D&D 5E Do you find alignment useful in any way?

[Cadence]

You mean, like, finding alignment useful even though you do not?

"useful in any way"

I find frozen brussel sprouts useful for filling my composting bin or as an ice pack, but wouldn't ever buy them. So the answer to the question of useful in any way is yes for brussel sprouts?

Or, say, I find those two alignment letters provide some information (but can think of tons of other ways to do it even better) is also a yes?

How about we reverse the question?

"Do you think alignment is the best possible system for what it aims to do?

A. Yes. Alignment never causes me or my gaming group trouble and I can't conceive of any improvements.

B. No. Alignment sometimes annoys me and leads to situations I can imagine other alternatives avoiding.

C. Ha! I refuse to fall for your slanted poll questions. Pull the other one!"

 

[Wolfram stout]

How I find it useful.

To expound on my "a bit useful" answer:

As a player, not at all.
As a DM it helps find monsters without re-reading all the entries. Right now I am prepping a Plane-hopping campaign set in the City of Brass. While all alignments will be in the city, the personal forces of the Efreet Lord will be LE, maybe LN. Which Dragons are LE again? It is easy to find.

Yes, I could "just decide", but it saves time to have that available.

 

[TheSword]

"useful in any way"

I find frozen brussel sprouts useful for filling my composting bin or as an ice pack, but wouldn't ever buy them. So the answer to the question of useful in any way is yes for brussel sprouts?

Or, say, I find those two alignment letters provide some information (but can think of tons of other ways to do it even better) is also a yes?

How about we reverse the question?

"Do you think alignment is the best possible system for what it aims to do?

A. Yes. Alignment never causes me or my gaming group trouble and I can't conceive of any improvements.

B. No. Alignment sometimes annoys me and leads to situations I can imagine other alternatives avoiding.

C. Ha! I refuse to fall for your slanted poll questions. Pull the other one!"

Ok. But in the 5 pages of responses explaining how people of voting, is there anyone who posted that they answered yes, but for perverse or reasons that confound the question?

I didn’t see them.

But sure... keep shouting loudly.

This poll was a simple utility question. Do you find it useful at all? Clearly a lot people think yes in some regard. We can guarantee not because alignment itself is used for compost... though some of the debates around alignment could be.

 

[el-remmen]

Necessary? No

Useful? Sure! Those two little letters are the seed of understanding any NPC, which grows the more they appear in-game and are a fine general description of PC behavior that can provide a guideline both for what you want to do and what you don't want to do.

Harmful? I think if it is harming your game you should get rid of it, but I am curious if it is really harmful or just the focus of disagreements that would happen over some other aspect of the game or just character behavior in general even if it didn't exist.

I won't say I've never had arguments over alignment, but not in over 30 years.

I will also admit that I have never bothered to read the section on alignments in 5E. I know how alignment works.

The most fun thing I have done with alignment recently was actually divorce it from divine beings (which are unknowable) altogether - so priests of any god can be any alignment (and keep their powers) - if there is a disagreement on ethos that is for the mortal church to handle (thus schisms and sects).

 

[Cadence]

This poll was a simple utility question. Do you find it useful at all? Clearly a lot people think yes in some regard. We can guarantee not because alignment itself is used for compost... though some of the debates around alignment could be.

Why is knowing if they find any use in it at all useful though?

Would a better question have been:

A. I find the 5e D&D alignment system nearly perfect and wouldn't change a thing.

B. I find the 3e D&D alignment system nearly perfect and would go back to that.

C. I find the OD&D alignment system nearly perfect and would go back to that.

D. I find one of the D&D alignment systems sometimes useful but would modify it in small ways.

E. I find one of the D&D alignment systems sometimes useful but would replace it with something that wouldn't be classifiable as a 3-way or 3x3 alignment system and might be more verbose on the character sheet.

F. I'd dump it.

 

[Maxperson]

look I am not a curry liking guy but peoples opinion on curry is anything but apathetic where I am from so I do not see the logic.

The logic is that if you don't care enough to like or dislike it, you pick the silly one that has nothing to do with the thread.

 

[Maxperson]

This poll of course is incredibly biased. A person may easily find some use for alignment whilst feeling that it is an unneeded awkward relic or even an detriment.

Now, it is perfectly possible, even likely, that majority of people want the alignment to be in the game, but this poll doesn't answer that.

And likewise, people who don't like alignment can deliberately overlook its uses and simply declare that there are none.

 

[Vaalingrade]

That presentation of alignment had very few mechanical implications

Are we talking about the same version that shackled and brain-boxed FIVE freaking core classes to a specific alignment?

 

[Oofta]

Why is knowing if they find any use in it at all useful though?

Would a better question have been:

A. I find the 5e D&D alignment system nearly perfect and wouldn't change a thing.

B. I find the 3e D&D alignment system nearly perfect and would go back to that.

C. I find the OD&D alignment system nearly perfect and would go back to that.

D. I find one of the D&D alignment systems sometimes useful but would modify it in small ways.

E. I find one of the D&D alignment systems sometimes useful but would replace it with something that wouldn't be classifiable as a 3-way or 3x3 alignment system and might be more verbose on the character sheet.

F. It's garbage, dump it.

We aren't talking about 3E or OD&D alignment. This is specifically marked as a 5E thread.

But on that topic, a lot of people seem to be bringing in assumptions and baggage from previous editions. In 5E we are explicitly told that alignment is not straightjacket, it's not meant to represent every action of a PC, NPC or monster. There's only 1 subclass that I know of (Oathbreaker Paladin) that specifies that they must be evil. Mechanically alignment has no more impact than traits, ideals, bonds, flaws.

According to the PHB alignment:

... broadly describes its moral and personal attitudes ...​

These brief summaries of the nine alignments describe the typical behavior of a creature with that alignment. Individuals might vary significantly from that typical behavior, and few people are perfectly and consistently faithful to the precepts of their alignment.​

The MM? General idea of default behavior:

A monster’s alignment provides a clue to its disposition and how it behaves in a roleplaying or combat situation. ...​

​

The alignment specified in a monster’s stat block is the default. Feel free to depart from it and change a monster’s alignment to suit the needs of your campaign.​

So a lot of people find it useful at least some of the time. I think this iteration hits it about right for me; a quick descriptive tool that can be useful now and then that I can ignore when I don't care or need it. No it doesn't tell me how that NPC was raised or what their attitude is about the color green. Those are details I'll fill in if I think I need them. It does give me a general starting point and a clue on how to run them when the players do something and interact with NPC/monster in a way I didn't expect.

 

[Oofta]

Are we talking about the same version that shackled and brain-boxed FIVE freaking core classes to a specific alignment?

Where? Where in 5E is that stated?