D&D General Why do people like Alignment?

[nevin]

I mean, I still think that that is "chaos"--after all, mathematical chaos is 100% deterministic, it's just extremely difficult to predict because it's extremely sensitive to small changes in input conditions. Isn't that what all that "freedom, adaptability, and flexibility" captures? You're sensitive to the smallest differences in input--context--and thus your behavior changes in ways that are difficult to predict, even if it follows with eminent logic from your beliefs and information.

For my part, I see Lawful at its best as requiring open dialogue, clear boundaries folks can understand and work with, and equality before a common standard. At its worst, it silences any voice that isn't perfectly formatted, places unnecessary and draconian limits without explanation or recourse, and forces everyone into one-size-fits-all solutions.

Chaotic, at its best, expects each person to be worthy of their authority by their own merits, tailors action properly to each context even if it means changing one's tack, and puts freedom and autonomy first. At its worst, it creates a might-makes-right world, throws all principle to the wind to act with wild abandon, and leaves people high and dry in the face of ruthless exploitation.

I, personally, think that Lawful is better at self-correcting than Chaotic is--more or less, sure, if we could have an ideal perfectly-functioning Chaotic society that would be awesome. But it's an unstable equilibrium and there are many forces acting to push it away from that. Lawful offers many, many stable equilbria--they're just often not the best equilibrium we could reach. That's why it's critically necessary to re-evaluate. The Lawful society--or person--who becomes complacent instantly invites disaster, and I don't mean complacency in terms of enforcement, I mean in terms of self-reflection. Remove the stye in your own eye before you attempt to remove the speck from your brother's.

Self correcting is a trait of self awareness and use of intelligence guided by wisdom. Not an alignment trait. Libertarians embrace chaos. They think people will adjust and it will all be ok without rules. Self correcting for your mistakes or to change how you do things to obtain goals is not a lawful act. It's an act of intelligence and wisdom to adjust to the world around you so you can succeed. Any creature of any Alignment can do it.

This is why we keep having alignment wars because Alignment is just the belief in how Law, Chaos(freedom),evil (i can hurt people to benefit me) and good (I can't hurt people to benefit me) should be the base of laws, actions and belief structures. It will affect decisions but won't necessarily prevent things like fear, or , self correction, or ego and pridefullness convincing someone that the ends justify the means. (which strangely can be done as an evil person doing good to get to the evil end. Just as much as a good person doing an evil thing to achieve a good end) . Any good person can be afraid and do the wrong thing. They'll just know it was wrong. Any evil person can do a good thing because it achieves long term goals. Or because they are in love or just in a good mood. I really wish DND would clearly state that Alignment is a view of how the world should run not a personality type. Because the idea of Alignment as a personality type is what gets us Lawful Stupid and Chaotic Crazy characters that never ever allow situations or actions to influence thier wierd and crazy behavior.

 

[Maxperson]

You keep presuming it is a form of being used. You have not actually established that. That's what I'm asking you to establish.

How is this using someone?

Since it's up to me to run the gods of my setting, I have established that they are being used trivially. The gods of my setting are very serious about what it is that they do and stand for. They embody aspects of the world and spend their focus on seeing those things done. Not being chatterboxes with their clerics about inane minor things like a Deck of Many Things.

How is this NOT the same as calling on your deity's power to heal someone else? You haven't established either of these things!

How is interrupting your deity over and over to ask him about an inane subject different from not asking your deity for anything when you cast healing spells? How are you not seeing the difference?

...I mean, other than that you're literally going to call down divine wrath on someone solely for a thing YOU think is somehow among the most offensive acts a cleric can commit (apparently!), meaning, you are very literally creating extreme, serious, harmful consequences because you presumed every player would always know exactly what YOU think is offensive.

That--that right there--is literally creating gameplay consequences because of an unstated presumption that all players always agree with you about a bunch of things. It is, in fact, a demonstration of the social contract being used to punish someone who could literally have no idea that they're doing anything wrong.

Because, as stated, I would not know. I would be caught unaware by that. You would be punishing me for doing something you consider horrendous, and which I consider so innocent I cannot conceive of how you would turn that into <you are now 100% obviously worthy of divine vengeance>.

This isn't some hypothetical. This isn't a position I'm ascribing to anyone else, it isn't me divining what someone else thinks, it isn't me distilling stuff said by others. It's my actual, real-world situation. I would have no idea that this is somehow enormously offensive to you.

You are letting your biases blind you to what I'm saying again.

First off, running my deities in a serious manner, and as such would be supper annoyed to be interrupted over and over in order to see if this shuffle of the deck is a good one, isn't a violation of the social contract. That's not being a jerk. It's simply a choice of how to run the gods of my setting.

