D&D 5E What do you think should be done with alignment?

[Marc_C]

So, three threads about alignment in the last few days.

I've never liked them to begin with (1980). Stopped enforcing them halfway through 2e. Don't use them in 5e. It's the DM's job to give creatures and NPCs agendas. It shouldn't be predictable system players can meta-game. Some parts of the D&D rule set become obsolete with time. Time to get rid of alignments.

If WoTC kills them in 6e (or 5.5) edition we will see "Bring Backs Alignments" threads until kingdom come! We still get "Bring Back THAC0" posts in new edition speculations threads.

 

[Helldritch]

I voted #1 and #2.
This combination is self explanatory.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I still can't get over how people seem to think that all the other RPGs out that without alignment are super hard to roleplay in because they don't measure two minor attributes. Like people can't figure out that Superman is a good guy, Dr. Doom is a bad guy without specifically appending tags to them.

What should be done with alignment? Given its true purpose: an optional rule added to the Planescape setting like Stress in Ravenloft. It's a setting element that doesn't belong in EVERY setting.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Actually, I want to re-reply to this. This isn't directed at you, per se, but to the concept in general.

There really isn't anything wrong with being emotional... except that at some point, society decided that being emotional was a feminine trait, so real men shouldn't be emotional. They should be stoic and fearless and unaffected. Not sad or afraid or anything like that. That's for girls.

So, I say let's have our big strong orcs be emotional!

This tends to touch upon one of the issues I have with alignment, so thanks for the example/analogy, @Faolyn !

Being in touch with you emotions gets coded as feminine, being stoic and emotional gets coded masculine. Social cues are enforced to discourage men from acting emotional, and we have an entire lexicon for women who don’t display enough emotion (women have it worse, because we have a ton of denigrating terms for women who display too much emotion as well). All this despite the fact that the root of the coding is fairly arbitrary.

In alignment, “creative, artsy, emotional, flaky” gets coded chaotic. “organized, pedantic, calculating” gets coded lawful. This is just as arbitrary. Fortunately, you don’t end up with as much toxicity as “real men don’t cry”, but you still end up with exceedingly dumb rules.

Like, bards can’t be lawful, they are all creative types busy having doomed romances with the NPCs. Barbarians from the extremely tradition-oriented Northern tribes can’t be lawful, have you seen how they fight? Monks can’t be chaotic, they train their minds and body to achieve perfect discipline! Of course if you free an imp from a cage they are going to feel a need to pay back that debt to even out the score ! They’re Lawful Evil. Paladins that are laid-back and easygoing? Heresy!

Fortunately, the above are no longer rules in 5e. However, I have seen a lot of players that have internalized these outdated tropes. It leads to more 1-dimensionsl characters and less diversity in character personalities at generation.

We don’t need to teach new generations of players that Joffrey Baratheon is Chaotic Evil because he believes that he is entitled to do whatever he wants, rather than Lawful Evil because he believes that as the king of Westeros, his word is law, and that no one is more invested than he is in the current authoritarian structure (except maybe his mom).

 

[Oofta]

I still can't get over how people seem to think that all the other RPGs out that without alignment are super hard to roleplay in because they don't measure two minor attributes. Like people can't figure out that Superman is a good guy, Dr. Doom is a bad guy without specifically appending tags to them.

What should be done with alignment? Given its true purpose: an optional rule added to the Planescape setting like Stress in Ravenloft. It's a setting element that doesn't belong in EVERY setting.

Has anyone said that other RPGs are hard to roleplay? Ever? That doesn't mean that alignment isn't useful; D&D is it's own thing comparing to other RPGs is frequently comparing apples to oranges.

 

[FrozenNorth]

I wonder if part of the problem with using alignment in the same terminology for both individual PC/NPCs and the extra-planar creatures is that a person who likes freedom and hates rules might be chaotic, but they aren't chaotic in the bad guy end of the world sense of the early Elric books, for example. A person who is evil in that they take what they need or are one of the evil protagonists in another thread going on seem very different from a demonic/devilish being whose goal is to actively cause as much pain as possible.

I would argue that this does not go far ENOUGH. I don’t think there is CHAOTIC and chaotic, I think there are a dozen traits that fall under “chaotic” but that don’t necessarily strongly correlate with each other.

