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

[Yaarel]

Right, I’d agree except I’d expand on that. Because these aren’t real work philosophies, but “objective concepts”. In a 9 point system, lawful changes based on the good to evil axis and how the beings express the lawful concept.

To my mind, what I’ve been saying, is LG would express order through laws (for a positive structured society), not that it means exclusively laws. Lawful evil obviously doesn’t necessarily follow laws (though they can through legal subversion) but the lawful aspect is the focus on organisation hierarchy and such.

And to that, I would add, a character who follows a "personal code" is, by definition, extremely Chaotic.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Overall, alignment is useful when it's made into a central theme of the campaign and/or setting, a la Moorcock or Dragonlance (or even WoW with Alliance vs Horde). If it's core like that, you'll need to define it better, but that's not too difficult.

If it's not going to be a central theme, it's probably best to treat it as another set of adjectives, and give no more weight than you would any other one-word descriptor.

 

[Maxperson]

Right. And this is why it is useless description of people.

Wrong. That's exactly why it's eminently useful. I can choose which way to play lawful for NPCs and I don't have to cookie cutter them. Any way I play it, it will be apparent to those I play with that they are lawful.

Is tactical and organised thinker who doesn't respect laws chaotic or lawful?

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?

Chaotic.

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.

Yes they are. Alignment is not about all of your activities sticking into one of the nine boxes. It's about where most of your beliefs and personality lie. Since there are many ways to be lawful we have to look at which is more prominent.

Someone who is a organized thinker is going to be that way in almost all aspects of his thinking, where lack of respect for laws is just one small part of his behavior. He is lawful, but like everyone, has aspects of his personality that fall elsewhere. That's fine.

Likewise, someone who is impulsive and reckless will have that aspect also be dominant, otherwise you'd have limited it to impulsive and reckless at one small aspect(like gambling), and adherence to one set of laws is minor compared to that. He is chaotic.

This is neither rocket science, nor particularly difficult. And it is in fact useful to the majority of us. As I said before, if you are unable to see the usefulness, don't use alignment. Problem solved. It's petty and spiteful, though, to want to solve your inability to use alignment by taking it away from the majority of us who can and do find it useful.

 

[Aldarc]

Overall, alignment is useful when it's made into a central theme of the campaign and/or setting, a la Moorcock or Dragonlance (or even WoW with Alliance vs Horde). If it's core like that, you'll need to define it better, but that's not too difficult.

If it's not going to be a central theme, it's probably best to treat it as another set of adjectives, and give no more weight than you would any other one-word descriptor.

I don't think that it's a coincidence though that these settings that often make alignment a central theme or motif fundamentally focus on and/or pair down alignment to two or three instead of trying to juggle nine.

• Moorcock is Law - Balance - Chaos.
• Dragonlance is effectively Good - Neutral/Balance - Evil.
• Warhammer: also Order vs. Chaos.
• Warcraft, with its conceptual origin in Warhammer, is basically Law (Alliance) vs. Chaos (Horde).
• The World Axis mythos of 4e flattened alignment to focus on the goodness of cosmic order vs. the moral and cosmological decay of chaos.
• Tekumél has the Gods of Stability vs. the Gods of Change.

I'm actually a philosopher, and that may be why I've always found Planescape and its factions unbearably silly.

IMHO, "sophomoric."

 

[Vaalingrade]

This is neither rocket science, nor particularly difficult. And it is in fact useful to the majority of us. As I said before, if you are unable to see the usefulness, don't use alignment. Problem solved. It's petty and spiteful, though, to want to solve your inability to use alignment by taking it away from the majority of us who can and do find it useful.

I really hate this obnoxious line of argument that removing alignment is a personal attack against its fans rather than a desire to remove an element we view as extraneous at best and actively harmful at worst.

It's like smokers acting like smoking bans are attacks on them rather than a public health issue.

 

[Yaarel]

I really hate this obnoxious line of argument that removing alignment is a personal attack against its fans rather than a desire to remove an element we view as extraneous at best and actively harmful at worst.

It's like smokers acting like smoking bans are attacks on them rather than a public health issue.

Heh, thus speaks Lawful.

 

[Maxperson]

I really hate this obnoxious line of argument that removing alignment is a personal attack against its fans rather than a desire to remove an element we view as extraneous at best and actively harmful at worst.

It's like smokers acting like smoking bans are attacks on them rather than a public health issue.

There's no attack there dude. You guys have already stated that you find no use with alignment. That means that you are unable to see the usefulness and it's not an attack to say so. Since the majority of us can and do see the use, it is an absolute fact that alignment is useful. Your inability can't alter that fact and make it not so.

And I reject your smoking False Equivalence for what it is. Alignment poses no danger at all, like not even a smidge, to anyone who uses it the way it is intended to be used, which apparently is most of us.

Perhaps since A) you are unable to see the usefulness in alignment, and B) those of us who can aren't in any danger, perhaps consider that it's your inability causing a misuse of alignment that burns you and just don't use it. Don't take it away from the rest of us who don't want or need your "protection."

 

[Aldarc]

I really hate this obnoxious line of argument that removing alignment is a personal attack against its fans rather than a desire to remove an element we view as extraneous at best and actively harmful at worst.

It's like smokers acting like smoking bans are attacks on them rather than a public health issue.

I'm not a fan of the insulting insinuations that those who disagree with alignment simply don't understand it properly. It dismisses the possibility that people can understand alignment while also holding critical opinions about it.

 

[The Annihilargh]

Idk and I don't care if someone has already posted what Imma bouta say, because it already deserves multiple mentions:
Enforcing alignments is one of the best ways to keep leashes on your paladins folks.

 

[Vaalingrade]

There's no attack there dude. You guys have already stated that you find no use with alignment. That means that you are unable to see the usefulness and it's not an attack to say so.

Argument. I said argument. Stop with the performative rhetoric.

And I reject your smoking False Equivalence for what it is. Alignment poses no danger at all, like not even a smidge, to anyone who uses it the way it is intended to be used, which apparently is most of us.

Perhaps since A) you are unable to see the usefulness in alignment, and B) those of us who can aren't in any danger, perhaps consider that it's your inability causing a misuse of alignment that burns you and just don't use it. Don't take it away from the rest of us who don't want or need your "protection."

Sure you want to throw around Phil 101 terms when you're rocking the appeal to popularity?

The herm alignment does is in the culture and attitude it enforces, especially othering and tarring entire peoples as 'evil'. Let us never forget the Book of Vile Darkness and the Book of Exalted Deeds. And you can dismiss them as being from a previous edition, but their legacy lives on in thousands of games via the DM fiat happy nature of 5e.