D&D 5E A different take on Alignment

[Zubatcarteira]

I don't get the picture. How can a LE person have the ideal I will protect the weak?

"I will protect the weak . . . by killing any strong being I find, can't trust 'em". I could see a super zealous Paladin protecting some small town and just preemptively executing any powerful creature like adventurers that passes by, just to make the place safe since a strong enough party can very well just walk in and kill everyone without much opposition, maybe he had some bad experiences with murderhobos.

Of course, he'd have to be quite strong himself to do that, so his flaw could be a "Boy, am I a hypocrite". But even then, evil and good can surely have the same ideals and go about them in completely different ways.

 

[Krachek]

I think what is missing in the phb is a section about the style of your character.
By style I mean faith, goal, personal behavior, inspired by the paladin oath.

Something like:
Devoted to a greater cause
Opportunistic
Devoted to a personal cause
On the path to Glory, power, wealth, renown

The phb can offer like background a dozen of character styles that could be much more useful than selecting an alignment.
Like background skill, proficiency and a cool feature can be added to each style.

 

[thebakeriscomingforu]

When it comes to alignment(if I'm using it) I like to use this website "Real" Alignments? as my alignment model.
Following the model it made it so all alignments were useable in a party, while still having the flexibility to portray someone as good or evil in addition to having the baseline motivations. For instance in one campaign a player chose to play CE for their alignment which in this model is Hedonism. They were a sorcerer who was a noble, he craved the finer things in life and actively sought out a good time but abhorred violence. Which is counter to the bog standard CE that we all know from D&D and other systems.

 

[Maxperson]

My response to this is similar to @Manbearcat's.

I neither support nor don't support the continued existence of the Dog Star. It's something utterly beyond my control.

My degree of influence over what WotC publishes is much the same.

However, on a message board whose purpose is to foster discussion of RPGs, including FRPGs, and including D&D, I will cheerfully express my reasoning about the utility (or non-utility) of alignment in D&D and in FRPGing more generally.

Your degree of influence over WotC is higher than your degree of influence over the existence of the Dog Star. You can write a letter or email to WotC if you so choose and that would be considered, especially if many other such letters were received. They are a company and the people that buy their products have some influence. There is no such consideration to be had with the Dog Star.

 

[Oofta]

Again, my experience differs. These were groups that got along fine, specifically until we realized that we had different ideas about alignment. Radically different, in fact. And I use "groups" for a reason. This wasn't a single group. Usually, two or three people would be of one opinion and two or three would be of another (occasionally you'd get another lone position but not all that often.)

This is why I say that it is not the idea of "be a good person," but rather the fact that different people can have actually different ideas about what that means. Sure, maybe 90% of the time they'll agree on what the good actions are in a given context, and what the evil actions are, etc. But even something as simple as "well, that's not an EVIL action, but it still makes you less Good for having done it" has, in fact, been quite controversial for groups I've played with.

Some people see it purely as a declaration: "this is what my character is, so what they do is that." No matter how much that may defy sense. Some see it as a purely descriptive pattern: "the sum of your actions up to now is this." Even though that conflicts directly with the idea of beings "made" of such a thing, or powers/forces directly comprised of the cosmic "stuff" of that alignment. Some see it as a "ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff," to appropriate a phrase, despite the other conflicts that causes. I've even known some who see it as literally universe-imposed team jerseys, with no moral component whatsoever, because (as they saw it) that was the only way to make it make sense.

And yes, this has meant that I now pretty much have to engage in a long, in-depth conversation with any prospective DM (and, ideally, the group at large) about how they think alignment works and what impact it has on the world. Because if I don't have that conversation, I get nasty surprises, more often than not. I get "I'm hoping for a world where heroism matters" cashing out as "the only heroes are those who die being heroic, but at least they accomplish something....for a little while. If they're smart and lucky." Now, I get that part of that is a "me" thing, as I love Paladins and especially playing a Paladin who hard-averts the "Lawful Stupid" archetype. But it sure as hell can't be all of it, because it's happened in games where I've played sorcerers and bards and tried to defy my natural LG tendencies.

Then it's up to the DM to have a discussion with the group and make a ruling about how alignment works in their campaign.

Just like any other ruling that people have a difference of opinion on. I don't see any difference between this and how stealth is handled. I may or may not agree with how a DM runs stealth

It's seems to me it's only an issue IMHO because you're over-emphasizing the importance of one descriptor. The rules on alignment haven't had much impact on the game for a while now. But depending on the type and style of game you want to play, I don't think alignment declaration is going to matter; what you're describing as issues (what heroic campaign means to you) is only tangentially related.

