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

[pemerton]

It definitely seems like more of a hindrance, by suggesting red dragons aren’t a good fit in the City of Brass while blue dragons and black dragons are.

It's slightly ironic confirmation of your point that it's supposed to be green rather than black dragons.

 

[Maxperson]

It definitely seems like more of a hindrance, by suggesting red dragons aren’t a good fit in the City of Brass while blue dragons and black dragons are.

Without alignment, I literally have to determine good, evil or neutrality in some fashion by coming up with basic personalities for literally every monster in every book. Players would be unable to know if metal dragons are good and chromatic are bad, since any dragon could be anything. By removing alignment, you'd increase the workload of DMs by a lot.

 

[Maxperson]

It's slightly ironic confirmation of your point that it's supposed to be green rather than black dragons.

And then a major loss of his point when you realize that cities almost never exist in one single alignment for all of those in it. The City of Brass will have denizens of all evil alignments and probably the neutral ones as well. There's no real reason that any dragon other than perhaps white(cold vs. hot) would be a bad fit.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Without alignment, I literally have to determine good, evil or neutrality in some fashion <snip>

Why.

They're either antagonists the players have to fight, obstacles the players have to deal with, allies the players have to get along with, or none of the above--none of which has anything to do with morality whatsoever and ONLY if the players interact with them in the first place, which is entirely within your purview.

So not only do you not have to come up with morality, but even if you wanted to, you don't have to do it with monsters who deserve neither use nor love like grell or jerran.

 

[Maxperson]

Why.

Because otherwise you literally have all monsters being comatose figures staring out into space. All creatures other than non-thinking golems and the like have motivations and I would have to create them from scratch for literally everything in the monster books.

They're either antagonists the players have to fight, obstacles the players have to deal with, allies the players have to get along with, or none of the above--none of which has anything to do with morality whatsoever and ONLY if the players interact with them in the first place, which is entirely within your purview.

And if every monster can be every one of those, it's a hell of a lot more work for me. And by the way, almost every monster can be every one of those even with alignment. The only thing you're adding by removing alignment is a LOT more work for me.

So not only do you not have to come up with morality, but even if you wanted to, you don't have to do it with monsters who deserve neither use nor love like grell or jerran.

I use a lot of different monsters in my campaigns.

 

[cmad1977]

I find alignment particularly useful. I can point to it and say to new players
“See this? This is TERRIBLE design! Don’t do this in your games!”

 

[transmission89]

Seems it is the season for yet another round of online alignment debates. They fall every few years before a detente is reached yet soon, the stars herald another comet of debate hammering into the forums. This season feels slightly different, wrapped up in larger issues, the current moral panic, expressed in the language of those who are opposed to them.

I think most of the issues here are of wotc’s making, changing things throughout editions, granting races things they had not before (making them more human like) and neutering alignment. And so new people come in to the hobby and are left confused. There are two arguments I see being made by those who find alignment unuseful:

1) There are alleged connotations and parallels being drawn to real world groups when we define a race as evil.
2) it makes boring story telling.

Both of these I refute.

1) D&D as was, was a game based on fantasy tropes, drawing from the rich veins of mythology, legend and fantasy fiction inspired by these tropes. The audience understood this. Gods in the game were real, they had a presence and impact. Races (used in the original sense of the word as a synonym for species) created by the gods. Good, evil, law, chaos were objective, tangible meta physical aspects that affected the world. It was part of the world of shared imagination, asking us to believe in dragons, magic and an identifiable good evil. Some items could only be used by evil people of great power, others only of the truest heart.

Creatures could be born into evil, designed as such by the gods. Yes they had intelligence, they were self aware, but they had not the will nor inclination to change (at least without great difficulty). It was a humano centric game and vision. Only the human race, upstart, young could break these bonds, their diversity their strength. The other creatures, not humans in funny ears or green skin suits, but beings of a wholly alien mindset. There were no parallels being drawn to real life groups and the negative language used to describe them applies to all of us. The orcs are savage, barbaric, bestial, rapacious because they are the worst of us. Drawn from myth and allegory, they are the monsters we become in war, our base crueller instincts. Informed by Judeo-Christian influences on understandings of good and evil, they are evil. Born into this sin, manifestations of the chaos wilder lands and borderlands against “civilised” society.

Now certainly, there is an argument to be made for moral relativism. Yet consider the male lion. On taking over a new pride, he will kill the young of the previous male. There is no good or evil ascribed to this, it just is. Give that lion intelligence and self awareness, viewed through the prism of human experience and understanding, I think many would throw aside relativistic values and describe that as evil.

Sometime in the late eighties early nineties, D&D became self referential. This shared understanding of literature and myth informing the game fading. And so concessions began to be made As the editions progressed. Races being given all class options. Classes being given all alignment options. Alignment’s impact on spells and items being lessened and removed. Each race becoming that little less distinct, less alien, more human in a rubber mask. Each choice you make becoming less empowering, less Meaningful with fewer consequences for your decisions.

