D&D 5E Do you find alignment useful in any way?

[transmission89]

The last couple of pages really seal just how bad alignment is as a descriptor.

Law in D&D means Order, not literal writs of government. Cosmic Law is supposed to be a thing regardless of where you are or whether civilization has imposed it will there. It is possible in game for beings who have never heard of any other beings at all to be Lawful (whatever that is.

But because Law and law sound and are spelled alike, we just got three pages of arguing over whether or not a freaking Solar would run a red light.

So much for the perfect uberhumans that love alignment being perfectly aligned in what alignment means to them.

Right. And how might beings who are inclined to follow the nature of order as a tangible meta physical construct set up and live in a society? Well, they might agree that a society needs some guidelines, to bring structure and order to it. Gosh, if only we had a word for those guidelines...

 

[transmission89]

I think alignment is pretty uninteresting as a personality descriptor (eg is prepared to break petty laws if the cost is negligible). If that's all that's at stake between LG and CG then why would they fight about it?

I think alignment is a bit more interesting if it's framed as an actual disagreement - ie if LG and CG actually disagree, in a fundamental way, about what sorts of social arrangements will produce good (ie life, as little suffering as possible and the resulting prospect of happiness, freedom, truth, beauty). At least it makes sense that people who disagreed about such a question would fight about it!

Indeed, and you see that made manifest in sigil with the whole philosophers with clubs. The different factions explore what it means to be these alignments. Which is why I really dig planescape.

Alas, there are a few too many clueless here that don’t know the dark of it. So, starting with the basics so a basher can get his head round it see?

 

[Maxperson]

Ok. So people who like alignment, answer this: does being lawful mean that you respect laws, traditions and societal rules in general, that you have some sort of personal code, that you're tactical and organised thinker, or something else? Because all these are different things.

Conversely does being chaotic mean that you're impulsive and reckless, that you don't believe in value of laws and traditions or something else?

It can be any or all of that.

"Lawful characters tell the truth, keep their word, respect authority, honor tradition, and judge those who fall short of their duties. Chaotic characters follow their consciences, resent being told what to do, favor new ideas over tradition, and do what they promise if they feel like it. “Law” implies honor, trustworthiness, obedience to authority, and reliability. On the downside, lawfulness can include closemindedness, reactionary adherence to tradition, judgmentalness, and a lack of adaptability. Those who consciously promote lawfulness say that only lawful behavior creates a society in which people can depend on each other and make the right decisions in full confidence that others will act as they should."

"A lawful neutral character acts as law, tradition, or a personal code directs her. Order and organization are paramount to her. She may believe in personal order and live by a code or standard, or she may believe in order for all and favor a strong, organized government. Ember, a monk who follows her discipline without being swayed either by the demands of those in need or by the temptations of evil, is lawful neutral."

I picked the lawful section and LN as LN is really just law. It can be any or all of the things listed.

 

[Maxperson]

And now if we open actual descriptions of alignments in the current edition...

The only one that sounds even remotely defined is CE.


"Do the right thing as expected by society" is so hugely depends on what society we're talking about that it's basically meaningless. What's "the right thing" in Waterdeep isn't going to be "the right thing" in the Underdark. A bunch of "right things" of hundred or even fifty years ago now would be called hatecrimes.

NG and CG refer to "helping others", and, y'know, what my uncle would call "help Alice", I'm going to call "actively hurt Alice".


Now, this one refers to "personal code" — something, by definition, warying wildly from person to person. Is there even a point in trying to fit a thief who never breaches a contract and a samurai living by Bushido into the same category? No, of course not.

Bushido is a code. Honoring contracts is not a code, but is a lawful behavior. Having one lawful behavior isn't enough to make you lawful or not. You have to look further.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It can be any or all of that.

"Lawful characters tell the truth, keep their word, respect authority, honor tradition, and judge those who fall short of their duties. Chaotic characters follow their consciences, resent being told what to do, favor new ideas over tradition, and do what they promise if they feel like it. “Law” implies honor, trustworthiness, obedience to authority, and reliability. On the downside, lawfulness can include closemindedness, reactionary adherence to tradition, judgmentalness, and a lack of adaptability. Those who consciously promote lawfulness say that only lawful behavior creates a society in which people can depend on each other and make the right decisions in full confidence that others will act as they should."

