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

[transmission89]

I like this actually, in the sense that it says to players, 'ok, you don't use this one part of the system. How does that change what your world might look like?'



I think the idea of belief become reality was interesting in planescape, but ultimately they were not able to realize what a game based on that premise would look like (and maybe dnd is the wrong system). Sigil's factions, as discussed, are incoherent (and oddly not strictly tied to the alignment system (nor really to religion/gods, which you think would be particularly important)). But a lot of the outer planes are similarly incoherent attempts to make an alignment into an (infinite) space. The entire greek pantheon is in arborea with the elves. Loki is in pandemonium for some reason. Why are the githzerai in limbo again? Wouldn't it make sense for the mindflayer god to be in the astral or far realm, or anywhere but a random cave in the outlands? Orcs are in a lawful evil plane? Like alignment in general, parts of the cosmology starts to break down when you think about it for more than a few seconds.

I mean, to be fair, Orcs are Lawful Evil in 2e (not sure on current alignment) so that’s on brand at least.

I do agree that Planescape is not perfect and could do with work. It just oozes that atmosphere for me. And if things don’t quite make sense, why not? Think on it, thoughts shape reality, the incoherence adds to this just, out there setting.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

Yes I recall that. I liked the Monster Vault, though in retrospect I have never used the chits that came with it.

Oh I have made extensive use of those monster tokens and am kind of surprised they have released anything like them for 5E. I actually had a player in one 5E campaign who had no experience with 4E end up buying Monster Vault online just so they could use the tokens in their own campaigns.

 

[Voadam]

Why are the githzerai in limbo again?

Originally the Githzerai were CN and had colonized the CN plane. When their alignment was switched to LN their lore was changed to say that they created Lawful monk monasteries on the CN plane as crucibles for their mastery of law.

Orcs are in a lawful evil plane?

Orcs have gone from Chaotic (OD&D and Basic) to LE (AD&D 1e and 2e) to Chaotic Evil (3, 4, 5e). They went to Acheron in the AD&D era to have their endless Valhalla battlefield fights against the goblinoid dead spirits on the Lawful (evil) plane of endless battle. In AD&D this was an alignment match, in later editions this was partly because of the prior history, partly because it worked from the endless war plane angle, and partly that they changed the lore to be despite the alignment dissonance instead of partly because of it (going with orcs as invaders in places they don't naturally fit into as part of the thematics).

 

[Yaarel]

Great question.

1. In one of these threads someone mentioned Dungeon World, which has keywords, instincts, and some tactics. For example (randomly)

Gargoyle Horde, Stealthy, Hoarder
Instinct: To guard
• Attack with the element of surprise • Take to the air • Blend into stonework

Bakunawa Solitary, Large, Intelligent, Messy, Forceful
Special Qualities: Amphibious
Instinct: To devour
• Lure prey with lies and illusions • Lash out at light • Devour

2. Maze Rats has great, compact tables for monsters and npcs
Rolling now, I got
A terrestrial creature, that is a centipede that has talons, is many-headed, and is exploding (as a monster ability). Its tactic is to mock, its personality is hateful, and its weakness is moonlight

3. OSE modules have L-N-C alignment, but also short info about monster personality and reactions to the pcs. For example (from The Hole in the Oak),

The Shadow Gardener
Humanoid form (wavering). Tends the plants (sustained in semi-life by them).
▶ Reaction: Hates warm-blooded creatures and will try to kill any who enter.

Heretic Gnomes
Short demihumans (3' tall). Long noses and beards (braided). Earthy flesh and rooty hair (straggly). Pointy red felt hats (keep items beneath).
▶ Reaction: The gnomes may be friendly to PCs but will try to capture them and sacri- fice them to their evil tree stump god (Area 60).
▶ Leaders: A gnome called Grimm is the leader, along with his wife Gribbl, the priestess of the stump. (See Area 58 for the leaders’ stats.)


This in part about making stat blocks and creatures/npcs more usable at the table. I can see how alignment does some of that work, but honestly the osr is just so far ahead of 5e in this respect

@Malmuria and @BookTenTiger

That sounds reasonable.

If I understand what you are saying, rather than having one-word terms that show how a creature fits within the worldview of the world setting, it is much more useful to you, to have one-word terms that show how a creature fits into a combat encounter.

I dont see a contradiction. I want both.



Looking specifically at your examples, I dont fully understand the intent of the word "instinct". For example. What would be the difference between?

• "Bakunawa Solitary, Large, Intelligent, Messy, Forceful. Special Qualities: Amphibious. Instinct: To devour."

versus

• "Bakunawa Solitary, Large, Intelligent, Messy, Forceful, Amphibious, Devouring."



As I see it, every single creature can come with a handful of meaningful keywords for combat. It would be convenient enough for a DM to simply add or ignore a keyword tag, to modify ones own version of it.

