D&D General The Problem with Evil or what if we don't use alignments?

[Faolyn]

Unfortunately it looks like their stripping it even from individuals in the new books which to me is an over-reaction. For example I was just browsing Van Richten's guide and there are no alignments for the darklords. Now I have to read paragraphs of text to understand them. If I had alignment, it helps me set the tone for them. As the MM says "A monster’s alignment provides a clue to its disposition and how it behaves in a roleplaying or combat situation."

Easy shortcut for you: treat 'em like they're all neutral evil.

Let's face it: no matter what they claim, the Darklords are, one and all, doomed by their own hypocritical, egotistical, greedy, self-serving behaviors. They do whatever the heck they want but are also highly constrained by their own twisted moral code, the social mores of their domain, and their own insecurities.

Their actual alignments are not particularly helpful. Strahd has fairly strict code of ethics. He doesn't feed from people willy-nilly. The 3e Gazetteer says that he "defends his property zealously" and considers all of the people of Barovia to be his property. So while he doesn't care about their day-to-day lives, he is protective of them, if only to prevent others from stealing them from him. It goes on to say "A master of strategy, his plots are never as simple as they seem, and he hides his true motivation. Inhumanly patient, he is willing to outlive his enemies if necessary. He is ruthless at heart, however, and takes immediate advantage of any opportunity to crush a potential thread" and "Despite his personal power, Strahd is not rash and will not needlessly risk himself."

What do you think his official alignment in 3e is? The answer is "chaotic evil." Because people keep imagining that CE is the evilest of evils.

 

[Oofta]

Easy shortcut for you: treat 'em like they're all neutral evil.

Let's face it: no matter what they claim, the Darklords are, one and all, doomed by their own hypocritical, egotistical, greedy, self-serving behaviors. They do whatever the heck they want but are also highly constrained by their own twisted moral code, the social mores of their domain, and their own insecurities.

Their actual alignments are not particularly helpful. Strahd has fairly strict code of ethics. He doesn't feed from people willy-nilly. The 3e Gazetteer says that he "defends his property zealously" and considers all of the people of Barovia to be his property. So while he doesn't care about their day-to-day lives, he is protective of them, if only to prevent others from stealing them from him. It goes on to say "A master of strategy, his plots are never as simple as they seem, and he hides his true motivation. Inhumanly patient, he is willing to outlive his enemies if necessary. He is ruthless at heart, however, and takes immediate advantage of any opportunity to crush a potential thread" and "Despite his personal power, Strahd is not rash and will not needlessly risk himself."

What do you think his official alignment in 3e is? The answer is "chaotic evil." Because people keep imagining that CE is the evilest of evils.

I would assume that like most vampires his alignment is LE. Then again I disagree with chaotic being inherently destructive which seems to be an odd holdover for some people from back in the OD&D days.

 

[Faolyn]

Can someone please explain why removing alignment is going to change anything when we have descriptive text in the MM that has a description for an entry that has:

"savage raiders and pillagers ... [take] particular joy in slaughtering elves ... satisfy their bloodlust by plundering villages, devouring or driving off roaming herds, and slaying any humanoids that stand against them"​

It's a vicious circle. If orcs (I'm assuming that's orcs; I haven't memorized all of the descriptions but that sounds like orcs) hadn't been written as having an evil alignment for so many editions, then the writers might not feel the need to include flavor text that supports that alignment. If, in a future edition, they remove alignment, then the writers might be more willing to describe orcs as the type to "take particular joy in physically expressing themselves. This is often through violence, and many orcs become mercenaries or raiders, although in societies that support such things, orcs often become athletes instead."

 

[Faolyn]

I would assume that like most vampires his alignment is LE. Then again I disagree with chaotic being inherently destructive which seems to be an odd holdover for some people from back in the OD&D days.

By reading his description, you get LE. By looking at his 3e statblock, you get CE. Two very different ways to run Strahd. So what would you go by? His description or his actual stats?

 

[Faolyn]

No. It doesn't tell YOU anything useful. So don't use it.

So what to you makes Grazz't Chaotic and not Lawful?

 

[Hexmage-EN]

So what to you makes Grazz't Chaotic and not Lawful?

I will say that Graz'zt probably has the least Chaotic tendencies of the demon lords (though he is still the demon lord of hedonism). Of course, I also like the previous indications in lore that Graz'zt's true goal is to unite the fiends against the forces of Good and that he is a former archdevil who might be working as a kind of double agent in the Abyss.

 

[Oofta]

It's a vicious circle. If orcs (I'm assuming that's orcs; I haven't memorized all of the descriptions but that sounds like orcs) hadn't been written as having an evil alignment for so many editions, then the writers might not feel the need to include flavor text that supports that alignment. If, in a future edition, they remove alignment, then the writers might be more willing to describe orcs as the type to "take particular joy in physically expressing themselves. This is often through violence, and many orcs become mercenaries or raiders, although in societies that support such things, orcs often become athletes instead."

I'm going to go way out on a limb here and say that no matter what else changes, there will still be evil monsters as part of D&D. I know, radical.

Different game systems will handle things differently, but most RPGs (whether video or TTRPG) have some way of identifying the bad guys. Many, if not most, are far more focused; D&D is an incredibly broad tent when it comes t what kind of stories people tell. We don't have predefined clans, tribes, organizations as such that are not campaign setting specific.

But let's take a look at some random monsters (I used a random # generator):

Born with horrific appetites ... eat anything they can catch and devour. They have no society to speak of ... difficult to control, however, doing as they please even when working with more powerful creatures.​

or

... savage, degenerate ... squat in the shallow depths of the Underdark in a constant state of war against their neighbors and one another ...Perhaps the most loathsome of all humanoids ... eat anything they can stomach ... dwell in filth.​

or

... hateful hermits who left behind their old lives to contemplate their misery in shadow. Now evil burns in their hearts, and they resent any intrusion into their suffering. ... fled into the Shadowfell ... transformed them, and their bitterness made them twisted and cruel. ...​

​

Could you add some redeeming quality to each and every monster in the MM? I suppose you could. I don't see the point. The entries in the MM are the protagonists in the game. Are all orcs evil? Up to the DM and the setting. All trolls? Troglodytes? Meazels? Are you going to rewrite vampires so that some sparkle in the sunlight?

How about instead they just make it clearer that alignment is just a default, that these descriptions are for the ones that the PCs are likely to face as protagonists?

 

[Maxperson]

So what to you makes Grazz't Chaotic and not Lawful?

He's more calculating, yes, but he's still chaotic overall. It's like the Darth Vader discussion earlier. He's primarily lawful, but the interaction with his master is chaotic. Grazz't is primarily chaotic, but he does have a lesser lawful streak in him. Alignment isn't supposed to pen everything you do and are into one box. It's just the largest of your multiple boxes.

 

[Maxperson]

In the 1e to 3.5/PF set up of alignment, aren't LG and CE equally far from LE, with the CE more likely to cause unpredictable trouble?

Yes.

 

[Faolyn]

He's more calculating, yes, but he's still chaotic overall. It's like the Darth Vader discussion earlier. He's primarily lawful, but the interaction with his master is chaotic. Grazz't is primarily chaotic, but he does have a lesser lawful streak in him. Alignment isn't supposed to pen everything you do and are into one box. It's just the largest of your multiple boxes.

Chaotic with a streak of Lawful in it sounds very Neutral to me.

I'm with the people who say that if alignment doesn't pen what you do into one box, then it's not actually very helpful. If you have the alignment but have to read the text to find out the exceptions and figure out how they work within the listed alignment, then you might as well drop the alignment altogether.