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

[Maxperson]

And I wonder what you think is being chilled? I mean, I'm not interested in "chilling" the use of alignment. I just think it's not very helpful, basically for the reasons posted in this thread most recently by @Mecheon.

Do you think it's not very helpful to the 2/3 of the people who voted that it was useful?

 

[Krachek]

No. As I posted elsewhere, alignement as present in 5e does nothing for me. I like alignement in AD&D.

You find fundamental difference?

Lawful Evil: Creatures of this alignment are great respecters of laws and strict order, but life, beauty, truth, freedom and the like are held as valueless, or at least scorned. By adhering to stringent discipline, those of lawful evil alignment hope to impose their yoke upon the world.

Lawful evil (LE) creatures methodically take what they want, within the limits of a code of tradition, loyalty, or order. Devils, blue dragons, and hobgoblins are lawful evil.

 

[Yaarel]

On the approach described here, it obviously remains open to the players, in playing their PCs, to disagree with the NPCs who are adversely judging them. And while the GM has authority over what the NPCs' opinions are, there is nothing to suggest that the GM has authority over whether the NPCs are correct.

Yes, exactly.

And that is why alignment is better as story, rather than mechanics.

If a DM and a player disagree about alignment, they can play out their own versions of it, and the story can be awesome.

For example, a Warlock patron might be furious that the Warlock has "gone soft". And the disagreement can become fun series of encounters.

But if the DM had mechanics to break the player, it would be unfortunate for the story, and perhaps even harmful to a reallife friendship.



People care about reallife worldviews, including ethics. Gentle is best.

 

[Aging Bard]

As I'm sure others must have pointed out in this long thread, 5e alignment is less useful because it is badly implemented. It is little more than flavor text. I disagree with those that don't want alignment to have a mechanic effect like it used to. In some other threads, there is considerable support for going all the way back to the simple Law-Chaos axis. That's not my choice, but I respect the reasoning. Eliminating alignment makes D&D less interesting, and I like D&D to be interesting.

 

[pemerton]

Do you think it's not very helpful to the 2/3 of the people who voted that it was useful?

I have no idea, because "useful in any way" is quite consistent with "not very helpful".

 

[pemerton]

Yes, exactly.

And that is why alignment is better as story, rather than mechanics.

If a DM and a player disagree about alignment, they can play out their own versions of it, and the story can be awesome.

<snip

People care about reallife worldviews, including ethics. Gentle is best.

Apparently while we disagree on our Aquinas interpretation, we agree on this!

 

[pemerton]

You find fundamental difference?

Lawful Evil: Creatures of this alignment are great respecters of laws and strict order, but life, beauty, truth, freedom and the like are held as valueless, or at least scorned. By adhering to stringent discipline, those of lawful evil alignment hope to impose their yoke upon the world.

Lawful evil (LE) creatures methodically take what they want, within the limits of a code of tradition, loyalty, or order. Devils, blue dragons, and hobgoblins are lawful evil.

I'm not the person you asked, but will offer an answer anyway!

I think there are deep differences.

The first identifies certain values - including life, beauty and truth - which are scorned; identifies a goal, namely, power ("their yoke"); and identifies a means - strict order and stringent discipline. It both gives me a sense of the worldview of the LE person (they like organisation, they are hungry for power, they don't care about others, they are happy to lie) and also tells me what would prove them to be wrong (namely, if order and discipline in fact tend towards the mitigation of power and the realisation of values like life and truth and beauty).

The second identifies a goal - taking what they want - and a means to that goal - being methodical - and a limit on that goal - tradition, loyalty or order. It doesn't tell me how the limit and the goal are related. For all I can tell from that, a local greengrocer - who methodically earns the income that she wants, but within the limits of a code of mercantile practices and fair dealing - is LE. Obviously the definition is not intended to cover her, but I can't tell that from the description, which is basically useless.

 

[Maxperson]

I have no idea, because "useful in any way" is quite consistent with "not very helpful".

The criteria is "Useful in some way." I can tell you from the people who have posted here how it helps them that they are not posting in a manner consistent with "Not very helpful." The posters in support of alignment being helpful have been arguing against those who think that just because they don't like alignment, it should go away, even when they can easily ignore the entire thing.

 

[Maxperson]

Its a constrained Google search. Without the constraint of it being specific to individual posts or specifically rpghorrorstories, I get over 13,900,000 results but no confirmation any of them is relevant. Basically, consider it like a forum. 7,000ish individual topics on alignment being the cause of groups breaking apart isn't what I'd call small. Remember, that's only the ones posting in there, and not the people who aren't posting at all.

Its regular enough its clear alignment has these issues. Is alignment worth 7,000 games of D&D being broken up over? I argue no, it does not bring enough benefit to the game for the harm it causes when used poorly, and it being used poorly is incredibly, incredibly common

What was your Google search. I tried and I couldn't get anywhere near 7000 hits to come up regarding broken or ruined groups.

 

[Mecheon]

What was your Google search. I tried and I couldn't get anywhere near 7000 hits to come up regarding broken or ruined groups.

Advanced Google Search, domain 'reddit.com', search terms "Alignment" and "RPGhorrorstories"

Limits it to the r/rpghorrorstories subreddit