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

[Helldritch]

You said "Basically, you look at a personality and each alignment is a box. The biggest box is your alignment. The rest are the aspects that fall outside of your alignment. If they're mostly the same size, you're neutral."

That's not an explanation of how it works. That's just a tired excuse. For instance "if they're mostly the same size, you're neutral." But how close is "mostly the same size"? 55/45? 60/40? If someone is 70% lawful and 30& chaotic, what does that make them? What if they're 40% chaotic, 25% neutral and 35% chaotic? And how do you, personally, measure how lawful or chaotic something is? If something seems random to everyone or nearly everyone, but actually follows a huge, elaborate plan, is that lawful or chaotic? Is Chaos, of the type involving butterflies and hurricanes, actually chaos or law?

And how is labeling a creature "neutral evil" going to tell you how it reacts in any particular situation? And do all neutral evil creatures react in the same way to that situation? If not, then how is that label useful, or more useful than actually giving it a few sentences of motivation?

Why do you want to put numbers where none are needed? 5ed is subjective all the way through. How often do you give inspiration and which method do you use? That rule is entirely subjective and even more hurtful than alignment as some BITF are more prone to produce inspiration than others. We went for the cinematic advantage as it encourages players to think outside the box.

And this is not the only subjective rule in 5ed. There are many others. And guess what? We can ignore any that we want and modify any that we want. You see no use for alignment? Fine. Is it because it can't be quantified? If this is the reason, then I advise you to bring back alignment in your game and use qunatifiers if this is what you need.

Personnaly, I prefer the alignments as they are. Fangless but useful guidelines. Nothing less, but certainly nothing more.

 

[Minigiant]

Both yes and no. The pig faced orcs are now out of the mainstream because of Warcraft, World of Warcraft and LotR. The last one is a bit arguable depending on which orcs you look at but at some point, in the gaming community, the pig faced orc were the mainstream.

Yes, some people wanted to play orcs even before the 1980s but most if those that I ever been aware of were using this to play "the other side" and see what would come out of playing monsters facing adventurers... These games were usually short, about 3 or 6 sessions and once the fad faded, you would see them go back to standard gaming.

With the advent of Warcraft, the story line of the orcs was so good that many wanted to play these orcs. With WoW, it became a thunderous and resounding demand as orcs were no longer viewed as weak introduction monsters but as an honorable and tragic race to play.

And for those who wonder about the half orcs, they got introduced as the answer for the LotR half orcs of Sarouman...

All this to say that orcs being always evil or any other races for that matter should be campaign setting dependant. The warning in the MM that the default alignment can be changed and that it is optional, has never been so much needed than it is now. Yet, many ignore it.

What Warcraft 3 did is destroy the idea of the Orc Savage. WC3 made Orcs mind controlled. It explained why they were self destructive and shunned innovation.

Fans brought that to D&D. Orcs were now mind controlled by the Orc Pantheon of All Evil Orc gods. So in settings without Grummush, the way orcs acted no longer made sense.

It spread to drow and hobgoblins. "How are they so smart but self destructive?" Mind Control.

Then you have all the video games that played on this. Ubisoft's Might and Magic made Orcs literally rebellous slaves of the wizards and dark wleves just a cruel warring faction of elves with none of the Lolth stupidity.

 

[Maxperson]

Let's pretend they're pigfolk.

Why would that matter to the fact that they're sapient beings and that it's dumb that they're 'evil' because the god of elves is a jackass?

No idea. I'm just pointing out that despite bad artwork, they're the same piggish people that they were in 1e.

 

[Vaalingrade]

No idea. I'm just pointing out that despite bad artwork, they're the same piggish people that they were in 1e.

I mean... No.

They haven't been pigfolk since 2e and just because you don't like the art doesn't mean it isn't clearly the product of a style guide. They are consistently depicted in this way even if the description is up to interpretation - see also kobolds.

This isn't about a couple of weird one-off like 3e's minotaur being a horned ape in the original MM and more like how 3e dragons were universally some species of tropical fish.

