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

[Aldarc]

When the majority of people still find it useful, yes I do have a problem with it. Seriously, it feels like a knee-jerk overreaction to remove alignment because people will still identify certain groups as evil, we just won't have a label provided.

Just as it would be dismissive to those who do find Alignment useful to remove it, it also seems incredibly dismissive and rude to regard critics of alignment as being mostly a knee-jerk overreaction. I suspect that if you went back far enough in the history of these forums, you would likely find that criticisms of Alignment is hardly a recent phenomenon or that critics don't have their own diverse opinions regarding Alignment.

 

[Micah Sweet]

No, and it can not be compared.
There was a true concensus about the removal of weapon modifications to attack roll and damage vs giant type. It was a needless complication that was not part of the initial game and these were only slowing gameplay. No one I knew in any circles and conventions were really using these anyway. The same can't be said about alignments. They are used by a lot of tables and are still an easy way to RP mooch and mobs that are not important enough to warrant a full-fledged NPC/BBEG refinement.

Which is why removing alignment was, IMO, clearly a business and political decision, and what's more, made at the last minute prior to going to press (at least in Candlekeep). This tells me it was a reaction to critics (the people WotC care about most), and not properly considered.

 

[Voadam]

Has their personality changed in that time? My impression is that they have always been described as bloodthirsty raiders.

My memory is that LE AD&D descriptions included more flavor text of orcs working as minions for various bad guys while 3e and on CE descriptions focused more on them as raging barbarians.

So LE dumb thugs who accept authority and work for others often in a violent military army context versus CE raiders who might form massive hordes.

 

[Maxperson]

Which is why removing alignment was, IMO, clearly a business and political decision, and what's more, made at the last minute prior to going to press (at least in Candlekeep). This tells me it was a reaction to critics (the people WotC care about most), and not properly considered.

The removal was a panic decision to cater to a certain crowd. WotC has a history of overreaction and throwing the baby out with the bath water. They didn't need to completely remove alignment when including it as a clearly optional rule would have been more than sufficient.

 

[Cadence]

The removal was a panic decision to cater to a certain crowd.

It feels like some of the folks at WotC prefer some of the recent changes on their own merits. (Or maybe I misremember some tweets).

 

[pemerton]

But thank you for your supportive explanation to those in need!

I think it's a little patronising for you to frame those who disagree with you as those in need.

But in any event, 9-point D&D alignment is of little use to running an Elric-style game. The Lords of Law and Chaos in Elric are not correlated with good or evil, and Law and Chaos in Elric don't particularly stand in as proxies for character personality and social organisation in the way that is being suggested in this thread as the main use for alignment.

EDIT: To speak more frankly, the idea that deciding what a hateful hermit Meazel might do based on the fact that a book labels it NE, or deciding which chromatic dragons might live in the City of Brass based on whether a book labels them CE or LE, is somehow giving voice to the epic conflict of Law and Chaos as depicted in the Elric stories, is a proposition that I can't really take seriously.

 

[pemerton]

Definition of censor: "to delete (a word or passage of text)"

You want to delete the words indicating alignment. Censorship does not have to be entire publications.

Nothing will be deleted. No books will be removed from the marketplace. Certain texts may cease to be published in the future - that's commercial decision-making by a private publisher, not censorship!

But this thread isn't even, concretely, about what should WotC publish?

It's about does alignment bring anything useful to the game?

 

[Maxperson]

It feels like some of the folks at WotC prefer some of the recent changes on their own merits. (Or maybe I misremember some tweets).

The tweets I remember indicated that they felt something needed to change. The final cut of alignment from Candle Keep was overly hasty and ill thought out. There was no replacement for what they removed, making it objectively more difficult and unwieldy for DMs to run those characters. Putting in some bonds, flaws, etc. would have at least been something to go on, even if it wasn't as good as what they removed.

As I said before. WotC has a history of overreaction and throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

 

[Cadence]

I think it's a little patronising for you to frame those who disagree with you as those in need.

But in any event, 9-point D&D alignment is of little use to running an Elric-style game. The Lords of Law and Chaos in Elric are not correlated with good or evil, and Law and Chaos in Elric don't particularly stand in as proxies for character personality and social organisation in the way that is being suggested in this thread as the main use for alignment.

"In any way."

It feels like one split is between describing usual motivations of "characters" and the other describing things like outsiders.

Another feels like it is between good-evil and law-chaos.

Trying to mush all of that together certainly seems painful to me. :-/

 

[pemerton]

"In any way."

Should I be answering, Yes - it gives me something to debate about on ENworld?

I mean, "any way" is a pretty low threshold. It's certainly not equivalent to useful, all things considered and is quite consistent with but on balance I find it more of a problem than its worth.