2) It makes boring story telling? Does it though? Let’s unpack that. Some of the most enduring myths (informed by the different cultures’ religions and understanding of what was good and evil) and modern fantasy are good and evil. Lord of the rings for example. Star Wars (at least the original trilogy). The empire was pretty much space Nazis (with nazis being the closest one can get to as objective evil in our history). The force has good and evil, the dark side offering an easy path through our base instincts. Vader’s redemption arc loses meaning without that backdrop. Everything he had done and what we could infer about his past from that trilogy led up to that moment, that choice (One has the power to break their bonds, and change alignment but with great difficulty).

Without alignment, you are free to make your morally grey world, and explore orc cultures though! Great, this was original and daring in the nineties and early 2000’s as media explored this concept as a counter cultural deconstruction of the traditional evil orc. Hell, this is what made Eberron special, it was a deconstruction of all those D&D tropes. The problem is, if default D&D is Eberron, what is special about it any more? Generally cool Orcs have become the cultural norm, expectation and trope now. You are doing nothing daring and new with that. Surely it would be more subversive to go back to the creatures of evil now would it not?

Yes a morally grey world can be interesting, complex and mixed with great ideas. It does not make it a superior form of story telling. It does not make a classic good vs evil tale boring, it’s certainly a less sophisticated method of story telling, but one that has resonated with humanity for millennia.

In summation:

What I find particularly insidious about this latest round of debates is the language used, the call for control. Historically, some players have found that alignment doesn’t work for their groups. They are, and ever have been, free to not use them. They’ve been free to deviate from the standard tropes and expectations to help make their world spark as unique. This hobby has always been inclusive and had a live and let live approach from table to table. Previous alignment debates merely (often) heated discussion of viewpoints as nerds in a fandom are want to do.

Those that have called for their removal recently, using either points 1 or 2 have shown a startling lack of respect to the game, their fellow players and ignorance of the wider mythology, literature and cultural history that has informed this game.

There is a false magnanimity being offered, that should their constant demands of aspects of the game being changed to met their viewpoints( espoused with historical revisionism and devoid of historical and cultural context ) that we are free to play as we ever were, we can use alignments as we always have, races as they were etc. Except, why then, could they not just do that before? As we have ever done in this community prior to these changes? Why the constant push to constantly shift D&D away from what it was/is?


In short, use alignment if you like it, don’t use it if you don’t. That’s cool.
If you don’t like something, don’t demand it’s removal from the book because it doesn’t fit your viewpoint (something which breaks the live and let live approach as it dictates what is acceptable or not to the wider community and stifles creativity). That’s not cool.

Peace.

 

[Aldarc]

There are two arguments I see being made by those who find alignment unuseful:

1) There are alleged connotations and parallels being drawn to real world groups when we define a race as evil.
2) it makes boring story telling.

Only two?

Both of these I refute.

Your refutation will most certainly convince the people who are already convinced that alignment is useful.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Because otherwise you literally have all monsters being comatose figures staring out into space. All creatures other than non-thinking golems and the like have motivations and I would have to create them from scratch for literally everything in the monster books.

What is the point of this when you very well know I'm talking about morality? Just performative? It's not only gotten old, it's fossilized.

And if every monster can be every one of those, it's a hell of a lot more work for me. And by the way, almost every monster can be every one of those even with alignment. The only thing you're adding by removing alignment is a LOT more work for me.

Except not. The monsters only have to serve their purpose in the scenario you're concocting and again, morality doesn't have to figure into it.

I use a lot of different monsters in my campaigns.

Ooo! I get to use performative pedantics and purposefully missing the point here! Just like my hero!

You said 'literally' every monster in the book. Not 'a lot', EVERY.

And, once again, you don't need their morality, only their MO found in their descriptions. And we've already established (via needless ad hominem) that you can indeed read.

 

[Maxperson]

What is the point of this when you very well know I'm talking about morality? Just performative? It's not only gotten old, it's fossilized.

What makes you think that motivations don't include morality?

Except not. The monsters only have to serve their purpose in the scenario you're concocting and again, morality doesn't have to figure into it.

Only if I assume(incorrectly) that it's impossible for the PCs to speak and interact with the monster. And also if I assume(again incorrectly) that the monsters actions in combat or out of combat won't be influenced by its morality.

You said 'literally' every monster in the book. Not 'a lot', EVERY.

Correct. I go through and choose monsters to use based in large part how they act, which includes their morality. I'd have to go through and figure out in advance what each monster's morality AND basic personality are, before I could begin to use the book.

And, once again, you don't need their morality, only their MO found in their descriptions. And we've already established (via needless ad hominem) that you can indeed read.

Their MO doesn't tell me everything that I need to know. Nor am I interested in memorizing hundreds of different MO's so that I can effectively use the creatures, when a simple two letters does just as well for me.