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

[Cadence]

Well, let's go to the source.

TSR - Q&A with Gary Gygax

This is the multi-year Q&A sessions held by D&D co-creator Gary Gygax here at EN World, beginning in 2002 and running up until his sad pasing in 2008. Gary's username in the thread below is Col_Pladoh, and his first post in this long thread is Post #39.

www.enworld.org

They were supposed to be piglike (what with the tusks), not pig-folk, according to the guy who made them for D&D.

It's possible @Maxperson meant piggish folks instead of literal humanoids from the suidae family.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

Well technically I'm one of those previous edition users, but I believe there are more new ones especially thanks to stuff like Critical Role for example.

Speaking of Critical Role, I was a little bit surprised that alignment was brought up in the first episode of Exandria Unlimited. As far as I'm aware the normal DM, Matt Mercer, never uses alignment, but the DM for Exandria Unlimited introduced a legendary magic item called the Circlet of Barbed Vision that sickens anyone who has a Good alignment.

 

[Maxperson]

It's possible @Maxperson meant piggish folks instead of literal humanoids from the suidae family.

I said earlier in the thread that the 1e picture was cartoonish with its portrayal of orcs. They've been consistently described in every edition but 4e. I looked at 4e and there is no description at all that I could see, so I'm going to assume that they didn't change for one edition.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Speaking of Critical Role, I was a little bit surprised that alignment was brought up in the first episode of Exandria Unlimited. As far as I'm aware the normal DM, Matt Mercer, never uses alignment, but the DM for Exandria Unlimited introduced a magic item that sickens anyone who touches it that doesn't have a Chaotic alignment.

And Liam was very surprised and hadn't even decided alignment for his character so he made it up on the spot!

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I said earlier in the thread that the 1e picture was cartoonish with its portrayal of orcs. They've been consistently described in every edition but 4e. I looked at 4e and there is no description at all that I could see, so I'm going to assume that they didn't change for one edition.

No, logically it must mean that in 4e orcs are invisible! There's no official description text and the pictures don't count so they don't look like anything!

 

[Cadence]

I said earlier in the thread that the 1e picture was cartoonish with its portrayal of orcs. They've been consistently described in every edition but 4e. I looked at 4e and there is no description at all that I could see, so I'm going to assume that they didn't change for one edition.

So did you mean piggish humanoids or pig-humanoids ?

 

[BRayne]

Speaking of Critical Role, I was a little bit surprised that alignment was brought up in the first episode of Exandria Unlimited. As far as I'm aware the normal DM, Matt Mercer, never uses alignment, but the DM for Exandria Unlimited introduced a legendary magic item called the Circlet of Barbed Vision that sickens anyone who has a Good alignment.

The first CR campaign used alignment a lot more, even involving Mercer announcing that a PC had changed alignment on a few occasions (one of which made a character miss out on the extra damage versus a Rakshasa even) Since the Circlet of Barbed Vision was created for the Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting book it has more of that mentality.

 

[Minigiant]

.

Citation needed on that one. There are far more new players than old ones(if WotC's numbers are to be believed) and not anywhere close to enough old DMs to cover most of them.

Keyword: players.

Previous Editions Forever DMs is a 5e meme due to many 5e newcomers not embracing DMing or being baaaad DMs.

 

[Maxperson]

So did you mean piggish humanoids or pig-humanoids ?

The former. They have piggish faces and tusks, like they've had in every edition.

I never had walking pigs in 1e. No big bad wolf ever came for them.

 

[Maxperson]

Keyword: players.

Are you aware that the DM is a player?

Previous Editions Forever DMs is a 5e meme due to many 5e newcomers not embracing DMing or being baaaad DMs.

I have strong doubts on the accuracy of that. I'd need some sort of proof before I believe that enough newcomers to outnumber all of the old players combined somehow doesn't involve a significant number of new DMs.