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

[FrozenNorth]

I'd be surprised if many people at all actually do that in practice when the group is much larger than two or three, and certainly not when its a camp with a dozen. (Trying to think of watching westerns and how many in the bar scene or posse actually have unique personalities).

You’d be surprised. I figure many DMs would sketch out two-three word personalities for two-three of them, and assign them to the survivors of the fight.

 

[Cadence]

You’d be surprised. I figure many DMs would sketch out two-three word personalities for two-three of them, and assign them to the survivors of the fight.

I can certainly see doing that.

 

[FrozenNorth]

What I meant was, if I were creating elusive pranksters for a game, I would have figured out if they were harmful, benign, or something else before putting them in.

Even better, the context in which they are placed will influence their characterization. Ravenloft? Murderous moppets. Feywild? Whimsical tricksters.

 

[Cadence]

So please go tell that to Cadence and Oofta, who have said "Are the other RPGs relevant to D&D? Are all of the other RPGs extant right now as popular as D&D?" and "Yes but if you look at the number of people playing TTRPGs, most people are playing a game with alignment because most people are playing D&D."

Go on. Tell them that.

I realize it might be a break with tradition in this thread, but it feels like a little context might help.

Before I said what you quote me as above, you had appealed to something about numbers by bringing up the variety of different RPGs on the market that don't use alignment (I assume "vast majority" is an appeal to number).

Especially considering that the vast majority of RPGs don't include alignment at all and if you were playing one of those, you'd have to make their motivations up anyway.

I then replied with:

Are the other RPGs relevant to D&D? Are all of the other RPGs extant right now as popular as D&D? (I keep hearing the need to have polls done earlier in the thread, apparently popularity might mean something.) ;-)

... and even had a smiley face.

But anyway, to address again your statement that

Especially considering that the vast majority of RPGs don't include alignment at all and if you were playing one of those, you'd have to make their motivations up anyway.

I'm guessing that it's true that most of the different dishes on the menus of "Italian restaurants" in America don't involve having a single crust under toppings. Similarly, I'm guessing that most of the side dishes available at the burger restaurants don't involve sliced and deep fried potatoes. If the menu at the Italian restaurant didn't have former and the menu at the Burger restaurant didn't have the later people would of course have to come up with something else to order. And many of the customers probably wouldn't mind them not being there. It doesn't feel like any of that is relevant at all when discussing the place of Pizza or the place of French fries on the menu. Similarly, I don't have the slightest clue what there being a huge number of RPGs that don't have alignment says about alignment.

 

[Cadence]

Even better, the context in which they are placed will influence their characterization. Ravenloft? Murderous moppets. Feywild? Whimsical tricksters.

Have any of the books since 2e put a location like that that might help up in the Monster Manual stat block? (In the poll the stat block, I voted for both a descriptive phrase and place you would find them).

 

[Mistwell]

The problem is that a huge noticeable percentage of DMs, players, and writers did use alignment monotonously and restrictively.

I have yet to see any evidence that is the case. No surveys, no widespread polling, no beta test feedback, nothing which showed there was a "huge noticeable percentage of DMs, players, and writers" who used alignment in a particular way which was either monotonous or varied, restrictive or expansive. I have seen zero reliable data on its use. Have you seen any real, organized, standardized data gathered by WOTC on this topic?

That's why there is backlash against alignment.

I don't think there is backlash based on actual usage data. I think there is backlash based on theoretical concepts, mostly surrounding papers speculating about connections between alignment, D&D races, and real world races. I've seen no data that speculation was substantiated by the consumer base usage of alignment. Again, I could be wrong, is there such data you've seen?

And until fans who use alignment correctly acknowledge its missed by others and promote corrective language by WOTC or teach themselves, it will keep being used incorrectly and eventually be removed from the game.

The "it's not my problem. I know what I'm doing. Sucks for everyone else" mentality frequently seen in the D&D community will get sacred cows slaughtered at the Altar of Undereducated Fans. Especially since 5e flooded the game with new fans.

You have to first prove there IS a problem, and then that your solution is the least invasive solution of the set of options to address that problem.

For example if the problem is humanoid races, then removing alignment from adventure NPC entries isn't necessary, nor is removing alignment from PC character sheets, nor is removing alignment from many monsters like a Beholder.

You can't argue on one hand "Orcs with set alignment is an issue because of real world implications" and on the other claim a Gibbering Mouther suffers the exact same alignment issue when it does not. The least invasive solution would just be to remove alignment from humanoid races and then decide if the line stops there or needs a few other corner case "monsters" to be addressed due to potential human comparison.

Unfortunately what I have seen a lot of is "Some humanoid races like orcs have an alignment problem," which is a problem which at least has some substantial theoretical evidence behind it; and then people draw from that rather small subset of problems an extremely broad and overly expansive solution of "so let's remove all alignment from the game entirely." And when asked why people would take that extremely expansive solution to a problem which makes up a much more minor sub set of uses, I see a lot of "because alignment sucks" arguments. Which isn't, in any way, germaine to the legit problem that was being pointed out about orcs.

