, "Here is my noble from Sarlona" now you know which country, the context is there, and you might even be able to infer their alignment just from that.

But additionally, just like you can't tell me much of anything about a character's behavior if I just said "Evil", it is relatively hard to define the characters entire moral compass from a single Ideal. You need all three. Look at Oofta's examples of those twin clerics, those are a great set of ideals, bonds and flaws, and I never needed you to tell me which character was good and which was evil, because those sets of sentences laid it all out.

 

[Oofta]

Max, you are constantly missing the point. You are declaring that IBF are useless because you need more context... but so does alignment. You have to go outside of alignment to understand alignment too. You can't just say Neutral Evil, you have to go and say that Nuetral Evil means selfishness and getting away with what you can. You have gone outside of the alignment literally as written "Neutral Evil"

And while I'm sure you are going to tell me how wrong I am, because that is the definition, that is ignoring what @pemerton is saying. If you say "I support the Revolution" then you have provided inadequate information, just like if you simply said "Neutral Evil" but refused to define what that means. It doesn't feel the same to you, because you have internalized the definition, but it is the same thing.

This doesn't make IBF useless, this makes it so you need the context of the character. Which, outside of white room crafting, you automatically have. If I write a character who has the Bond "I will defend my Country" in the white room you can declare that useless because it doesn't tell you which country I am defending. But, if I was sitting down to play the game and said, "Here is my noble from Sarlona" now you know which country, the context is there, and you might even be able to infer their alignment just from that.

But additionally, just like you can't tell me much of anything about a character's behavior if I just said "Evil", it is relatively hard to define the characters entire moral compass from a single Ideal. You need all three. Look at Oofta's examples of those twin clerics, those are a great set of ideals, bonds and flaws, and I never needed you to tell me which character was good and which was evil, because those sets of sentences laid it all out.

Did he say they were useless? Because I missed it. It doesn't tell you the same things as alignment any more than ideal tells you the same thing as bond.

On the other hand, I can tell motivation and moral compass based whether or not it can tell me behavior in every situation any more than IBF.

But again, the ideal as presented in the book is a simple 1 liner. It doesn't go into much detail: you're twisting what I said into something it's not.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Okeley dokeley. If the bond is "my church" and that's all then it tells me absolutely nothing useful.

On the other hand, I know that if someone is LE, I know a fair amount of how they think and a basis for reactions, even if I don't know specifics. So I know someone who is LE probably isn't going to be a follower of Pelor.

It's kind of like vehicles. There's the general categorization of sports car, sedan, pickup, SUV, crossover and so on. Based on those, much like alignment I have a general idea. Then add in model, I have a bit more info, trim level a bit more, color and I have a pretty good idea.

Can I figure out the category based on the model? Maybe, if I already know what the model is. Quick, without looking it up do you know what a Volkswagen Tiguan is? But even then without the trim level, there can be a pretty vast variation. There's a vast, vast difference between a Jeep Wrangler 2-door Sport and some of the high end Jeep Wrangler 4-door Rubicon*. No single aspect is going to tell you the whole picture. Then again they don't need to.

Alignment doesn't give you the whole picture, it's not meant to. But ideals/bonds/flaws don't give you the whole picture either. You need fluff text to fill in details.

But of course it doesn't matter. You're like Lucy with the football, if I give an answer you'll just move the goalposts to the other side of the field.

*We used to have a little 2 door Wrangler Rubicon ... it was awesome off road even if it was kind of a crap car the rest of the time.

Of course it doesn't tell you anything useful, it is incomplete. You might as well instead of telling me that it is a Volkswagen Tiguan (which by the way... I know it is a car with most likely 4 wheels. And it was made by Volkswagen) be saying that make and model is useless because I can't tell you much about the vehicle by saying "Ford".

Well, no duh I can't tell you much about the vehicle. "Ford" is nearly useless without context. Are we talking ford cars or ford trucks or ford minivans? Gas or Electric or Hybrid? Just saying "Ford" is pointless.

And so, if a character had the bond "My Church" I'd expect them to be able to flesh that out. They'd have to be able to provide me with context. Are they talking about the whole religion or a specific building? What religion? But, I also want to point out... I do know that they are a religious person, with ties to a church. That is far more than alignment could have told me.


