D&D 5E A different take on Alignment

[Aldarc]

Those are very narrow groupings, and not very nuanced. Not all evil in middle earth originated with Sauron. There’s a big difference between a crook with a twisted sense of honour, and a crook who sets anyone he dislikes on fire. Nobility is not a guarantee of goodness.

I think you're reading of my post is very narrow and neither very nuanced nor generous either. It confuses pedantry for valid criticism. I'm aware that not all evil in Middle Earth originates with Sauron, but in the One Ring, you are primarily dealing with the legacy of Sauron. In Blades in the Dark, you are a gang of criminals trying to expand your gang's turf and crime operations. I don't mind evil characters there, but that's what the game's about. Not good people doing not good things in a crucible-like city that is slowly coming to a boil as a result of their activities. And in regards to Blue Rose, it's romantic fantasy. The characters are presumed to be noble, not in class, but, rather, in their general moral character. Would you like some additional opportunities to put your ignorance of these games on grand display for the rest of the thread?

You think the reason players want to do evil things is because alignment exists? I think they do evil things because it’s convenient and some people enjoy playing that character. Plus the fact that D&D doesn’t tell you what to be as a ruleset.

Not quite. If I go to a restaurant, and I see that hamburger is on the menu, I think we would both understand that this means that it's a perfectly valid meal that I could order and consume at the restaurant. If I want a hamburger, but it's not on the restaurant menu, I could still want to eat a hamburger and enjoy that sort of meal, but it's not likely something that I could order there. In the absence of a "no evil" GM rule, the presence of evil alignments does validate the option of playing an evil character in D&D. The rulebooks and settings often set the implicit expectations of play through its tone, genre, and setting.

I've never had to make a "no evil" rule in alignment-less games. I have never, for example, had anyone express a desire to play an evil character in Blue Rose, because the game's tone, genre, and setting is romantic fantasy where the PCs are presumed to be good, inclusive, and progressive, and the kingdom of Aldea is one that they want to protect because it too is likewise good, inclusive, and progressive. Likewise, I've never had players who wanted to play evil characters in Numenera, though it lacks an alignment system. It's never come up in Fate. It's never come up in FAGE. Or 7th Sea. Or Index Card RPG.

The corruption systems in most games I’ve seen absolutely do require some adjudication. Unless they are tied to specific actions which again is limiting.

So how do they work in these games that I'm talking about and how do they compare with how you are describing your adjudication of character alignment in D&D?

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

Yes, but this is the point of the whole "no evil" rule. Why is this common rule even necessary in the first place? Because the game says that "evil" is a possible alignment for characters, which frequently results in GMs stipulating "no evil" for PCs. Though in the absence of alignment, I would likely not frame this as "no evil," but, rather, more positively as "pro-heroic" and set up the play expectations more explicitly and concretely with players, which is again one of the many problems in this game that could be easily solved by communicating with each other like grown-ups.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Just pointing out, this is like Flat Earth theory. You can apply a wrong framework to reach conclusions about a system, but if it isn't a framework that gives useful answers, then you aren't using the tool correctly.


Sure, you CAN apply alignment to anything in fiction and in reality. But it isn't useful to do so in more than the most shallow sense, because it doesn't work.

Who is the authority on if alignment works at one's table?

 

[Aldarc]

Presumably some found the framework useful despite all these experts whose validation you seek to garner.

Just like other nonsense like astrology and MBTI.

 

[pemerton]

View attachment 134876

Presumably some found the framework useful despite all these experts whose validation you seek to garner.

What is this achieving? Does someone think they can predict the script for the next episode based on those classifications?

 

[FrozenNorth]

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.

No. What happened was that you pointed at Game of Thrones characters as evidence that you don’t have to play alignment as a straitjacket.

When I pointed out that Games of Thrones characters do not have alignments, you disagreed and asked me what I meant by alignment.

You seem to believe that because third parties can apply alignments to fictional characters that weren’t created with alignments, that has some meaning. It doesn’t. Especially not for people who don’t use alignment in the first place.

 

[Maxperson]

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.

With this you are suggesting that the only way to tell if someone is acting in an evil manner is if alignment is in the game and being enforced. That's completely wrong, but I suspect you are aware of that.

If the DM says no evil and the player is having the PC run around hack down innocent villagers in the streets, because he wants to go into the boots business and needs stock, the DM is going to boot that player for violating the table rule. Alignment never plays into it and is never enforced. What does play into it and what IS being enforced, is the social contract.

 

[AnotherGuy]

What is this achieving? Does someone think they can predict the script for the next episode based on those classifications?

I highly doubt it. Much like your experts.

 

[Chaosmancer]

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.

Man, do you have to be so disingenuous every single time? Here was your original questions

Then explain how ideals would work for monsters. Ideals are very specific, not broad descriptors like alignment.

What would the generic ideal be for a green dragon vs a red dragon? What would it tell us about how they would react to scenarios not specific to the ideal?

P.S. you really should look up the definition of straw man.

What would be the generic ideal. So, I gave generic ideals. Now, you want to claim that somehow I gave specific individual dragons? How? Explain to me how these are specific and individual.

A red dragon desires to rule. It tells us in the MM that this is true, they all see themselves as royalty. So, what do they do if they don't have a kingdom? Well, they are probably trying to build one. This isn't exactly rocket science. I want A, I work to get A. This is like saying you have no idea what a character who says "I want to be the greatest knight in the land" is going to do if they aren't a knight. Well, I think it is obvious they are going to try and become a knight.

It tells us nothing other than they are evil? Well, what the heck does an evil alignment tell you except that they are evil? It is literally in the name.

And, I notice, that you are focusing exclusively on Red Dragons, but what about the ideal I gave for Green Dragons? Is that somehow specific? Why didn't you as questions of that, like what do they do if they don't have a scheme? By the way, the answer is make a scheme.

 

[pemerton]

I highly doubt it. Much like your experts.

So then what's the point? How is this meaningful? What is it telling us about these characters, other than that someone (i) can write a description of the character, and (ii) correlate that description to a description in the D&D alignment rules?

Are there also true descriptions of these characters that would not correlate with the posited alignments? It seems likely, assuming the characters have any depth at all.

 

[Maxperson]

Maxerson is entitled to his view. People who like alignment don’t get made in a factory using a .329 stainless steel die.

However, I believe what Maxperson is referring to, is that the rules don’t enforce the kind of distinction I’m suggesting. In 5e Holy Smite isn’t going to treat player Y differently because he killed babies last week.

I on the other hand am talking about a social contract agreement not to play an evil character because it’s disruptive to party cohesion. Because player A is put in an uncomfortable and annoying position where they have to bite their tongue about actions that would otherwise have them storming the player’s evil sanctum. I have no problem making broad moral judgements about characters behaviour in those circumstances. I’m the referee. That’s a table convention not a game rule. It just uses D&Ds convenient alignment distinctions to set its boundaries.

Right. It's the social contract. I would not give the warnings about alignment you mentioned, because 1) 5e has no mechanism for changing a player's alignment, so right away that's a house rule, 2) it's not necessary.

Good and evil exist whether alignment does or not. Were I to say no evil in the game and the players agree(they would if they wanted to play), then it is a violation of the social contract to run around acting evil. In my opinion it would be wrong to try and resolve a social contract violation through game means(changing alignment, etc.) and would instead solve it outside of the game. Depending on the egregiousness of the violation, the player might get warned that if he continues to violate his agreement he will get booted or just get booted.