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

[Cadence]

And in that poll you could vote for multiple options and there were more pro-alignment than anti-alignment ones, so it is pretty worthless.

People were only allowed two options and the totals aren't rescaled to add to 100%. If only given one choice, it sure looks like at least 58% would have chosen to keep some variant of an existing alignment system (since the maximum possible percent of those responding whose top choice was one of the other two options was 42%).

 

[Oofta]

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.


On the approach described in these posts, on the other hand, the GM gets to decide not just what NPCs think about a PC's behaviour but whether or not that PC's behaviour is, in fact, good or evil.

If a group wants to give a GM that sort of authority, I guess that's there prerogative. I agree with @Mecheon, @FrozenNorth and I think some other posters also that to build an expectation of that sort of authority into the game is not helpful. For obvious reasons - given the reality of diverse views among FRPGers about what counts as good and evil, particularly if the fiction of the game takes on any significant degree of nuance, it's a recipe for needless conflict.

Yep. Just like a lot of behavior at the table, if I'm DM I have the final say on rules and what is acceptable behavior. I don't care what you or your PC thinks, but there are behaviors that will get you removed.

The player must be respectful of others by showing up more or less on time (I get that naughty word happens now and then). If you can't make a game let me know as soon as you do and remember that it's a team game so don't always be hogging the spotlight. The DM makes the final call, so if you want to have a longer discussion about a rule we'll have it after the game session so we don't waste time.

The PC must be willing to be part of a group. They can't rape, murder innocents, commit torture. Don't tell me details about how you get turned on while bathing in the blood of your enemies. Don't badger or belittle other PCs (or players). No racist or sexist "jokes" and so on. Don't fireball the orphanage because the bad guy just ran in there and you think it's funny to let them all burn.*

D&D is a group game. Everyone is there to have fun as a group. Some people, myself included, want to fight the villains not play alongside them.

If simple rules like "don't be evil, don't be an ass" are too much for you feel free to find another table.

*Sadly all examples from real world play.

 

[Oofta]

And in that poll you could vote for multiple options and there were more pro-alignment than anti-alignment ones, so it is pretty worthless.

Seems like any poll that has a result you don't agree with is worthless.

 

[FrozenNorth]

A couple paragraphs in the MM are not a replacement for a two-word NPC behavior aid.

The nature of language suggests they are.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Seems like any poll that has a result you don't agree with is worthless.

No, and I think it is perfectly possible, even likely, that majority of D&D players like alignment. But the polls quoted are not proof of that. In polls where people choose what aspects are 'essential' to D&D or what they want to be kept alignment tends to score below 50%. It has significant support nevertheless though.

 

[Cadence]

The nature of language suggests they are.

The existence of abbreviations, summaries, page limits, word limits, etc... suggests that brevity often has its uses.

 

[FrozenNorth]

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.

When a company takes a decision you agree with, it is making a principled decision and listening to the fans.

When a company makes a decision you disagree with (alignment) it is clearly just making a political snd business decision and caving to pressure from the minority.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Does this quickly lead to a path of doing in any of the past d&d cosmologies involving the outer planes and differing afterlives (where the gods, controlled by the DM, decide if the dead PCs and NPCs get to go to heaven, for example, or if the overgods would even have allowed a system that included eternal damnation )?

No, because without alignment the characters are free to think that said gods are evil for running such afterlives and not be objectively wrong.

 

[Cadence]

No, because without alignment the characters are free to think that said gods are evil for running such afterlives and not be objectively wrong.

How are they not similarly free to think Detect Good/Detect Evil were misnamed/miscreated in a system like 3.5? In both systems the DM can have the gods of good appear and tell the player they aren't, right? That feels like the DM "objectively" saying what good is to me.

 

[pemerton]

The PC must be willing to be part of a group. They can't rape, murder innocents, commit torture. Don't tell me details about how you get turned on while bathing in the blood of your enemies. Don't badger or belittle other PCs (or players). No racist or sexist "jokes" and so on. Don't fireball the orphanage because the bad guy just ran in there and you think it's funny to let them all burn.*

This doesn't need an alignment mechanic. You could just as easily implement this as a table rule in RQ, or Rolemaster, or GURPS Fantasy, or any other FRPG that doesn't use D&D's mechanical alignment system.