 

[Fenris-77]

Blah. I don't care if they're pig men, or wombat men, or banana slug men. If they're god made them evil, they're evil. generally speaking. It's really not a racial thing that needs to be related to the real world unless stereotypes have been employed that make that connection. Please read that last sentence again before making a thoughtless reply.

 

[Maxperson]

I mean... No.

They haven't been pigfolk since 2e and just because you don't like the art doesn't mean it isn't clearly the product of a style guide. They are consistently depicted in this way even if the description is up to interpretation - see also kobolds.

The description says otherwise. If they really wanted non-pig orcs, they would have written the descriptions of every edition differently. There is a disconnect between the descriptions and the artwork, and between the two the description wins out.

This isn't about a couple of weird one-off like 3e's minotaur being a horned ape in the original MM and more like how 3e dragons were universally some species of tropical fish.

This isn't a one-off where only one description is of a pig person. They literally all are, except maybe 4e. I don't know that one, but I suspect it's a pig person, too.

 

[Minigiant]

Orcs just have squat noses, sharp incisors, and large cannines. They aren't pigfolk in D&D.

In Japanese animation and gaming, they are very much pigfolk.

 

[Helldritch]

What Warcraft 3 did is destroy the idea of the Orc Savage. WC3 made Orcs mind controlled. It explained why they were self destructive and shunned innovation.

Fans brought that to D&D. Orcs were now mind controlled by the Orc Pantheon of All Evil Orc gods. So in settings without Grummush, the way orcs acted no longer made sense.

It spread to drow and hobgoblins. "How are they so smart but self destructive?" Mind Control.

Then you have all the video games that played on this. Ubisoft's Might and Magic made Orcs literally rebellous slaves of the wizards and dark wleves just a cruel warring faction of elves with none of the Lolth stupidity.

Exactly!!!!!
This is a case where the video game industry influenced the hobby instead of the other way around as was usual in the 80s.

Now, the races in D&D were never set in stones as there were always exceptions. But somehow, this fact got forgotten down the line and now many are outraged at something that is only a perception and not the norm. Yes there has been DMs out there (and players too) that played alignments as a set in stone thing and abused the hell out of the principles, but they were not the norm. And yet, this perception persist even today. The culprits are not alignments but the DMs and players that abused that system.

 

[Faolyn]

How different do you want it to be? Mind Flayers are humanoid and mortal, but seem alien enough to me. Not that I have a problem with any humanoid, but I'm just seeing how far you want it taken.

They're not humanoid, they're aberrations. They're only humanoid in shape because their larvae parasitize humanoid bodies like super-intelligent psychic... parasite. One of the particularly horrible ones, like the cordyceps, or a tongue-eating louse. If a larva doesn't get implanted into a humanoid body, it grows to enormous sizes and becomes violently destructive.

(I've seen the suggestion that the neolithid is what their larva are supposed to be like, back in the mind flayer's home dimension/planet, thus indicating that they are supposed to be parasitizing tarrasque-sized creatures native to their homeworld, meaning their true form isn't some octopus-faced humanoid thing in a purple robe with relatively limited psionics; it's supposed to be something more like Cthulhu. I don't think this is canon, AFAIK, but it's undeniably awesome.)

Also, they have to eat humanoid brains for sustenance.

These two things are entirely biological with them. Culturally, they keep sentient beings as slaves and perform horrific mental and physical experiments on them, and have no problem mind-raping people, but even without that, their biology is destructive enough that they can be classified as evil beings.

Personally, I like neogi for this purpose. They also have a disturbing way of reproduction. In 5e, they just lay eggs on one of their elders and the larva it the elder like they're wasps devouring a paralyzed insect. I prefer the original Spelljammer approach, where the neogi inject an elder with venom that causes the young to grow inside the elder, until they chew their way out. Neogi are also a slaver race: because of their their innate charm gaze, they literally can only understand the concepts of being a master, being a slave, or being a potential slave.

Plus, they're really good traders and merchants, so even if they're always evil, they're actually also useful, which can lead to fun moral dilemmas.

 

[Maxperson]

Orcs just have squat noses, sharp incisors, and large cannines. They aren't pigfolk in D&D.

They are, because the description says that they are. The art doesn't match the description, making the artwork faulty.