 

[Maxperson]

Ok, so I had the same conversation with Oofta above but he didn’t say this.

Is this what people are saying when they say “leave Alignment alone?” They’re saying “don’t advocate on public forums for curating D&D in a way that might lead to future change?”

Yes, that's exactly what they are saying. WotC is a company which may or may not(probably not) read the forums, but which would read emails and letters as I mentioned to @pemerton. Advocation for or against alignment is a desire to keep the tool or take it away from those who use it.

1) There is very little chance that my voice or pemerton’s voice holds any real sway on the ENWorld collective. As I said upthread, I’ve gotten people on here to see things differently and/or have gotten people to play new/different games maybe 2 handfuls of times in the nearly 10 years I’ve been posting.

Sure, but if I were to walk up to someone and tell that person that I hope that they lose their house, they are going to be upset by that even though I have very little chance of my voice holding any real sway over whether they keep it or not.

2) From 2008-2014 D&D culture and conversation was besieged, en masse, by a profound, (both mobilized and decentralized) revolt. You were right there and I don’t recall you asking the above question then! THAT effort to curate the (then) current iteration of D&D (in dozens of ways) was the topic of every single conversation on the boards...insidiously bringing even benign conversations that had no interest in edition warring into the thrall of its rage.

“So you don’t support the removal of x” would have had a place there. Here? Due to a vastly comparatively lacking magnitude, scale, potency (shot out to Blades!), not so much. Alignment is going nowhere. This is just a conversation about design utility and Alignment’s functionality vs alternatives.

I don't remember my exact conversations then, but during 4e, which I didn't care for, I was still of the opinion I am now. Alignment isn't that useful for people who can come up with complex personalities for their characters. It is useful as an aid for new players or more experienced players that aren't as creative. I don't require my players to use it, but they can if they want to. And as a DM I find it to be invaluable.

Pemerton and I aren’t Alignment Bogeymen.

Then why are you in my closet?

 

[Oofta]

Meanwhile, we have very many examples in this thread of alignment supporters responding to the counterexamples raised with “the GM/player didn’t understand/implement alignment properly”. This is the case even when people who support alignment disagree and spend three pages arguing amongst themselves whether Darth Vader and the Punisher were LE or CE.

Before you call out the mote in someone else’s eye, check the beam in your own.

I don't engage in those arguments because while Vader may have been important to the story but we saw half an hour of screen time in the original movies. His actual motivation and personality? Probably less than half of that. How do you really understand a person when you only get insight into what makes them tick in what probably amounted to 10-15 minutes of dialog? It's hardly surprising there's disagreement on his moral compass.

That and for the umpteenth time, alignment is only one piece of the picture.

 

[Maxperson]

My experience in this respect is similar to @EzekielRaiden's: I have found that GM adjudication of alignment generates disagreements that don't arise if that is not part of the game.

But there's no adjudication of alignment any longer and hasn't been for several years.

 

[Oofta]

I didn't say such a thing.

I said that it is possible to write a fiction in which contentions about what is good and what is evil don't arise. And as I said, Stan Lee was a master of this. JRRT is pretty good at it also.

Conversely, as soon as you write any of the following into your fiction - poverty alongside plenty where those with plenty are not framed as obvious villains; slavery (or gender discrimination; or discrimination against the children of unmarried mothers, or, etc) as an accepted social practice; defensive violence (be that warfare or, in a D&D-ish game, invading the Orcish lair) which is hard to prosecute without also targetting innocents (the notorious Orc children); any trolley-problem style situation; etc, etc, etc - then good and evil may, and at many tables will, become objects of contention.

In a game in which the fiction is written in such a way as to make good and evil objects of contention then it seems to me a recipe for needless conflict to adopt a rule that says the GM must tell the other participants who is morally right and who is morally wrong. What does that add to the experience of any participant?

If you're the sole author of fiction you control the narrative, but we're talking about a group activity so I don't see how it matters. As a player and DM I enjoy good vs evil at times. What I dislike is stories that throw moral ambiguity in your face constantly with only gray areas with constant trolley car problems. That has nothing to do with alignment.

Some stories (and RPGs) will always be about good vs evil others will try to explore moral gray areas others will just roll dice.

 

[Oofta]

I didn't say that either. I said a rule that tries to replace genuine personality descriptions with Gygax's grid is silly.

Po-tae-toe po-tah-toe.