D&D 5E A different take on Alignment

[Chaosmancer]

What else would it refer to other than the PC's faith? Do you mean the actual god? If so, that's not part of the ideal and you are already making my point.

No, we are making an entirely different point.

Sure, you could slap an evil label on that but it still wouldn't tell you anything about how they do it. Slap an LE label on it, still doesn't tell you.

Because a cleric of Bane is going to be very different than a Cleric of Wee-Jas. Both are Lawful Evil, but one is going to seek military victories, and the other might study magic. That is a big difference in the "how" question, the one you keep saying alignment answers. Oh, and if we make a third cleric of Kelemvor, do you think they use the same methods and such as the openly evil followers of evil gods?


Alignment isn't as useful as the other details you are adding by giving us things like which faith you are talking about.

 

[Maxperson]

Nope, because if that is the ideal, then the Good Paladin has it to, word for word, and they are (in a good way) hunting down, killing those foes who raise a sword against the weak and salting the earth.

Then it fails at what @pemerton says is the goal of ideals. You can't tell whether that person has any particular moral compass direction. Worthless ideal.

 

[Maxperson]

One of the worst defenses of alignment I have ever read. If that is LG, then the term is meaningless

That might be because it wasn't a defense of alignment.

 

[Maxperson]

No, we are making an entirely different point.

Sure, you could slap an evil label on that but it still wouldn't tell you anything about how they do it. Slap an LE label on it, still doesn't tell you.

Because a cleric of Bane is going to be very different than a Cleric of Wee-Jas. Both are Lawful Evil, but one is going to seek military victories, and the other might study magic. That is a big difference in the "how" question, the one you keep saying alignment answers. Oh, and if we make a third cleric of Kelemvor, do you think they use the same methods and such as the openly evil followers of evil gods?


Alignment isn't as useful as the other details you are adding by giving us things like which faith you are talking about.

Aaaaaaaand you've also made my point. If you have to go beyond the ideal to figure it out, it has failed as an ideal to show anything to do with the PC's morals.

 

[tetrasodium]

But aren't those lists just (rather generic) suggestions? The sort of examples that I've given, or that @FrozenNorth has given, seem better to me and to better fit with what the rules says when they explain them.

That may have been the intent but the result was that players tend to just copy ones they like or pick them from the ddb list. As examples they tend to suck to an almost comical degree rather than serving as useful examples that say meaningful things about a character for players to get a feel for their purpose. The result is like trying to describe a car to an isolated tribe that has never seen one by describing actual cars and using pictures like this

Spoiler

Sure you might get the occasional player who makes up their own, but that seems to be a tiny slice of a minority of players in my experience

 

[pemerton]

What else would it refer to other than the PC's faith? Do you mean the actual god? If so, that's not part of the ideal and you are already making my point.

This isn't true. My faith is a referring term that contains a relative adjective. I can't work out what the ideal is until I know what faith is being referred to.

It would be like the ideal I uphold the values of the Revolution! It makes a pretty big difference if the Revolution is the 1776 one or the 1917 one! You can't tell me that Thomas Jefferson and Leon Trotsky have the same ideal.

 

[AnotherGuy]

I want to point out though, those who are arguing that alignment "fills in the gaps" like @Helldritch , aren't even using SENTENCES.

...(snip)...

So, sure, if you hobble Ideals, Bonds and Flaws to be as short as possible, then use alignment to add to them until they become sentences, then it appears like alignment is doing the work. But if you actually write three sentences that say what you mean, then you don't need alignment.

Like myriad of people have said prior, repeatedly, it is a short-hand, a quick tool, all-encompassing aid.

Ideals/Bonds/Flaws/Traits are a great addition to the D&D game and a step in the right direction (my opinion). They are not perfect. Not everyone uses them or uses them fully. Not everyone ties them to Inspiration. Alignment is not perfect. Not everyone uses it. I'm sure there are creative types who could to expand on Alignment and make it a more central feature.

Do other games do certain things better, in some people's opinions, sure. But a lot of games can do other things better - whether it be skills, the health system, defenses....etc.

If one wants to incorporate other mechanics into their D&D game they most certainly can. I do. The D&D community does - hence we have a litany of products in the DMs Guild which do just that. So the question is why pick on Alignment?

 

[AnotherGuy]

So would their MBTI, Astrological Sign, Love Language, or any further differentiators, but that doesn't make them worth advocating for either. The entire character in Fate, for example, amounts to more than their Aspects, but the Aspects are the parts of the character that the players would like to see engaged with and narratively reinforced through play. But it's not as if Fate needs Alignment to distinguish between characters.

Does Fate have alignment-based deities or environments, alignment-coded items, opponents with alignment baked in.
Alignment is the shorthand moral-descriptor. Do not like it, don't use it, like other parts of the game.

EDIT: I'm not going to advocate that one uses it. I'm going to advocate that it continues to exist within the game because I can see its value. To be clear I'm also not opposed to other ideas being incorporated into the game.

 

[Aldarc]

Does Fate have alignment-based deities or environments, alignment-coded items, opponents with alignment baked in.
Alignment is the shorthand moral-descriptor. Do not like it, don't use it, like other parts of the game.

No it does not, but it is not as if a game setting having alignment-based deities, cosmologies, or conflicts requires such shorthand moral-descriptors or that players to adhere to them either: e.g., Stormbringer, Tékumel, Warhammer Fantasy RP, etc.

Furthermore, in this thread I have said that I would like to see Alignment have more teeth in D&D rather than the milquetoast personality type nonsense that it has become. You want to use that Holy Avenger Sword of Ultimate Goodness? Then you have to (1) pledge yourself to solely serve the cosmological forces of goodness, and (2) accrued enough "good points" or faction reputation in their service to be worthy enough (and suffused enough with the cosmological essence of goodness) to pick that sucker up. Want to pick up Stormbringer or Mournblade? Same thing, but for Chaos. Different artifacts may even require varying tiers. Oh, and having these artifacts will further attract conflict with the opposing cosmological forces of your alignment.

But that whole "What alignment is Donald Duck?" personality type thing? Get that boring malarkey out of here.

 

[Helldritch]

I can abide differences in opinion and preferences if they are well-informed. However, it is painfully clear to me that many of the posters in this thread are arguing from a place of ignorance, having no idea how games outside the d20 bubble work. So the arguments being made in favour of D&D's eccentricities and contradictions are utterly vacuous, lacking in substance and grounding. Many of the things alignment is being claimed as oh so critical for actually work just fine in other games that don't happen to use alignment. This utterly asinine Ideals/Bonds/Flaws argument that @Helldritch and @Maxperson keep spouting on and on about would be an utter non-issue in FATE as @Aldarc mentioned. It would not come up in Apocalypse World, Blades in the Dark, Dream Askew, or any of their descendants or cousins either. Older games I am not 100% up to speed on, but I have supreme faith in @pemerton 's knowledge of the field, and they've been both one of the most ardent and well-articulated interluctors in this engagement that has made a case for alignment's relative lack of utility, compared to the other characterization tools used both by D&D and by other games - if used in good faith.

Expand your breadth and depth of the medium, I beg of you.

BS.
Games I have played without alignment such as seen in D&D.
Paranoia
Role Master
Champions unlimited
Star Wars WE (d6)
Star Trek
Battle Tech rpg (as well as the tactical one)
White Wolf's Vampire the Masquerade, Werewolf the Apocalypse, Mage the Ascension and Demon the Fallen.
Cthulhu
Marvel RPG
And a few others that were one shots or we just tried to see and that

So stop assuming and take for granted that those interacting with you are not complete morons.