Secondly, I said very clearly that it would not be some gotcha situation where I waited until they cast it multiple times, slammed them down, and yelled "Neener! Neener!" I was clear with you that I would let the player know how the gods feel and that interrupting them like that wouldn't go over well with his deity. If he then proceeded to engage the bad idea with full knowledge that the god would be upset, that's not on me. There is no being a jerk and violating the social contract going on.

Further, you claim that "they build irritation at being used that way into the spell", but they don't. The spell doesn't mention--at all--that you are contacting any deity. Both versions of augury merely refer to "an otherworldly entity", so the player would have no reason to presume they are specifically asking their god.

"You contact your deity or a divine proxy and ask up to three questions that can be answered with a yes or no." Who they contact is not a player choice. They are communing with their god or a divine proxy, and since it's commune and a powerful priest involved, I don't do proxies. They are ringing their god.

This is also a setting decision and not a violation of the social contract. These sorts of setting decisions are not the DM being a jerk.

Perhaps they're asking some other functionary in the divine hierarchy. Furthermore, the 5.5e version specifically removed the "random reading" part--you just have a cumulative 25% chance per previous casting that day to get no answer at all, and after four casts (successful or otherwise) you'll just hear nothing.

I don't see any random reading in the 5e version of commune.

No irritation. No penalty. No reference to deities--which is wise, since druids and wizards can also cast it! None of the things you claim are present to back up your explanation are even remotely present.

No wizards or druids can cast commune. Druids can commune with nature, but nature isn't going know diddly about a very unnatural deck of cards.

If you're conflated my talking about commune as talking about augury, which it seems like you might have, augury isn't going to work either. It has no way of knowing what cards will be drawn. It cannot answer weal(good), since it might not be a good result. It cannot answer woe(bad) because it might not be a bad result. It cannot answer both weal and woe, since it might not be both. Nothing is the only remaining answer.

Augury is a 2nd level spell, not some uber divination spell. It can even be wrong if circumstances change things

"The spell doesn't take into account any possible circumstances that might change the outcome, such as the casting of additional spells or the loss or gain of a companion."

Random draws from a Deck of Many things is very much a possible circumstance that could change the outcome. That's how random works.

As for the random aspect. I've never used that. It always seemed like hokey result, so I just used silence when it failed due to the percentage roll.

 

[Maxperson]

Nope! It just requires an "otherworldly entity". Nothing whatsoever is specified about deific anything, since druids and wizards can also cast it and they don't have any divine hierarchy to call upon. Specifically, the relevant spell text says: "You receive an omen from an otherworldly entity about the results of a course of action that you plan to take within the next 30 minutes. The DM chooses the omen from the Omens table."


Perhaps it might have been otherwise in previous editions! But it isn't in 5e.

You keep saying that, but you are wrong. Commune does not appear on the druid or wizard spell list. Or are you conflating commune with nature and contact other plane, which are different spells, with commune for clerics?

 

[Maxperson]

And if that is in fact the modern Commune, boy have they ever nerfed that into the ground.

There is no omens table for 5e commune. It's yes or no questions with your god or a proxy(high level divine servant like an avatar of the god).

 

[Clint_L]

I really wish DND would clearly state that Alignment is a view of how the world should run not a personality type. Because the idea of Alignment as a personality type is what gets us Lawful Stupid and Chaotic Crazy characters that never ever allow situations or actions to influence thier wierd and crazy behavior.

I was with you until this last point. You seem to be suggesting that the game keep alignments but frame them as, essentially, political ideologies. Which I think would turn alignment wars up to eleven.

 

[mixmastashizz]

I was with you until this last point. You seem to be suggesting that the game keep alignments but frame them as, essentially, political ideologies. Which I think would turn alignment wars up to eleven.

Well, they did essentially start as faction lists...

 

[Maxperson]

Well, they did essentially start as faction lists...

The problem isn't with alignments as personality aids. The problem was that from 1e on, you never had to stay just within 1 alignment for your entire PC personality. Even in 1e there were things like LG(N) for people who were lawful good, but had some neutral tendencies.

3e made that even easier to do. 5e has trivialized alignment as an RP aid by shooting it in the foot. One sentence is not enough to give new players a really good idea of what the alignment is.

WoTC should go back to 3e alignment clarity, but keep mechanics keyed on alignment to the almost non-existence that 5e has. Just let it be an RP aid.

 

[pemerton]

I was with you until this last point. You seem to be suggesting that the game keep alignments but frame them as, essentially, political ideologies. Which I think would turn alignment wars up to eleven.