 

[Malmuria]

I mean, to be fair, Orcs are Lawful Evil in 2e (not sure on current alignment) so that’s on brand at least.

I do agree that Planescape is not perfect and could do with work. It just oozes that atmosphere for me. And if things don’t quite make sense, why not? Think on it, thoughts shape reality, the incoherence adds to this just, out there setting.

I'm a planescape stan for sure, but when I ran a 5e ps campaign last year and revisited the old materials there were a lot of head scratchers along with the super fun ideas. I love the idea of a space made up of metal cubes that slam into each other and then people have battles on them. I know if that's necessarily a great representation of lawful evil as a moral philosophy, but it is cool. A setting of twin landscapes that connect at a point is cool, but why do gnomes need a whole plane of existence to themselves? A bunch of layered globes strung together like pearls is very fantastical, but why is that a prison plane and why is it neutral evil? But I think the setting was caught between trying to exhaustively define all the planes and needing to find a proper 'place' for all these cool ideas. The fact that real-world earth pantheons are there is funny, I guess, but also cheesy and incorrectly slotted, imo. I think if I were to run a planescape campaign again it would just be sigil and doors that lead to crazy locations with treasure, and I'd ditch or downplay the belief-is-reality thing.

 

[pemerton]

Yeah, that is why in order for my interpretation of the alignment to be sensical, "Lawful" CANNOT mean "laws".

"Lawful" means group-oriented, the collective.

But Aquinas's account of the permissible taking of others' property isn't group-oriented. It allows the individual to be the author of his/her own entitlement to take something from another!

a character who follows a "personal code" is, by definition, extremely Chaotic.

Yet in D&D monks, samurai and similar sorts of characters - classic examples of characters who follow personal codes - have traditionally been obliged to be lawful.

 

[Yaarel]

But Aquinas's account of the permissible taking of others' property isn't group-oriented. It allows the individual to be the author of his/her own entitlement to take something from another!

I interpret the Aquinas text as precisely collective.

In other words, all human resources fundamentally belong to each and every human equally. Collectively.

In this context, private property is a convenience as a pragmatic way to utilize these resources.

However, if the life of a human is in danger, the human has the fundamental human right to seize their share of the collective, at least enough to sustain ones own life.

In this sense, the text comes across akin to a very extreme form of global socialism, whose ethical view is founded on each and every human life being equally valuable, collectively.

 

[pemerton]

I interpret the Aquinas text as precisely collective.

In other words, all human resources fundamentally belong to each and every human equally. Collectively.

In this context, private property is a convenience as a pragmatic way to utilize these resources.

However, if the life of a human is in danger, the human has the fundamental human right to seize their share of the collective, at least enough to sustain ones own life.

In this sense, the text comes across akin to a very extreme form of global socialism, whose ethical view is founded on each and every human life being equally valuable, collectively.

Socialism is generally understood to involve a system of administration and allocation. Aquinas argues that because such a system is impossible, self-help is both necessary and permissible.

How would CG look any different on this issue?

 

[Yaarel]

Socialism is generally understood to involve a system of administration and allocation. Aquinas argues that because such a system is impossible, self-help is both necessary and permissible.

How would CG look any different on this issue?

I am shocked by the shared "right" of any individual to seize their need from the collective ownership of resources. That is the part that I am characterizing as D&D LG.

But, it is probably fairer to characterize the Aquinas text as balancing the needs of the individual and the collective, in which case it is probably fairer to describe it as D&D NG.

 

[pemerton]

The first two 4E Monster Manuals were extremely sparse on lore

This claim actually isn't true. There have been various posts/threads on this: here's one.

Removing or demanding removal of content that you (as an individual) deem harmful for the sake of others (again, not saying this post does this specifically, but the calls for it are often couched along these lines) is a form of control, censorship as it also impacts tables that are not yours and flies in the face of live and let live from table to table.

<snip>

it is incumbent upon you, as an adult individual, to be responsible for yourself.

Two thoughts in response:

(1) Arguing that a game would be better if a certain aspect of it were removed is not a call for censorship. It is a call for improvement of the game. On a website dedicated to discussing said game it seems to me well within the bounds of permissible comment.

(2) Can't responsible adults make their own decisions about what is good and what evil, without needing game authors to tell them?

Apropos of which:

None of that tells me that they are evil, though. It's helpful in playing them for sure, but I'd rather see that and a Neutral Evil under it to help me with running it. I'm all for the inclusion of new tools to help, but I don't want older useful tools to go away.

How far is "Hateful hermits who divide and conquer" from evil? What other alignment would they be, if alignments still existed???

"Evil" just doesn't tell me anything.

I'm with BookTenTiger here. What does adding evil tell me, if I already know that they're hateful hermits?

And I would add: why are hateful hermits NE rather than CE? If they're hermits, aren't they committed to going it alone?

In this particular example, alignment seems both otiose and incoherent.