You thinking a rule sucks, without something more, isn't a good argument unless a large number of consumers who play the game agree it sucks. Because let me tell yah, there isn't a rule in the book which a small but loud number of people don't think sucks and we'd have no game if that's all it took to change the game.

 

[FrozenNorth]

When scrolling through quickly trying to find a species that would work well with other evil things, it feels like it helps narrow things down enough that it's easier to start focusing more on the more detailed description though to see what I want to pick out to use in an encounter. I've used that a lot to help narrow things down as I flip through the monster book in my latest game.

Does it though? Every single example I can think of from D&D (Volo + MtoF) has monsters of different alignments working together.

Goblin Horde? Made up of LE hobgoblins, NE goblins, CE bugbears, NE wargs, CE ogres and various others.

LE Beholders? They work with (any non-L) bandits and bandit captains.

LE githyanki? They fly in on CE dragons.

Army of City of Brass? Again, you are much more likely to find CE red dragons than LE blue dragons.

So instead of making things easier, you are arbitrarily limiting out a lot of possible encounters that are canon.

 

[Minigiant]

I have yet to see any evidence that is the case. No surveys, no widespread polling, no beta test feedback, nothing which showed there was a "huge noticeable percentage of DMs, players, and writers" who used alignment in a particular way which was either monotonous or varied, restrictive or expansive. I have seen zero reliable data on its use. Have you seen any real, organized, standardized data gathered by WOTC on this topic?

I'm sure WOTC has the data.

I mean we D&D fans have to be consistent. We can't say "WOTCC didn't add or change X because they have the data and the data states pro-change isn't the majority." AND "WOTC is changing Y but they don't have the data that Y needs changing nor that pro-change is popular."

Anecdotally, I've seen many times in real life and heard many stories of on the net of people using alignment poorly.

I don't think there is backlash based on actual usage data. I think there is backlash based on theoretical concepts, mostly surrounding papers speculating about connections between alignment, D&D races, and real world races. I've seen no data that speculation was substantiated by the consumer base usage of alignment. Again, I could be wrong, is there such data you've seen?

That stuff was just the last straw.

Lawful Stupid Paladins, Flipfloping Druids, Destructive Chaotic Murderhobos, DMs stripping divine powers off of strict readings, Lolth Drow being a nonsense civilization, and CE savages being musclebound yet nothaving basic agriculture needed to fuel their raids have been examples of poor usage of alignment for decades.

You have to first prove there IS a problem, and then that your solution is the least invasive solution of the set of options to address that problem.

For example if the problem is humanoid races, then removing alignment from adventure NPC entries isn't necessary, nor is removing alignment from PC character sheets, nor is removing alignment from many monsters like a Beholder.

You can't argue on one hand "Orcs with set alignment is an issue because of real world implications" and on the other claim a Gibbering Mouther suffers the exact same alignment issue when it does not. The least invasive solution would just be to remove alignment from humanoid races and then decide if the line stops there or needs a few other corner case "monsters" to be addressed due to potential human comparison.

It's an easy problem to prove.

Alignment is a tool with a poor instruction manual and many end up using it wrong and upsetting themselves.

Solution: Teach DMs and Players how to rassing frassing use alignment, when to use it, and when to use deeper descriptions.

Why are D&D fans so anti-teaching?

Oh and the problem with Orcs isn't the real world implications.

The problem is that you are telling my that a race of humanoids 125-200% the mass of humans can go around raiding constantly for wealth and food and not starve due to their lack of farms and not be genocided by a focused effort by noblemen to wipe them out.

Warhammer Orks sprout from the bloodied ground. Warcraft and M&M Orcs build cities. All three of them farm.

D&D Orcs are so Chaotic and so Evil that their nation shouldn't even be able to function.
At least Demons have the energy go back to the Abyss to regenerate.

And let's not get into the "Everybody was Backstabbing Everybody Else" Drow who somehow produce enough drow after assassinations and betrayals to manage several slave empires underground.

 

[Cadence]

Does it though? Every single example I can think of from D&D (Volo + MtoF) has monsters of different alignments working together.

Goblin Horde? Made up of LE hobgoblins, NE goblins, CE bugbears, NE wargs, CE ogres and various others.

LE Beholders? They work with (any non-L) bandits and bandit captains.

LE githyanki? They fly in on CE dragons.

Army of City of Brass? Again, you are much more likely to find CE red dragons than LE blue dragons.

So instead of making things easier, you are arbitrarily limiting out a lot of possible encounters that are canon.

It avoids having the good working with the evil, for example...

 

[FrozenNorth]

Have any of the books since 2e put a location like that that might help up in the Monster Manual stat block? (In the poll the stat block, I voted for both a descriptive phrase and place you would find them).

4e tended to have typical encounter groups for various monsters. Volo’s and MtoF does a bit, but not as extensively as 4e did. Xanathar’s also had random encounters by terrain and level, but a number of people have complained about them.