D&D 5E (2014) can warlocks be good guys?

[EzekielRaiden]

"The memo that people weren't keen on the alignment restrictions, even soft ones...", as quoted by EzekielRaiden, was no good. Alignment restrictions are very popular.

WotC's stated removal of them during the playtest suggests otherwise. Paladins used to need to be Lawful. This was intentionally removed during the playtest. Here's Mearls on the subject as well. (Note: the community blogs all died when WotC changed their site to its current form, so only the Web Archive version of the former link remains; it takes a while to load, I have no idea why.)

Alignment restrictions were sufficiently unpopular, at least among the playtest group which WotC claims was in the hundred thousand participants range, that they were removed during the playtest and never came back. (For comparison, the first versions of the Sorcerer and Warlock got pulled due to negative fan reaction, but they came back later, after heavy modification.)

 

[TwoSix]

I never felt alignment was restricting, or inadequately described. I always found it liberating and informative enough it could help in real life, too.

I was mentioning that the diety description was sparse, not alignment. And I never alluded to the idea that they were inadequate or restricting, merely that they're presenting the basics.

I admit sometimes it's fun to assign an alignment to real world people or institutions, but I don't know if I would call it helpful.

 

[Mallus]

I admit sometimes it's fun to assign an alignment to real world people or institutions, but I don't know if I would call it helpful.

Yeah, as a way of mocking real world people or institutions while at the same time mocking the D&D alignment system, it's aces! Helpful? Not so much.

I should probably mention I'm playing a not-evil Tome/GOO Warlock in a 5e campaign currently. He's a desperate tenure-seeking academic librarian who opened the wrong book in his library's rare books collection. Now he works for the VOID THAT EATS THE STARS (which is entropy, maybe?). So far he's only done good, exposing a group of cultists, defiling evil magical altars, innocent village saving, rampaging monster army fighting, etc.

The black bolts of corrosive darkness he lobs around are merely tools. Used for justice. That his Tome of Shadows is a huge black leather bound book is called "The Protocols of the Elders of Cthulhu" is a bit unsavory... but it's also something of a joke.

 

[SirAntoine]

Yeah, as a way of mocking real world people or institutions while at the same time mocking the D&D alignment system, it's aces! Helpful? Not so much.

I should probably mention I'm playing a not-evil Tome/GOO Warlock in a 5e campaign currently. He's a desperate tenure-seeking academic librarian who opened the wrong book in his library's rare books collection. Now he works for the VOID THAT EATS THE STARS (which is entropy, maybe?). So far he's only done good, exposing a group of cultists, defiling evil magical altars, innocent village saving, rampaging monster army fighting, etc.

The black bolts of corrosive darkness he lobs around are merely tools. Used for justice. That his Tome of Shadows is a huge black leather bound book is called "The Protocols of the Elders of Cthulhu" is a bit unsavory... but it's also something of a joke.

Why do you mock D&D's alignment?

 

[Mallus]

Why do you mock D&D's alignment?

Because it's funny?

Don't get me wrong, D&D's alignment terms --"Lawful Good", "Chaotic Evil"-- have a clumsy loveliness to them that I can't deny. They're burned into my brain permanently. But alignment's also fundamentally silly, and, I'd argue, like much of D&D, intentionally so. A lot of D&D is a big piss take on the fantasy fiction (and real history) it's creator's obviously loved. I guess what's particularly funny about alignment is the community's response to it over the years, ie how seriously some people take it.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Why do you mock D&D's alignment?

I'm a fan of D&D's alignment as a game rule much of the time, but it is pretty reductionist and simplistic (as it is designed to be!), so when you apply it to anything in the real world, it does not do an adequate job at all of describing the real complexities of actual human behavior and the various individual perspectives on the value of that behavior. For a lot of folks who play D&D, that essential unreality makes alignment not a great game rule -- they want something that more accurately reflects the way actual people behave.

So when you try to put things in the real world (or even things in suitably complex fictional worlds!) into the D&D alignment grid, it does a pretty good job of showing the limitations of the latter.

 

[Mallus]

I should probably mention that, despite alignment's inherently silliness, there have been D&D players & DMs who have done wonderful things with it. Like the old ENWorld poster Sepulchrave2, whose "Tales of Wyre" Story Hours embrace D&D alignment and turn it into something truly amazing.

 

[Shasarak]

I should probably mention I'm playing a not-evil Tome/GOO Warlock in a 5e campaign currently. He's a desperate tenure-seeking academic librarian who opened the wrong book in his library's rare books collection. Now he works for the VOID THAT EATS THE STARS (which is entropy, maybe?). So far he's only done good, exposing a group of cultists, defiling evil magical altars, innocent village saving, rampaging monster army fighting, etc.

The black bolts of corrosive darkness he lobs around are merely tools. Used for justice. That his Tome of Shadows is a huge black leather bound book is called "The Protocols of the Elders of Cthulhu" is a bit unsavory... but it's also something of a joke.

Sounds more like the right book to me.

 

[Riley37]

So, you redefine things.

I'm using the definitions in the 5E PHB. The 5E PHB definition of what a warlock is, and the 5E PHB definition of damage types, and the 5E PHB definition of Law and Good.

YOU ARE NOT.

You don't have to use them if they don't suit you, but could you please be honest about it?

 

[Riley37]

I should probably mention that, despite alignment's inherently silliness, there have been D&D players & DMs who have done wonderful things with it.

And others. For example, the story series "Order of the Stick" includes a sequence in which a paladin goes over the line to Evil, without understanding that she's doing so. (Her *steed* seems to understand her choices better than she does.) The same series includes a sequence in which one of the main characters dies, goes to the afterlife, and is judged on whether they qualify for the Lawful Good afterlife. The judging process is demonstrated in detail - and the ruling hinges on a point of principle. (Meanwhile, the character's deceased father was nominally LG but does not qualify for the LG afterlife reward, and watches his son walk through a gate which he may not cross.)

It is a parody series, and at the same time it treats some topics with utter seriousness; sometimes parody is a way to make an ethical point.