So, a character can be “chaotic” if:

• flightly, whimsical, incapable of taking most things seriously (Fey);
• strong believers of individual rights and self-determination vs. the collectivity (civil rights lawyers);
• strongly aligned with a Chaotic plane (Marids, Djinn);
• not beholden to society’s laws/their word (criminals/oathbreakers/charming liars)
• prefer to destroy rather than dominate (demons)
• forward, creative, anti-traditionalist (mad scientists);
• impulsive, ruled by their emotions (stereotypical portrayals of barbarians)
• insane (not I strongly disagree with this and just include it because this correlation was emphasized in 2e and 3e).

Note that characters that typify certain of these traits strongly exclude others. Civil rights lawyers are not particularly known for their whimsy, and will take affront to the suggestion that they reject laws or are habitual oathbreakers. Fey, despite being the poster children for whimsy, are also characterized by strict adherence to their own bizarre rules. A barbarian can be from a traditional society and invested in the old ways of doing things and still be a frothing madman on the battlefield. A character may wish for the triumph of the Elysian fields but refuse to stoop to dishonorable methods to achieve them.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I would argue that this does not go far ENOUGH. I don’t think there is CHAOTIC and chaotic, I think there are a dozen traits that fall under “chaotic” but that don’t necessarily strongly correlate with each other.

So, a character can be “chaotic” if:

• flightly, whimsical, incapable of taking most things seriously (Fey);
• strong believers of individual rights and self-determination vs. the collectivity (civil rights lawyers);
• strongly aligned with a Chaotic plane (Marids, Djinn);
• not beholden to society’s laws/their word (criminals/oathbreakers/charming liars)
• prefer to destroy rather than dominate (demons)
• forward, creative, anti-traditionalist (mad scientists);
• impulsive, ruled by their emotions (stereotypical portrayals of barbarians)
• insane (not I strongly disagree with this and just include it because this correlation was emphasized in 2e and 3e).

Note that characters that typify certain of these traits strongly exclude others. Civil rights lawyers are not particularly known for their whimsy, and will take affront to the suggestion that they reject laws or are habitual oathbreakers. Fey, despite being the poster children for whimsy, are also characterized by strict adherence to their own bizarre rules. A barbarian can be from a traditional society and invested in the old ways of doing things and still be a frothing madman on the battlefield.

Yep. And you can make similar list for lawful and then of course many people will have traits from both lists.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I like to get my alignment checked every 120,000 miles.

 

[Stalker0]

I am pretty happy with 5e's version....because at the end of the day your alignment doesn't matter mechanically. Its not the old days where being X alignment meant being hurt by Y spell.

Its a roleplaying tool, that players and DMs can use as much or as little as they would like. That to me is exactly where it should be. Since the dawn of dnd players have argued about what constitutes what alignment. And for editions to come, the debate will still rage. At least now there are no mechanical consequences.

 

[Aldarc]

Trying to get some more insight in to what people think about alignment, building on Mistwell's poll at D&D 5E - Do you find alignment useful in any way?
Reading that thread made me change my gut reaction -- thanks to everyone who commented over there!

This poll starts to get at it.ch, .. For folks that want a change from 5e, it looks like going more like 1e-3e is popular, while adding more detail or substantially changing a previous one aren't chosen mueven when allowed two choices in the poll (among the small group that replied).

D&D 5E - What do you think should be done with alignment?

Trying to get some more insight in to what people think about alignment, building on Mistwell's poll at D&D 5E - Do you find alignment useful in any way? Reading that thread made me change my gut reaction -- thanks to everyone who commented over there!

www.enworld.org

I think that my own preference would be for Alignment to be an Optional rules set that people could choose to layer on top of an Alignment-less game. There would be multiple models provided for Alignment - e.g., the Classic 9, the 4e model, the old school Law vs. Chaos B/X variety, Good v. Evil, or a 5 Alignment model (i.e., G, E, L, C, N) with no double-alignments - with a discussion on using these models according to the thematic appropriateness of your world. There would then be additional possible mechanical options that people could use in conjunction with these models. For example, something akin to Theros's Piety could be provided for Alignment. You align yourself with a cosmological force (e.g., Good, Evil, Law, Chaos, etc.) and get perks for doing so, but also attract increased heat from forces aligned to the opposing alignment.

But I'm not a fan of Alignment as D&D's version of MBTI.