Now let me flip this around, What does Neutral tell me about a character? If I just say "Neutral" what can you tell me about them?

 

[Chaosmancer]

Did he say they were useless? Because I missed it. It doesn't tell you the same things as alignment any more than ideal tells you the same thing as bond.

Yes, repeatedly

Then it fails at what @pemerton says is the goal of ideals. You can't tell whether that person has any particular moral compass direction. Worthless ideal.

Aaaaaaaand you've also made my point. If you have to go beyond the ideal to figure it out, it has failed as an ideal to show anything to do with the PC's morals.

Which is exactly my point. The ideal as written is worthless. You need to go outside of it to find out any moral value. Even then it will often not tell you anything, since gods often have followers and clerics that are both good and not good, or evil and not evil. I think a few might have both good and evil followers.

Right. Which is why, "I will defend the weak." can be both good and evil, but not in the same person.

He is setting up an ideal, without context, then saying it is worthless because it doesn't give you enough information.

Like I said in my other post, this is like declaring "Ford" and then saying that it can't tell you anything about the vehicle

On the other hand, I can tell motivation and moral compass based whether or not it can tell me behavior in every situation any more than IBF.

But again, the ideal as presented in the book is a simple 1 liner. It doesn't go into much detail: you're twisting what I said into something it's not.

We have already established that the ideals in the book written as examples are hot garbage. But look to the rules for ideals.

"Describe one ideal that drives your character. Your ideals are the things that you believe in most strongly, the fundamental moral and ethical principles that compel you to act as you do. Ideals encompass everything from your life goals to your core belief system.


Ideals might answer any of these questions: What are the principles that you will never betray? What would prompt you to make sacrifices? What drives you to act and guides your goals and ambitions? What is the single most important thing you strive for?"

That is a lot of information. It is specifically telling you to use this to help define your morals and ethics. if you can't tell someones morality based on something that is supposed to define their morals and ethics, then you have a problem.

I never wrote it out officially, but I have a character whose Ideal/Bond/Flaw would likely be something along the lines of this

"I was born to Serve"
"Istankri, The Lady of Leaves"
"This mortal world is strange and confusing to me."

It isn't perfect. I understand it, and anyone who knows the character understands it, but I'd bet even you can gleam some useful information from this. Along with their background of "Chef"

 

[Maxperson]

I'm sorry, but how do you figure?

@Helldritch point is that you can use the same two ideals and differentiate them only by alignment. Therefore:

"Hunting down and killing every foe who ever raises a sword against the weak and salting the earth behind you," LG

Would be different than

"Hunting down and killing every foe who ever raises a sword against the weak and salting the earth behind you," LE

That demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of what he is saying.

You seemed to be putting it forth as a bandage for serial killer paladins, because "Gygax Said" as though that somehow makes him right about how we treat things in the modern day.

Nope. It was pretty obvious that it was just informational about paladin BS and not a defense of any sort.

Additionally, knowing their alignment does not neccesarily tell us everything about how they will go about achieving their goal. And, like I said, even providing their alignment without their faith is incomplete, Banites are very different from the followers of Wee-Jas.

Yep. Alignment, like ideals, etc., is only an aid and not an end.

 

[Maxperson]

Max, you are constantly missing the point. You are declaring that IBF are useless because you need more context... but so does alignment. You have to go outside of alignment to understand alignment too.

You've finally caught on to what I've been saying for pages now. Both are just vague aids and not ends. Stop trying to read more into alignment than is there. If you don't like alignment, don't use it. That doesn't make it worthless or a failure as a tool. It just means you don't like it.

This doesn't make IBF useless, this makes it so you need the context of the character. Which, outside of white room crafting, you automatically have. If I write a character who has the Bond "I will defend my Country" in the white room you can declare that useless because it doesn't tell you which country I am defending. But, if I was sitting down to play the game and said, "Here is my noble from Sarlona" now you know which country, the context is there, and you might even be able to infer their alignment just from that.

It makes them useless as ends. You can't just say, "I support my King." and leave it at that as an ideal. It's just a vague tool just like alignment.