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

[Fenris-77]

The real issue is that someone doesn't understand what censorship is.

 

[Voadam]

This is a good illustration of my point about alignment proponents handwaving away any of the horror stories other people have dealt with.

It is very easy to pretend that the people who would prefer to have alignment removed just want to take away something other people like when you can ignore the bad experiences people have had with alignment.

The objections I had to alignment in prior editions was primarily the role of DM judging how players were playing their characters according to the alignment descriptions. Particularly for paladins with the falling for any evil action, but also AD&D rangers turning into fighters if not good and the monk and barbarian alignment stuff. The AD&D level loss and xp penalty for alignment drift was another dislike in this vein.

It is why I was very hesitant to play paladins unless I was sure a particular DM was onboard with how I planned to play them. I never had any desire to be tested and judged by a DM according to a judgment not my own, even though I would often play good guys, I never wanted to play a fallen storyline and really would not find it fun if someone had me fall for reasons I disagreed with.

These all seemed to disappear with house rules I adopted early in 3e as a DM (ignoring class alignment requirements and paladin codes) and by the book in 4e and 5e.

 

[FrozenNorth]

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.

Or better, you can just indicate to players what behavious will get them booted out of the game.

That way, the cleric who is embezzling money from his church (but not the party) and the career swindler, don’t get lumped in with the guy who tortures NPCs for fun.

 

[Aldarc]

The objections I had to alignment in prior editions was primarily the role of DM judging how players were playing their characters according to the alignment descriptions. Particularly for paladins with the falling for any evil action, but also AD&D rangers turning into fighters if not good and the monk and barbarian alignment stuff. The AD&D level loss and xp penalty for alignment drift was another dislike in this vein.

It is why I was very hesitant to play paladins unless I was sure a particular DM was onboard with how I planned to play them. I never had any desire to be tested and judged by a DM according to a judgment not my own, even though I would often play good guys, I never wanted to play a fallen storyline and really would not find it fun if someone had me fall for reasons I disagreed with.

These all seemed to disappear with house rules I adopted early in 3e as a DM (ignoring class alignment requirements and paladin codes) and by the book in 4e and 5e.

I suspect that this is also the overwhelming reason why CG is the most popular alignment for players. It basically gives a lot of latitude to players to be "good" without having to worry about the GM policing their notions of "Law" or "Lawful Good." GMs seem less interested in policing CG than they are with LG.

 

[Nikosandros]

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.

@pemerton gave a cogent analysis of the snippets, but beyond the descriptions, the fundamental difference, IMHO, is that in AD&D alignment represents active cosmological forces* and it interacts meaningfully with many rules elements (spells, magic items, etc.). In 5e it is just a descriptor of behavior. As a descriptor, I find it weak and less than inspiring and so I don't use it in my 5e games.

* I realize that the implementation in AD&D is not always coherent and that the cosmology is rather "wonky", but I like it and I can make it work for my groups.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The nature of language suggests they are.

Cute. As a quick reference for NPC behavior (which is mostly what I use it for) a few paragraphs are not a replacement.

 

[Voadam]

I suspect that this is also the overwhelming reason why CG is the most popular alignment for players. It basically gives a lot of latitude to players to be "good" without having to worry about the GM policing their notions of "Law" or "Lawful Good." GMs seem less interested in policing CG than they are with LG.

I think the historical Paladin triple requirements of being LG, specific code adherence, and falling for any evil action is primarily responsible for any historical or ongoing emphasis of policing of LG and associations with such in peoples' minds.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This is a good illustration of my point about alignment proponents handwaving away any of the horror stories other people have dealt with.

It is very easy to pretend that the people who would prefer to have alignment removed just want to take away something other people like when you can ignore the bad experiences people have had with alignment.

Again, if you don't like alignment, why can't you just...not play with it? I'm really struggling to understand why something with so little mechanical weight is so offensive that it needs to removed from the game and denied to those who find it useful.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sure, but that is a different argument. Micah argued that removing alignment was censorship because it wasn’t replaced by anything, to which I responded that the monster write-up was a replacement for a monster’s outlook and behaviour.

So I stand by my initial point, removing alignment from stat blocks is not censorship. I would go even further and state that removing alignment is not the equivalent of the Satanic panic.

Actually, I never argued that it was censorship. I was objecting to the removal of a tool that many people find useful without replacing it with a similar or superior tool that performs the same function. That is, by definition, a net loss. Why they did this is a separate issue.

 

[Maxperson]

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

No it isn't. It's making a knee-jerk, ham fisted reaction, as is common with this particular company. A principled decision where it listened to its fans would have simply been changing the language to make it clear that alignment is optional and that groups have to opt in to it.

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.

It isn't anything else when the majority gets tossed out with the bathwater.