"A lawful neutral character acts as law, tradition, or a personal code directs her. Order and organization are paramount to her. She may believe in personal order and live by a code or standard, or she may believe in order for all and favor a strong, organized government. Ember, a monk who follows her discipline without being swayed either by the demands of those in need or by the temptations of evil, is lawful neutral."

I picked the lawful section and LN as LN is really just law. It can be any or all of the things listed.

Right. And this is why it is useless description of people. Is tactical and organised thinker who doesn't respect laws chaotic or lawful? Is an impulsive and reckless person who adheres to one set of laws (perhaps the edicts of their religion) but doesn't much respect other laws chaotic or lawful? People are full of such dichotomies. Now perhaps you could say such people are neutral, but then you're classing such people in the same group with those who are just indifferent without strong opinions, and that seems radically different.

 

[Aldarc]

I think alignment is pretty uninteresting as a personality descriptor (eg is prepared to break petty laws if the cost is negligible). If that's all that's at stake between LG and CG then why would they fight about it?

I think alignment is a bit more interesting if it's framed as an actual disagreement - ie if LG and CG actually disagree, in a fundamental way, about what sorts of social arrangements will produce good (ie life, as little suffering as possible and the resulting prospect of happiness, freedom, truth, beauty). At least it makes sense that people who disagreed about such a question would fight about it!

I think that the inclusion of Good/Evil into the prior alignment system as separate axes was probably a major misstep on Gygax's part. The moment that "good" exists as part of an objective reality, then that kinda makes a lot of the cosmological and moral complexity of the universe (and any discussion thereof) kinda obsolete and pointless. Even Law vs. Chaos generally becomes ignored and marginalized in this new framing because "Goodness" exists as an objective good in the cosmos. I don't think that it's exactly a coincidence that the game themes of D&D began shifting from Law vs. Chaos to Good vs. Evil not long after Good/Evil was introduced into the Alignment system.

At least Magic the Gathering does not necessarily utilize Good vs. Evil, but, rather, it uses Morality and Amorality.

I did not mind the inclusion of good and evil in 4e's version of alignment, but that was because it maps well to ancient mythological or even Tolkienesque conceptions of ethical cosmology wherein moral evil leads to chaos (and cosmic chaos was regarded as a bad) and goodness leads to order (and cosmic order was regarded as a good).

 

[FrozenNorth]

Chaotic Neutral is probably closer to a libertarian outlook. Liberty and freedom are desirable goals, prioritised over the law (not the same as deciding to run roughshod over it for the sake of it).

Yes, this is exactly how I would describe a slaad’s moral outlook! Or most feys!

 

[Cadence]

Alignment is the same, it doesn't actually provide useful information, but people who like it just see in it what they want to see at given moment.

When scanning quickly through the MM for interesting creature types I hadn't used before to serve as minions of the domineering, brutal, unmerciful, murdering, greedy big bad guy, seeing E or G in the stat block sure felt like it quickly told me whether I should bother to read the rest of the description or not...

 

[Cadence]

It definitely seems like more of a hindrance, by suggesting red dragons aren’t a good fit in the City of Brass while blue dragons and black dragons are.

By 1e-3e alignment, why would a CE Red Dragon be a better fit long term in a strongly LE fire city than an also fire breathing/immune LG gold dragon? (It feels to me like they might both serve best as a prisoner, in an arena, or guarding something out of the way like Shelob. If nothing else, the gold dragon might be able to bring itself to follow the rules and play the game enough to be an ambassador there. The red dragon feels like it would continually get in trouble until something had to be done).

 

[Cadence]

Like, if we can't be arsed to read how a creature actually acts and instead depend on two letters, god help us when we get to one of those 'you need a PH for the five billion spells I know' monsters.

When I want to look for what kinds of outsiders might come to the aid of a Paladin of the benevolent peace bringing God of Justice, it kind of felt useful to screen out all of the ones that were missing G in the appropriate stat block (sortable or in tables in many cases to). Never occurred to me to start reading all of the full descriptions in the initial pass...