D&D 5E A different take on Alignment

[Chaosmancer]

I flip-flop a bit on the AD&D Outer Planes. They're evocative and colourful, but a bit redundant. Some of the evocative ideas, like Gehenna, Pandemonium and Tarterus, seems like they might be able to be merged with Hades and/or The Abyss without losing very much.

But I'm not sure where 52 comes from. There are 16 in Appendix IV, plus Concordant Opposition giving 17 in total.

Is 52 including Inner Planes as well (4 elemental, 4 para-elemental, 8 quasi-elemental, 2 energy)? Though even then I'm only getting to 35 plus the Ethereal and Astral. So I stilld don't know where that number comes from.

It was this image they posted

 

[Oofta]

...

Is there any example you're able to point to of Gygax suggesting, or using, alignment as a way of understanding deep human struggles?

Why does a game like D&D need to care about things like deep human struggles?

I play games to have fun, not plumb the depths of the human psyche. No game can be everything for everyone.

 

[Helldritch]

Why does a game like D&D need to care about things like deep human struggles?

I play games to have fun, not plumb the depths of the human psyche. No game can be everything for everyone.

It has nothing to do and everything to do with deep human struggles. This is the dichotomy of D&D. It is a RPG but it also has its roots deep into wargaming.

You can explore human struggles in D&D but it is an ill suited tool to do it. It does not mean that you can't do it. Just that there are better RPG for this approach. White Wolf's games are especially good for that.

D&D is all about high fantasy, but you can play grim dark, gritty realism and even more extreme games or comic games with it. It is because D&D is so broad in spectrum and versatility that we have so many play styles. The only other system that is as versatile as D&D is GURPS. It does fantasy, horror, sci-fi and other genre really well. And if you remember well, D&D also did sci-fi with the Buck Roger's RPG.

So yes, D&D can be used for exploring deep human psyche and struggles. It is generic enough to do it. But it is ill suited for this kind of play. I can bake a cake in a normal stove, but in a boiler's fire chamber that is 850 celcius not so well. I can try, I can even succeed. But it would not be the right tool.

 

[Chaosmancer]

And you might have noticed that I am not him and am free to disagree with both him and you. You might further have noticed that when I disagreed and responded to you, he then agreed with me or at least liked that post of mine, I can't remember which at this point. And if you were really astute, you'd have noticed that you completely twisted what I said to be the exact opposite.

So, you jumped in, disagreeing with both of us? Would sort of help to clarify that, since disagreeing with only one-side (you know, by only responding to one-side) doesn't give the impression that you disagree with both sides.

Yeah. Imagine that. I do sometimes agree with you.

Funny way to agree with my by disagreeing with me.

So here's the thing. I don't read every post in a thread and I don't always read every one you respond to in a post. Sometimes I read just the responses to me and move on. Depends on how busy I am and how many posts I'm catching up on. I'm also not limited to just typing a few words like, "I agree with you." and leaving it at that. I can make longer posts.

I didn't say you were limited. But, if you are going to respond to a post, at least read the post it is quoting? If you agree with someone who you consistently disagree with and make snide mocking comments about, maybe add something like "I agree, but" so that person knows you are agreeing with them.

Sure, I can't dictate how you post, but jumping into a conversation you didn't have the full context for and tossing out posts that say three different things, is just asking to confuse everyone involved. And we have enough of that already.

I agree. I don't bother checking alignment for NPCs unless they are going to possibly have to react beyond, "That will be 32 gold, 2 silver and 8 copper." Sometimes, though, they go to the general store to question the shopkeep about a murder or something beyond, "Do you have rope?" and I need to know how the shopkeep will react and respond.

Maybe to you. But alignment works better for me, and even better when I give an alignment AND a few quirks like joyful. I mean, the shopkeep could joyfully help anyone who is in need in order to "see new things", because he's good, or joyfully torture people to death in order to "see new things" if he's evil. Joyful doesn't tell me enough on its own.

Well, I do tend to assume that most people aren't murderous psychopaths. I mean, just statistically, 66.66% of people aren't evil, and most evil people are going to need more reason than a guy dragging a body into their shop to want to aid in a torture session.

And if someone is that crazy and evil... that's generally a plot point, so I've spent time fleshing them out.

You mean you've never had the players just out of the blue decide to go and see if there is a farrier or some other obscure NPC that you didn't include, but would likely be in the town/city? I have.

Sure I have, and I'm sure @FrozenNorth has too.

But, that is what a basic 20 second personality sketch is for. And alignment is just not going to help with that.

It's not baseless man. Alignment has been an integral part of the game for decades. The truth of MY statement is apparent on its face. Millions have successfully used it. Heck I even went with a very low 50% number, rather than the much higher probable number. The absurdity of yours is just as apparent. Prove your ludicrous claim.

I've been playing for a while now. Alignment only came up once in any game that I played in a meaningful fashion.

A "Good" Oathbreaker who defied the gods and desecrated an altar to my cleric's lost pantheon (proof that he had spent his whole life searching for) and participated in the repeated murder of an innocent woman (raise dead) to bait a vampire declared that of course they were good-aligned and browbeat the DM into letting them wield an artifact that could only be touched by good characters.

Meanwhile, my cleric who was a doctor and showed mercy to our enemies, was labeled evil by the party and constantly accused of spreading evil throughout the world because I let evil beings live.

Sure, you'll tell me that that is anecdotal evidence and problems with DMs and in no way shows the problems of alignment, but you have to at least see that when half of the thread is telling you one thing, maybe you should listen and realize that is millions are using it right, and millions are using it wrong, then their is still a massive proportion using it wrong or not at all.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I disagree. Both Gygax and Arneson read quite a lot, just watch their recommended reading in the appendice of the 1ed DMG. Did they catter to our modern sensitivity ? Of course not. But they read a lot with the "sensitivity" of the sixties and seventies which was quite different from today's.

