D&D 5E A different take on Alignment

[FrozenNorth]

It tells us next to nothing about general outlook on life and behavior.

In any case, if this is it, it falls far short of what alignment tells me. In combination with alignment? It still only tells me one small aspect of what role an imp might fulfill, and even then it's a misleading one. An imp could be a familiar for example. Their job wouldn't be harvesting souls (it may be harvesting an individual soul) but it tells me nothing about their preferred methods, how they'll respond to negotiations, general view of the world.

Again, it's a specific individual imp and a specific slice. There's no point.

I read this, and the clear implication is that the two letters LE tell you more than @Chaosmancer ‘s one line description of green dragons.

Here’s that description again:

Green: "I show my power by corrupting and twisting others into serving my schemes"

So, what more does saying the green dragon is LE add?

 

[AnotherGuy]

When I pointed out that Games of Thrones characters do not have alignments, you disagreed and asked me what I meant by alignment.

You also said one could not apply alignment to fictional characters. That is what I took issue with.

You seem to believe that because third parties can apply alignments to fictional characters that weren’t created with alignments, that has some meaning. It doesn’t. Especially not for people who don’t use alignment in the first place.

Ah but it does, have some meaning, in that people who DO use alignment and DO see a value in its use CAN apply and HAVE applied it to fictional Non-D&D characters based on their understanding of that character, which therefore suggests that alignment DOES inform us about a character's moral compass as much as you and others protest it does not.

 

[Chaosmancer]

So your issue with alignment here appears to be that alignment doesn't assist in understanding one's behaviour in all particular areas of one's life. The examples you have provided, and its supposed limitations, truly highlight, at lease in part, why the two camps seem to have such a disconnect.

I daresay using alignment to determine if one is lazy at work is not the best use of alignment.

I'm sorry, the claim we keep getting is that alignment is a "general tool". It is good for "general use"

How can a general use tool NOT apply to all areas of a person's life? If it only describes you in a single context... isn't that a highly specific tool?

 

[Maxperson]

See, it’s stuff like this why I find it hard to take you seriously. You call another poster on making stuff up, and when he points out he is simply responding to the premises you set up, it turns out you are doing what you accused him of.

It makes it very difficult to conclude that you are arguing in good faith.

The vast majority of people who play games, play by the rules. This is a fact.

 

[TheSword]

I understand your point: different people can agree on a conclusion but either disagree on the reasons for that conclusion or implement it differently.

But here’s the thing: in this case, this disagreement undercuts the main arguments supporting alignment.

I don’t think it does.

@Oofta, @Maxperson and @Helldritch principally rely on the following two arguments to support alignment:
1) Alignment has been rendered vestigial and a simple roleplaying guide so removing it doesn’t improve anything;
2) The negative experiences people who oppose alignment cite are either because they are beholden to previous incarnations of alignment, or because their groups are applying alignment wrong.

Many of the alignment horror stories described are precisely the DM changing a character’s alignment because he disagrees with the actions taken by the character. So if a DM who does that is correctly applying alignment, then alignment is clearly not only a roleplaying guide, undercutting the first argument.

They are usually the consequence of a players actions resulting in things not working for them or them being affected by 3e (and earlier) effects that are controlled by alignment, spell damage, Paladins falling, creature abilities etc. These things no longer apply in 5e.

The fact that about half of the posters who support alignment agree that the DM can change a character’s alignment and the other half disagree undercuts the second argument. You can’t say that one group is applying alignment wrong when there is no consensus as to how to apply alignment, and you can’t really say that one group is beholden to previous incarnations of alignment when the same d*mn thing keeps happening in 5e.

Why not. Why does everyone need to use Alignment the same? It’s a tool, it’s utility depends on the task it’s put too.

As a final point, indicating that it is OK for a DM to change a character’s alignment when a character is acting more Evil than Neutral or Good is threading a very fine needle. Earlier on in this thread, I gave the example of a game where the DM threatened to change my character’s alignment to Chaotic, because he disagreed with the way I played the extremely Lawful character. I pointed out that despite the fact that I don’t care about alignment, the attack on player agency bothered me. Many posters agreed that the DM was out of line.

I don’t think so. In my experience players know when actions they take are evil, and if things are borderline or debatable then it’s probably grounds for a warning but not an alignment change. There is no change in agency because in 5e Alignment doesn’t stop people doing things. Unless the table doesn’t want evil in the party in which case the actions are wrong whether you use the alignment or not.

Why is the DM threatening to change a character’s alignment to Evil not an issue but threatening to change a character’s alignment to Chaotic problematic? I think everyone agrees that in the PHB and DMG, no distinction is made between the two situations.

