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Perhaps. I think of Neutral as downplaying one axis over the other. So it is the Neutral Good character who is more likely to protest perceived injustice than the Lawful Good character because the Lawful Good character is apprehensive of defying the law, even if they disagree with it.

Exactly! It's one's "code" above all else. I think you grok it.

This is pretty close to my view as well, though I think it understates how unusual a Chaotic stance is, just like Evil is really quite a rare stance in real life.

I'm really glad you posted this! Because this is what I'm trying to decouple from Evil. I think Evil wants to be the problem. I think Chaos ultimately wants to avoid being told what to do.

As I noted right at the top, no, no we don't. And I even apologized!

Think of it this way. There's been a rethink among some people about intrinsically Evil races. The OSR crew has said that point of Evil races was to have clearly Evil foes as enemies. I can understand this. But aside from the claim of "unfortunate implications" about all-Evil races, the...

ETA: Great, thoughtful stuff on this thread. Exactly what I hoped for. Thanks. No, the world does not need another alignment thread, but I want to drill down on a specific point. I apologize in advance. Compared to past editions, 5e alignment definitions are a lot less clear, almost to the...

I'm glad someone brought this up. I back alignments for worldbuilding, but I also played 1e. The 5e definitions are cartoons, frankly. They tell you almost nothing. Plus, as mentioned earlier, many of the mechanics connected to alignment are gone (e.g. detect and protect spells). So the 5e...

As a DM, I find alignment very useful for worldbuilding through NPCs and societies. It provides believable situations for your PCs to react to. I'm less concerned if the PCs exactly correspond to their chosen alignments: as players, they get to be more deep and complex. Here are summaries of...

All of this, though I would have happily let my players all be Underdarkers had they asked. A mixed surface/Underdark party would indeed be a challenge, but consider that humans went underground all the time with various aids. By the time the G/D module series rolled out, a solution was...

Since this is my era, I can add a bit. When Unearthed Arcana came out 1985, drow had become badass. They were no longer weak fighters as already noted. They were stronger than any other elf, except when sylvan (wood) elves and grugach (wild elves) have VERY high strength (18:90 or higher). They...

Agreed, and this is exactly my point. The next step is to codify it by WotC and make it a marketing point.

I don't think your 3 methods are always distinct, and can often be combined into a consistent rule. Example: swinging on a rope across a gorge (which did not have a rule in older editions): Case 1: 5' across--automatic success in almost every case Case 2: 200' across--tell the player this will...

The more you want to play an RPG as a game (and not a story), and to play skillfully (back to your OP), the more you need to convert rulings into rules that you carry into future play. Skillful play requires an understanding of opportunities and odds, and if these are inconsistent, the game...

Omg you are so wrong! Hasbro, the publicly traded parent company of WotC, now talks about D&D as a growth property in its quarterly conference calls with its investors. That takes just one Google search to confirm. But thanks for playing, wow.

That's the definition of harder. Ultimately they will need to take a view, many will disagree, and they will need to stay put. That's hard.

That's only if you assume that D&D is only combat. It's not. The combat part of D&D is the easiest to run without a DM. The rest is harder.

Alignment can be very useful, particularly when defining some society's or group's base behavior. But the older definitions were quite cliché or even gonzo. Some more sensible definitions can increase alignment's usefulness. These are my solutions to the alignment question; you may of course...

I gave this answer in a similar thread, but this thread seems more appropriate. I apologize for the "double-post". I agree that a true new edition needs to be some kind of major development. 5e still seems like it has a lot of life to me, and has been pointed out, has never been bigger or more...

You aren't thinking big enough. WotC have already said they want a quickstart D&D where two new players, a character and the DM, can start playing in an hour. So let's extrapolate from this: 1) No DM: Eliminating the DM is a huge but inevitable step. The WofC plan has always been in the...