D&D 5E A different take on Alignment

[AnotherGuy]

Joffrey’s actions in the series inform us of his moral outlook, not his alignment.

Explain to me the difference you see between moral outlook and alignment.

 

[TheSword]

I apologize for not grasping your point. It must have gotten lost in the rest of your post. Perhaps it would have helped if you had not started with trying to correct me about games you have little experience dealing with and had instead expressed your argument with greater clarity and forthrightness.


Do you have any substantial rebuttals to my point or is it just more edge case, cheap bologna like this?

Not going to respond to more rudeness and doubling down.

If the behavior causes the problem, then how does alignment alleviate this? In my experience, it doesn't, and I'm not alone in that appraisal of alignment for that expressed purpose. There is a reason why Gygax dropped it entirely from his own games. It was more trouble than it was worth.

Alignment doesn’t alleviate it. It’s a convenient shorthand that allows us to group behaviours, outlooks and approach’s in broad categories. You’re expecting far too much from Alignment if you want to mechanically prevent actions. It is a communication tool.

When I say No-Evil or Good-Only, my players understand what that means (as do most readers of these forums I suspect) and understand that there is a difference between those two categories.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Close, but not quite. One of my issues is that alignment doesn’t assist in understanding an NPCs’ behaviour in the context in which it interacts with the PCs. Likewise, my point is not that alignment can tell you that a guard is lazy at work, but rather that characterizing the guard as lazy and unmotivated at work is more useful if the players interact with the guard at work.

If the characters are captured by the corrupt watchmaster, the fact that the guard guarding their cell is lazy and unmotivated is much more useful information for adjudicating their escape plans than knowing that the guard is LE.

Like I explained to @Chaosmancer upthread - you're confusing the function of personality traits, flaws and bonds with the function of Alignment. This is also why I asked you some time ago to define Alignment as you see it because it appeared you had a very different concept of what Alignment is or should be to me.

I can’t speak for the outcome in your specific game of a LG character standing back and letting another character murder a goblin. I know that in one of the games I played in, it led to a third character voluntarily leaving the game.

For sure, I expect Alignment rulings differs from table to table, as do table dynamics, player demographic, personalities and sensitivities.

 

[TheSword]

It is a general use tool about one's moral compass.
Same reason why alignment is not paired to personality traits, flaws or bonds.

Well just to correct, it is paired to flaws, bonds, ideals and personality traits. They have alignment tags next to them as a general indication.

 

[TheSword]

For sure, I expect Alignment rulings differs from table to table.

This for me is the beauty of the system. If I particularly object to slavery or cannibalism I can consider it evil and the system still works.

If you consider slavery to be acceptable in some circumstances - you have a kingdom with indentured servitude, or slavery for debt or crime then you can make it neutral if you choose.

The table decides based on what they feel is acceptable.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Well just to correct, it is paired to flaws, bonds, ideals and personality traits. They have alignment tags next to them as a general indication.

No. It is paired to Ideals ONLY. Hence I left it off my list.

 

[TheSword]

No. It is paired to Ideals ONLY. Hence I left it off my list.

Good shout!!

 

[FrozenNorth]

Well that’s not quite true because one person could study the character and give an indication to a third party of how Joffrey would behave by using the CE label.

In a king we can assume that will be cruel, whimsical, violent, bullying, abussive of his power and ignoring convention and law.

Assuming that both parties both agree as to what constitutes CE and that it is an accurate description of Joffrey.

Or instead, they could just describe Joffrey and not try to fit him onto the CE label.

 

[TheSword]

Assuming that both parties both agree as to what constitutes CE and that it is an accurate description of Joffrey.

Or instead, they could just describe Joffrey and not try to fit him onto the CE label.

They don’t need to agree on every last detail. The broad strokes will be sufficient to convey meaning. Save the text and use it to develop further.

I love Italian food so does my partner. He likes gnocchi, I don’t really. These two things don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

 

[Aldarc]

Not going to respond to more rudeness and doubling down.

And I'm not going to respond to more bologna posting that veers off into bad faith, edge case absurdities rather than try to engage the clarification of my position that you asked me to provide. I'm sorry that the idea that people will often not order a meal at a restaurant if it's not on the menu is somehow a controversial opinion that you feel is worth debunking for whatever reason.

Alignment doesn’t alleviate it. It’s a convenient shorthand that allows us to group behaviours, outlooks and approach’s in broad categories. You’re expecting far too much from Alignment if you want to mechanically prevent actions. It is a communication tool.

This is now moving the goal posts, because you were saying that before that you could use alignment to police behavior. But now you are saying that it doesn't alleviate bad behavior at all. You don't understand. It's not a matter of me expecting too much from alignment. It's me questioning the expressed utility that its advocates on this thread claim it provides the game.

When I say No-Evil or Good-Only, my players understand what that means (as do most readers of these forums I suspect) and understand that there is a difference between those two categories.

Or one could simply say, "Hey, you're playing heroes." What does adding an alignment subsystem to the game actually solve or contribute that couldn't be accomplished by simply saying "no evil" or "good only" anyway?