In Gygax's PHB and DMG, alignment is set out as a type of disagreement about means: lawful good people think that the best way to ensure "the good" (life, truth, beauty, wellbeing) is by way of relatively strict or at least clear social order/hierarchy; whereas chaotic good people think that the best way to ensure "the good" (again, life, truth, beauty, wellbeing) is by way of self-realisation in a relatively loose social organisation.

Chaotic evil people agree with the LG about the relationship between law and good but don't want the good - they want their own power and self-aggrandisement - and so reject social order. Lawful people agree with the CG about the relationship between chaos and good but don't want the good - again, they want to exercise their own power (as Gygax colourfully puts it, they want to impose their yoke upon the world) - and so reject individuality and self-realisation in favour of strict hierarchy.

This way of setting things up makes sense of the law/chaos opposition - there is something they are fighting over, namely, the proper means to a shared end. Whereas presentations of alignment that treat both Law and Chaos as effective ways of achieving the good don't make any sense to me - if both means are effective, why would people fight over them? (I think Planescape has this problem.)

I take your point about political disagreement. The most obvious way to avoid that is to not use alignment. An alternative is to have the GM remain neutral about alignment conflict, and let it play out as it plays out.

And a third possibility is to be much more simple about alignment (I think this was an approach back in the relatively early days of 9-point alignment, and I think it might also be one way of reading 5e D&D alignment): that Law and Chaos are just personality traits. So LG means "is good and also sociable" (and so applies to King Arthur and other chivalric knights, Aragorn, humble and generous temple priests, etc) while CG means "is a bit ornery and anti-social, but will help those who are well-meaning (and so applies to Beorn and other werebears, the ranger who lives in a cottage deep in the woods, the bushranger with a heart of gold, etc). This framing avoids political conflict; it also means that Law and Chaos aren't really in opposition: as long as the knights don't try and interfere with the loners, there will be no conflict between them because there's no idea or ideal that they disagree about.

 

[nevin]

Since it's up to me to run the gods of my setting, I have established that they are being used trivially. The gods of my setting are very serious about what it is that they do and stand for. They embody aspects of the world and spend their focus on seeing those things done. Not being chatterboxes with their clerics about inane minor things like a Deck of Many Things.

How is interrupting your deity over and over to ask him about an inane subject different from not asking your deity for anything when you cast healing spells? How are you not seeing the difference?

You are letting your biases blind you to what I'm saying again.

First off, running my deities in a serious manner, and as such would be supper annoyed to be interrupted over and over in order to see if this shuffle of the deck is a good one, isn't a violation of the social contract. That's not being a jerk. It's simply a choice of how to run the gods of my setting.

Secondly, I said very clearly that it would not be some gotcha situation where I waited until they cast it multiple times, slammed them down, and yelled "Neener! Neener!" I was clear with you that I would let the player know how the gods feel and that interrupting them like that wouldn't go over well with his deity. If he then proceeded to engage the bad idea with full knowledge that the god would be upset, that's not on me. There is no being a jerk and violating the social contract going on.

"You contact your deity or a divine proxy and ask up to three questions that can be answered with a yes or no." Who they contact is not a player choice. They are communing with their god or a divine proxy, and since it's commune and a powerful priest involved, I don't do proxies. They are ringing their god.

This is also a setting decision and not a violation of the social contract. These sorts of setting decisions are not the DM being a jerk.

I don't see any random reading in the 5e version of commune.

No wizards or druids can cast commune. Druids can commune with nature, but nature isn't going know diddly about a very unnatural deck of cards.

If you're conflated my talking about commune as talking about augury, which it seems like you might have, augury isn't going to work either. It has no way of knowing what cards will be drawn. It cannot answer weal(good), since it might not be a good result. It cannot answer woe(bad) because it might not be a bad result. It cannot answer both weal and woe, since it might not be both. Nothing is the only remaining answer.

Augury is a 2nd level spell, not some uber divination spell. It can even be wrong if circumstances change things

"The spell doesn't take into account any possible circumstances that might change the outcome, such as the casting of additional spells or the loss or gain of a companion."

Random draws from a Deck of Many things is very much a possible circumstance that could change the outcome. That's how random works.

As for the random aspect. I've never used that. It always seemed like hokey result, so I just used silence when it failed due to the percentage roll.

If your gods are typical mythological gods who don't know everything an augury could be wrong even if the rolls are good.

 

[nevin]

I was with you until this last point. You seem to be suggesting that the game keep alignments but frame them as, essentially, political ideologies. Which I think would turn alignment wars up to eleven.

Alignment is an Ideology. You'll never stop people arguing over whether it s right. Whether it's done right or whether paladins and clerics and other worshippers should suffer consequences.