Reading a lot and building rich and diverse worlds are not the same thing. Gygax is the only one I am definitely familiar with, but he didn't seem to have the complex view of what made literary struggles feel right.

And, while you can say he was a pioneer, and in RPGs he was, he wasn't a pioneer in story-telling. And he was acquaintances with some good writers, like H.G. Wells.

Not to say Gygax couldn't tell a good story, obviously he could, but there was a bit more... a bit more Michael Bay in it. Action and Adventure, Indiana Jones and Conan in the midst of the fight, but not so much with the larger cosmological struggles that could make something like Moorcock work

 

[Maxperson]

So, you jumped in, disagreeing with both of us? Would sort of help to clarify that, since disagreeing with only one-side (you know, by only responding to one-side) doesn't give the impression that you disagree with both sides.

I didn't say I disagreed with both sides. I said I CAN disagree with both of you, meaning that I am free to disagree with you and agree with him, disagree with both of you, agree with both of you, or agree with you and disagree with him.

Funny way to agree with my by disagreeing with me.

Cuz it didn't happen.

Well, I do tend to assume that most people aren't murderous psychopaths. I mean, just statistically, 66.66% of people aren't evil, and most evil people are going to need more reason than a guy dragging a body into their shop to want to aid in a torture session.

But being joyful and having a desire to see something new doesn't tell me enough to know if he's one of the sickos or not.

And if someone is that crazy and evil... that's generally a plot point, so I've spent time fleshing them out.

In my world, more than the very few I flesh out are evil.

Sure, you'll tell me that that is anecdotal evidence and problems with DMs and in no way shows the problems of alignment, but you have to at least see that when half of the thread is telling you one thing, maybe you should listen and realize that is millions are using it right, and millions are using it wrong, then their is still a massive proportion using it wrong or not at all.

Half the thread isn't telling me one thing. Not only is your side not even half, but you are split on what you are telling me.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Why does a game like D&D need to care about things like deep human struggles?

I play games to have fun, not plumb the depths of the human psyche. No game can be everything for everyone.

D&D is and always has been about the human experience, and about all the important questions, for far too many people, for me to agree with you.

That stuff is part of the game. Like alignment, you can use it or not as you wish, but it is just as much a part of what D&D is.

 

[Helldritch]

D&D is and always has been about the human experience, and about all the important questions, for far too many people, for me to agree with you.

That stuff is part of the game. Like alignment, you can use it or not as you wish, but it is just as much a part of what D&D is.

And both you and @Oofta are right. Though I do believe that other game system are way better for the exploration of psyche, I did say that D&D can do it too, albeit with less than satisfactory results. And even then, it rests solely on the DM's shoulders to be successful. The rules, in any edition of the game never truly supported a deep journey into the psyche of characters.

It is my belief that most people playing D&D go for the high action fantasy that the rules promotes, and when they want to get deeper on RP, they go to other systems. D&D can do horror. But Cthulhu and BTS do it better. Want to play sci-fi? D&D can do it too. But again, other systems (Space Master, Star Wars etc...) do it better. For the psyche? White Wolf is hard to beat. But again, D&D can do all that if you put enough work into it.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

And both you and @Oofta are right. Though I do believe that other game system are way better for the exploration of psyche, I did say that D&D can do it too, albeit with less than satisfactory results. And even then, it rests solely on the DM's shoulders to be successful. The rules, in any edition of the game never truly supported a deep journey into the psyche of characters.

It is my belief that most people playing D&D go for the high action fantasy that the rules promotes, and when they want to get deeper on RP, they go to other systems. D&D can do horror. But Cthulhu and BTS do it better. Want to play sci-fi? D&D can do it too. But again, other systems (Space Master, Star Wars etc...) do it better. For the psyche? White Wolf is hard to beat. But again, D&D can do all that if you put enough work into it.

I find that D&D is much better at it than any system I’ve even seen touted as being better for such things, but different strokes.

 

[Aldarc]

While it is true that for a short time (at around the age of seven) I attended Michael Hall School in Sussex, which was run on the rather attractive mystical Christian principles of Rudolf Steiner... I was only briefly interested, as a young adult, in Steiner’s ideas, which had influenced my mentor, Ernst Jelinek. These, however, did influence the cosmology of the Elric stories. Poul Anderson’s marvelous fantasies The Broken Sword and Three Hearts and Three Lions were probably of equal influence, as was my fascination with Norse, Celtic, Hindu, and Zoroastrian mythology.​

While Andrzej Sapkowski (The Witcher) is always reluctant, if not in denial, to admit his literary influences., Michael Moorcock practically gushes at the seams to tell you his literary influences and recommend them.

Law and Chaos in Chainmail, Blackmoor, and OD&D ended up less interesting than its sources imo.

I agree.

Agreed. Gygax and Arneson both had a great sense of gameplay, but neither seems to have had a very rich literary sensibility. (In RPG designers, we could contrast with Greg Stafford, Robin Laws and Vincent Baker - all of whom have both a sense of gameplay and of what makes fiction powerful.)

Greg Stafford has an excellent sense of "myth," which is highly evidence in RuneQuest and Pendragon.

Why does a game like D&D need to care about things like deep human struggles?

I play games to have fun, not plumb the depths of the human psyche. No game can be everything for everyone.

Maybe it doesn't, but I think it's pretty clear that one reason why Gygax included alignment was as a possibility to explore it.