I don’t think either are problematic if the characters actions are fitting. Alignment is a label that changes when a persons behavior changes substantially.

* @Flamestrike, an alignment supporter, specifically called out @Helldritch for changing his character’s LG alignment for showing mercy.

Presumably because your party doesn’t have a ban on Chaotic characters so who cares.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Who is the authority on if alignment works at one's table?

What does working at the table have to do with the alignment of Jason Bourne or James Bond?

The point you have been arguing is that alignment CAN be applied outside of DnD, so why are you pivoting to another DnDism (the DM) to tell me why it can work in movies and books?

 

[Maxperson]

@Oofta, @Maxperson and @Helldritch principally rely on the following two arguments to support alignment:
1) Alignment has been rendered vestigial and a simple roleplaying guide so removing it doesn’t improve anything;
2) The negative experiences people who oppose alignment cite are either because they are beholden to previous incarnations of alignment, or because their groups are applying alignment wrong.

I haven't said the bolded portion. That's not part of my argument.

Many of the alignment horror stories described are precisely the DM changing a character’s alignment because he disagrees with the actions taken by the character. So if a DM who does that is correctly applying alignment, then alignment is clearly not only a roleplaying guide, undercutting the first argument.

The fact that about half of the posters who support alignment agree that the DM can change a character’s alignment and the other half disagree undercuts the second argument. You can’t say that one group is applying alignment wrong when there is no consensus as to how to apply alignment, and you can’t really say that one group is beholden to previous incarnations of alignment when the same d*mn thing keeps happening in 5e.

Not really. Pretend that I'm a DM who would actually change your character's alignment and tell you that instead of LN, you are not LE. So what. It changes virtually nothing(a few magic items) about how you play your character or how the game treats you. People in the game world aren't going to know your alignment, since there's no way to detect it. They ARE going to react to you based on your actions, but they would do that if alignment wasn't there. Changing alignment is a big nothing burger.

That means that our different stances are also a nothing burger. They don't make a difference.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Right. It's the social contract. I would not give the warnings about alignment you mentioned, because 1) 5e has no mechanism for changing a player's alignment, so right away that's a house rule, 2) it's not necessary.

Good and evil exist whether alignment does or not. Were I to say no evil in the game and the players agree(they would if they wanted to play), then it is a violation of the social contract to run around acting evil. In my opinion it would be wrong to try and resolve a social contract violation through game means(changing alignment, etc.) and would instead solve it outside of the game. Depending on the egregiousness of the violation, the player might get warned that if he continues to violate his agreement he will get booted or just get booted.

What is the player advocates for enforcing religious law on a community? Is that evil?

What about restructuring the government to work in a manner tied to political ideology? Is that Evil?

What if they follow Plato's Philosopher King strategy to raising better rulers of the people? Is that Evil?


Sure, you can probably easily point out that murdering innocent people in the street is evil, but what about building a golem that does all the work of the laborers that used to be employed by the city, is that evil?


After all, "No Evil" is going to apply, and going to get them booted, so what if this stuff is evil?

 

[FrozenNorth]

So your issue with alignment here appears to be that alignment doesn't assist in understanding one's behaviour in all particular areas of one's life. The examples you have provided, and its supposed limitations, truly highlight, at lease in part, why the two camps seem to have such a disconnect.

I daresay using alignment to determine if one is lazy at work is not the best use of alignment.

Close, but not quite. One of my issues is that alignment doesn’t assist in understanding an NPCs’ behaviour in the context in which it interacts with the PCs. Likewise, my point is not that alignment can tell you that a guard is lazy at work, but rather that characterizing the guard as lazy and unmotivated at work is more useful if the players interact with the guard at work.

If the characters are captured by the corrupt watchmaster, the fact that the guard guarding their cell is lazy and unmotivated is much more useful information for adjudicating their escape plans than knowing that the guard is LE.

How do you mean - the content of my particular game? or are we talking about a DM-force via change of alignment?

I can’t speak for the outcome in your specific game of a LG character standing back and letting another character murder a goblin. I know that in one of the games I played in, it led to a third character voluntarily leaving the game.

 

[Chaosmancer]

The vast majority of people who play games, play by the rules. This is a fact.

I've played with a lot of people in a lot of games. No what one of the most common gaming experiences we have is?

Having skimmed the rules and missed an entire section of rules that we haven't been playing by.

Only, unlike a board game where there is obvious break down of the game's function, alignment doesn't serve a purpose in the game play cycle, so what do you think happens in that case?

It goes ignored. Just like the jumping rules, the swimming rules, the bonus action spell rules, the rules for how self-cubes work, and dozens of other rules in the game that are constantly missed.