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

[Azzy]

I find that it's three biggest usages are a) internet memes, B) causing disputes over what each alignment "actually" means, and C) causing internet drama.

 

[Malmuria]

I don't find alignment useful but I do like the memes. I also do have nostalgia for games played as a youth that would get totally derailed by an hour long pseudo-philosophical debate on the nature of true neutral.

 

[bedir than]

I'd rather a character have a personality than alignment

 

[Sithlord]

I don't find alignment useful but I do like the memes. I also do have nostalgia for games played as a youth that would get totally derailed by an hour long pseudo-philosophical debate on the nature of true neutral.

Ahhh. True neutral. The hardest Alignment to pin down

 

[Malmuria]

There is a great 2e Planescape book of NPCs called "Uncaged: Faces of Sigil," and one great thing they did in that book was summarize each NPCs personality with three evocative adjectives (e.g. "volatile, scheming, vain" or "persuasive, duplicitous, ruthless"). I still use that "rule of three" in describing my npcs.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

My house rule is spells or other powers with aligment key can hurt enemies with same aligment but different allegiance (race, country, brotherhood, religion, clan, tribe), for example a drow cleric vs an orc shaman. Then being neutral doesn't help to avoid worse damage.

And for me "caothic" aligment means to be attuned with primal forces or Nature, or only obeying codes linked with the allegiance.

I also allow characters with opposite allegiances and aligments, for example a zealot who kills in the name of the supreme goodhood or a sherif who breaks the rules to keep the law and order.

 

[cmad1977]

It’s useless.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Yes, because any time a player says they want to play a CN or CE PC, I know not to play with them . So it has instant value to me.

In all seriousness, I prefer B/X with a simple system only used as a generic guideline, and not beholden to any specific alignment.

 

[Voadam]

I found it really useful in 3e when I houseruled it to be supernatural forces divorced from morality, with a lot of aligned outsiders, holy weapons, aligned spells, and paladin detect and smite evil. I had most mortals neutral unless they had a supernatural connection to supernatural forces (an aligned god, aligned outsider aspect, whatever). It was then a lot more like ritual purity aspects and cosmic forces which felt cool in ways to engage with mechanically and narratively.

5e has very little mechanical engagement with alignment, a few magic items in the DMG is what I mostly recall. It is a descriptor in new D&D monsters that I generally expect, but do not feel a big need for.

For 5e it has mostly been useful in seeing how some classic stuff has changed, like the portrayal of orcs across 5e going from more inherently and divinely evil in the 5e MM and Volo's than in past editions, to not evil in recent write ups without a lot of narrative descriptions of changes.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I voted yes. I don't think it is something every game needs. I think it is useful and pretty expected in D&D.