D&D General Deleted

[GrimCo]

Doesn't one of the editions say that if you find your player's character's alignments changing a lot then the actual one might be chaotic neutral? And if you watch the news, the IRL world is kind of a mess...

Yes, but CN was cop out. It was the alignment for anybody who wasn't interested in playing cartoonish character.

Most RL people are both: Lawful - as in, they mostly follow laws and social norms, but if they can get away with it, they will bend or brake them sometimes when possible reward is greater than possible punishment. Good - as in, mostly decent human, at least on surface level. They will generally help others, be polite, avoid confrontation and violence. They generally try to do good, so long as doing good isn't hard or doesn't go directly against their own interests. In D&D terms, this would be CN alignment, as stupid as it sounds.

 

[Cadence]

Yes, but CN was cop out. It was the alignment for anybody who wasn't interested in playing cartoonish character.

Most RL people are both: Lawful - as in, they mostly follow laws and social norms, but if they can get away with it, they will bend or brake them sometimes when possible reward is greater than possible punishment. Good - as in, mostly decent human, at least on surface level. They will generally help others, be polite, avoid confrontation and violence. They generally try to do good, so long as doing good isn't hard or doesn't go directly against their own interests. In D&D terms, this would be CN alignment, as stupid as it sounds.

Do some of the mid-to-later editions talk about the alignment in terms of what they generally try to do?

So that there might be a lot of neutral (don't steal or kill, but speed, 'borrow' office supplies', and don't declare everything on taxes) good (generally help others when they have the headspace to do so)? Does once in a while being a selfish turd stop them from generally being good?

(I'm now wondering how it would work if it was facade instead of alignment).

 

[GrimCo]

TBH, we stopped using alignment about 10y ago when 5e came out and removed mechanical implications to alignment. In 3.5, your alignment had mechanics atached to it (some spells and items). Also, once in a while selfish turd turned Paladin into Fighter. Depending on DM they might let it slide once or twice, but if you try to play it like a normal flawed human who tries his best to be good and follow law, you would fall from grace rather quick.

 

[tetrasodium]

Do some of the mid-to-later editions talk about the alignment in terms of what they generally try to do?

Not that I recall in any obvious way*, but Rifts sets its alignment system apart by doing so in a way that is relevant to actual gameplay. Rather than taking the time to transcribe the whole thing out of the book I found them collected as images from a PDF or something here.

*boed & such might have had some exceptions that extended the core PHB/DMG/MM/everything else wording

 

[James Gasik]

Not that I recall in any obvious way*, but Rifts sets its alignment system apart by doing so in a way that is relevant to actual gameplay. Rather than taking the time to transcribe the whole thing out of the book I found them collected as images from a PDF or something here.

*boed & such might have had some exceptions that extended the core PHB/DMG/MM/everything else wording

I really liked Palladium's alignments. They were more concerned with examining personality archetypes than trying to map things on the Law v. Chaos v. Good v. Evil graph.

 

[Umbran]

D&D alignment is cartoonish oversimplification. It's rigid and deals in absolutes without taking nuances of human condition.

You say that as if the universe/multiverse is somehow obligated to make sense to mortals, or take their "condition" into account.

Gravity, for example, is a harsh mistress. It does not give a hoot about the human condition.

There are no absolutes.

Gravity hears your assertion, ignores it, and you fall from the rooftop anyway. Pi remains irrational, regardless of your struggles to memorize it.

We live in a universe in which we have as yet to prove the existence of moral forces at all. But if we posit a world in which they did exist, we could not rely upon "the human condition" to be relevant in how they operated.

 

[teitan]

But rangers are the aragorn class. Full stop. They don't have any historical connotations.

Paladins most certainly DO.

Rangers have a historical connotation. The military in the United States and the Texas rangers. It’s also beside my point.

 

[GrimCo]

Rifts one is better than one in D&D, but, it still has problems. Always and never are problematic when talking about human behavior because they stand for absolutes. Always means always, same as never means never. For instance, it ignores basic human instinct for self preservation. Or how far are we willing to go to protect one we hold dear.

 

[Quartz]

Paladins are a Christian power fantasy rooted in one of the most horrific series of wars of the Middle Ages.

Not even close. Okay, I've skipped 23 pages but you need to read up on the Mongols and the wars in China.

 

[Kaiyanwang]

But when the aesthetic is strongly grounded in a particular era and evoking a particular theme, of course they can be questioned and criticized.

I mean, if you want to ignore half of the thread with people addressing this, be my guest.