D&D 5E A different take on Alignment

[AnotherGuy]

I take applied to imply meaningfully or usefully. As opposed to pointlessly, arbitrarily or uselessly.

Pemerton there are numerous threads in numerous forums of why people find alignment useful and you have participated in plenty of them on Enworld. You may not agree with them, and that is perfectly fine, but they do not require the validation by literary critics or a philosophers of ethics to tell them why they (the rpgers) cannot find them useful.

 

[TheSword]

Well upthread a poster said one cannot apply alignment to fictional characters (because they are not D&D). I disagreed and pointed to the poster's own post as well as the numerous alignment memes which exist for the fictional characters of comics, literature and film. Thus people can and do utilise alignment to describe non-D&D characters. The argument that one cannot is bollocks.

But perhaps you can tell us why you have inserted yourself so prominently in such a pointless debate.

This thread is so going to get shut down anyway but swearing at Aldarc in your posts is only gonna speed that up. I can see you only posted a few dozen times so you may not have picked up that the forums are kept well moderated.

 

[AnotherGuy]

This thread is so going to get shut down anyway but swearing at Aldarc in your posts is only gonna speed that up. I can see you only posted a few dozen times so you may not have picked up that the forums are kept well moderated.

Apologies I have seen the word s!!! and bulls!!! on these boards frequently of late so I figured the b-word was permitted. I have edited my post.

 

[Oofta]

Do all Green Dragons have schemes? Well, the MM says that is a defining feature of them. So... yeah, seems like they do.

What are the goals of the schemes? Well, considering I said "I show my power" and "corrupting and twisting" it is likely that the majority of these schemes are for self-empowerment or chaos and ruin of others. You don't generally corrupt people to build a structured society for the betterment of others, generally it is for the purposes of ruin.

Tyrants generally rule through intimidation and fear, it is a defining feature of tyrannical rule. A Hierarchy could be done, but that seems like a more specific details. Sort of like whether or not they would eat adventurers or take care of their children. Sure, I can provide those details, but you didn't ask me to set up an entire NPC plus plot for you, you asked for different ideals that highlighted differences in Green Dragons and Red Dragons. Something that I did. If you wanted an entire socio-political commentary on how Red Dragons run their empires, that is a bit of a different question than "what is their ideal"

These describe specific, individual dragons. They are in no way general to all dragons of that type. It also leaves so many blank spots. What if they don't have a kingdom? Do all dragons have kingdoms even the young ones? A tyrant just tells us they're an unjust ruler, not how they rule. It tells us almost nothing about a moral compass other than that they're evil.

If this is good enough for you ... there's nothing I can say. But this whole conversation is pointless. Have a good one.

 

[pemerton]

Pemerton there are numerous threads in numerous forums of why people find alignment useful and you have participated in plenty of them on Enworld. You may not agree with them, and that is perfectly fine, but they do not require the validation by literary critics or a philosophers of ethics to tell them why they (the rpgers) cannot find them useful.

How did the topic move to alignment can be useful from alignment can be meaningfully applied to characters outside of the context of D&D?

These are different assertions. Even if the first is true, that doesn't entail anything about the second. I reiterate: if alignment was really a useful all-purpose tool for the moral classification of real or imagined conduct, we would see people whose job it is to do that using it. But we don't!

 

[Oofta]

I don't see how this is any different from alignment. The Sherriff of Nottingham is (presumably) LE and locks people up. Sahuagin are LE and sacrifice people to their diabolic deity.

If an imp isn't harvesting souls then what are they doing? I don't know - other than they're not doing their job - but I don't see how being told they're LE would help answer that question. I also don't see the contrast between trickery and fine print - the latter just seems like a particular case of the former. How do they interact with imps more powerful? Maybe they trade them souls, maybe they suck up to them, maybe they try to backstab them - wouldn't it vary from imp to imp and occasion to occasion?

It tells us next to nothing about general outlook on life and behavior.

In any case, if this is it, it falls far short of what alignment tells me. In combination with alignment? It still only tells me one small aspect of what role an imp might fulfill, and even then it's a misleading one. An imp could be a familiar for example. Their job wouldn't be harvesting souls (it may be harvesting an individual soul) but it tells me nothing about their preferred methods, how they'll respond to negotiations, general view of the world.

Again, it's a specific individual imp and a specific slice. There's no point.

 

[Oofta]

Interesting. I once GMed a game where one of the central PCs kept a bath of acid in his basement for the purposes of torture and/or body disposal, and he betrayed his city to an invader in exchange for the promise of a magistracy.

In a campaign that used alignment it would be inconceivable that this character would not have the "evil" label. In a campaign that didn't use alignment, though, he was one of the more memorable and engaging characters I've seen in a game.

I also don't see how you can enforce "no evil" if @Maxperson is correct and the GM isn't allowed to declare the alignment of a PC based on conduct. Because if that's true, then the player can just write Good on their sheet but play their PC doing evil things.

Easy. Using a tub of acid to torture and hide evidence is evil. That behavior is not allowed in my game. I don't care if they're memorable and engaging, come up with a different concept or the PC becomes an NPC because I set that parameter before the session 0. If that doesn't work for you find a different game.

Has nothing to do with alignment.

 

[Oofta]

I think that one reason why "no evil" is even necessary in the first place is because 'evil' even exists as a possible choice for character alignment. This is fundamentally about trying to fix a self-created problem. This is a conversation that is generally not required in other games that lack alignment but establish clear genre, setting, and play expectations. You will be playing heroes opposed to the shadow of Sauron in The One Ring. You will be playing crooks in Blades in the Dark. You will be playing noble, adventuring member's of The Queen's Finest in Blue Rose. Furthermore, many of these games don't require alignment because certain actions are linked to mechanics that risk corruption, insanity, despair, etc. These are things that don't often require the GM's questionable moral judgment to adjudicate.

Evil may be a possible choice in your games, in mine it is not.

Evil still exists for NPCs and monsters as well as other people's games. Some people enjoy games with evil PCs, I don't

 

[FrozenNorth]

Human nature says that they are following the rules more than they are ignoring them, especially since alignment has zero issues in 5e, unless the DM puts the very, very few magic items that use it into the game AND decides to be a jerk about something that has only one line of fluff to it.

No. The evidence(human nature and the nature of 5e alignment) implies use of rules, not lack of their use. Not to mention that the odds of every single new player not using alignment are far worse than the odds that I'm winning the lotto tomorrow.

See, it’s stuff like this why I find it hard to take you seriously. You call another poster on making stuff up, and when he points out he is simply responding to the premises you set up, it turns out you are doing what you accused him of.

It makes it very difficult to conclude that you are arguing in good faith.

 

[Oofta]

Well upthread a poster said one cannot apply alignment to fictional characters (because they are not D&D). I disagreed and pointed to the poster's own post as well as the numerous alignment memes which exist for the fictional characters of comics, literature and film. Thus people can and do utilise alignment to describe non-D&D characters. The argument that one cannot is false.

But perhaps you can tell us why you have inserted yourself so prominently in such a pointless debate.

EDITED.

I would say that it can be difficult at times to assign an alignment to a fictional character because we don't always get their personal thoughts and views. That, and some characters are not exactly written consistently, especially ones that exist over decades.

Like I pointed out eons ago, Darth Vader had around 30 minutes of screen time across the original movie trilogy. Probably had 10 minutes or so of speaking. Kind of hard to zero in on a character's moral compass in that amount of time.