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

[FrozenNorth]

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.

Not my example:

As I stated in the thread earlier, I am fleshing out the City of Brass. Which Dragons do I want in the company of the LE Efreet ruler? I want to play up the Lawful side, so Black, Red (even with fire), and White don't fit as good as Blue and Green.

And this is something I tend to see a lot. Even though some alignment proponents insist that alignments aren’t straitjackets, I see a lot of people that treat them as if they are.

It’s funny. When I pointed out that the lore states that LE githyanki are known to work together with CE red dragons, the immediate reaction was to point out that in previous editions, githyanki could be any Evil alignment.

See, if alignment weren’t a straitjacket, I would have expected multiple posts by alignment proponents arguing that creatures of different alignments can certainly work together.

And githyanki with red dragons isn’t the only examples. Goblin hordes tend to include LE hobgoblins, NE goblins and CE bugbears.

 

[Maxperson]

Not my example:

My bad. Sorry. There have been so many posts about dragons that it's hard to track who said what.

 

[FrozenNorth]

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.

The problem with “alignment as motivation” is that alignment isn’t a particularly good motivation. Very few creatures in real life, or the game fiction, would choose “law” or “chaos” as a motivation. Neither is saying they choose “Eeeeeevil” as a motivation (unless you are deliberately playing more on the silly side).

So instead, alignment is used as a proxy for something else. Devils are lawful, they don’t care about human laws, but are constrained by their own laws. Fey are chaotic, they don’t care about human laws, but are constrained by their own laws. Also, they’re whimsical. And it isn’t really used as a proxy for one thing, it’s used as a proxy for multiple things.

So, by proxy, what falls under Law, Chaos, Neutral, Evil, Good? Most the most part, people who post here have internalized this from playing previous editions (except 4th), despite previous editions being somewhat contradictory amongst thrmselves.

The end result is a bunch of monsters shoehorned into alignments because every monster needs an alignment, and we need to include monsters for every alignment, regardless of the fact that a creature that reproduces by implanting a tadpole in a sentient creature that eats you alive is pretty monstrous.

And it is a self-perpetuating circular system.

Monsters need alignment.
Why?
So I can tell if they are good, neutral or evil.
Why does that matter?
So they have a motivation.
How does alignment provide them with a motivation?
Because each alignment corresponds to a specific set of motivations. No, it’s not in the PHB, it comes from previous editions.
But why not just choose a motivation?
That would be too much work.

 

[Vaalingrade]

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

If the motive is written out though, you don't need the morality spelled out as well -- assuming (incorrectly) that every motive involves morality.

Only if I assume(incorrectly) that it's impossible for the PCs to speak and interact with the monster.

You're incorrectly assuming that interaction isn't part of the scenario.

And also if I assume(again incorrectly) that the monsters actions in combat or out of combat won't be influenced by its morality.

Again, morality doesn't matter unless you're desperate to justify alignment. Once you have decided you're going to make the other person not live anymore, or that you're going to take a prisoner (due to motivations), or flee, morality doesn't factor in. No one tries to kill people just because 'evil'. They do so because they're defending themselves or others, because they will be rewarded in some way, because they have some sort of disorder, or because they're hungry or something else specific.

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.

1) The morality doesn't matter nearly as much as you're claiming.
2) The description is right there, right next to the two useless morality letters. IF you're not reading those, in what sense are you actually using the book?
3) The pictures usually help a lot. The big fists of muscle with tiny heads? They likely use punchies. The dudes in robes, esoteric coats or a thousand belts? They use sparklies.

Their MO doesn't tell me everything that I need to know.

Alignment tells you basically nothing you actually need to know to run an encounter.

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.

You don't have to memorize jack! The book is right there. Words do not change randomly.

Also, if you can't or won't read through for the creature's MO, are you even willing to use the real stats at this point?

Like, if we can't be arsed to read how a creature actually acts and instead depend on two letters, god help us when we get to one of those 'you need a PH for the five billion spells I know' monsters.

 

[Maxperson]

The problem with “alignment as motivation” is that alignment isn’t a particularly good motivation. Very few creatures in real life, or the game fiction, would choose “law” or “chaos” as a motivation. Neither is saying they choose “Eeeeeevil” as a motivation (unless you are deliberately playing more on the silly side).

Consciously, no. But how their view the world will color their actions. A CE individual and a LG individual will have very different reactions to similar situations. Neither is sitting back and thinking, "Well I support Chaos/Law and Evil/Good, so...," but they will be influenced by those things anyway.

So instead, alignment is used as a proxy for something else. Devils are lawful, they don’t care about human laws, but are constrained by their own laws. Fey are chaotic, they don’t care about human laws, but are constrained by their own laws. Also, they’re whimsical. And it isn’t really used as a proxy for one thing, it’s used as a proxy for multiple things.

Lawful doesn't have to be about actual laws, though. Laws can be a part of it, but so can order, a strong person code(and no silliness about a strong code of chaos please), and so on.

So, by proxy, what falls under Law, Chaos, Neutral, Evil, Good? Most the most part, people who post here have internalized this from playing previous editions (except 4th), despite previous editions being somewhat contradictory amongst thrmselves.

I'll go with inconsistent, not necessarily contradictory. And I think some of that comes from moving from TSR to WotC and the changes that went with it.

The end result is a bunch of monsters shoehorned into alignments because every monster needs an alignment, and we need to include monsters for every alignment, regardless of the fact that a creature that reproduces by implanting a tadpole in a sentient creature that eats you alive is pretty monstrous.

I don't think much shoehorning was going on. There are so many monsters that if you just go with what seems right for them, you'll have monsters in every alignment anyway.

Monsters need alignment.
Why?
So I can tell if they are good, neutral or evil.
Why does that matter?
So they have a motivation.
How does alignment provide them with a motivation?
Because each alignment corresponds to a specific set of motivations. No, it’s not in the PHB, it comes from previous editions.
But why not just choose a motivation?
That would be too much work.

The bolded is the problem with 5e. Removing the mechanical links to alignment was all that was necessary. Reducing them to one virtually useless sentence was just a slap in the face. They should have created a better explanation of the various alignments like they did with 3e. An introductory paragraph explaining that alignment is an aid to roleplay and shouldn't be viewed as restrictive would also have been good.

 

[Hriston]

If the creatures in the game don’t have alignments, then how is the DM supposed to know what side of the cosmic battle over the Prime Material they’re on?

 

[Oofta]

So are we ready to switch back to the never-ending "controversy" about Hit Points yet? Apparently that's a big controversy as well and it's been a couple of weeks!

Or, ooh, AC? Vancian casting? Warlords? I mean, we have to rotate to a never-ending-no-one-changes-their-mind-we-just-rehash-the-same-thing topic on a regular basis, right?

 

[Mistwell]

Only two?


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

I have not problem with people finding alignment not useful.

Only problem I have is when those people tell me I don't find it useful, and they know better than I do what I find useful. I am sure there is a word for that kind of attitude?

 

[Aldarc]

I have not problem with people finding alignment not useful.

Only problem I have is when those people tell me I don't find it useful, and they know better than I do what I find useful. I am sure there is a word for that kind of attitude?

I'm sure there is, but even if there isn't, I would advise caution about casually treating others with a similar sort of attitude.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Lawful doesn't have to be about actual laws, though. Laws can be a part of it, but so can order, a strong person code(and no silliness about a strong code of chaos please), and so on.

So basically almost anything. That's the issue with these things, they're so vague that they really don't tell you anything.