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

[Wolfram stout]

I do find it a bit useful. Not the Good/Evil axis so much, but the Lawful/Chaotic axis can be a useful notation for me. I also prefer either the Moorcock version of Law and Chaos or Poul Anderson's from 3 Hearts and 3 lions.

 

[Fenris-77]

Specifically in a Moorcockian game I'm ok with Law and Chaos, as is does a lot more work than alignment in D&D generally.

 

[Oofta]

Yes, it's a quick 10,000 ft sketch of motivation and behavior for NPCs and monsters. Probably all I need for a starting point 80% of the time.

On the other hand, I don't care what alignment my player's characters are, I explain how I view alignment and ask that they don't play an evil character.

 

[Maxperson]

The question is not how useful you find alignment. The question is just if you find alignment useful in any way in any of your 5e D&D games?

If you care to comment how you've found it useful, or how you've found it to be no use at all, please do so.

I personally find it most useful for my NPCs. I typically have MANY more NPCs than I have the time or inclination to create in depth personalities for, so alignment is great foundation for me to graft an improvised personality onto. Beyond that? Not really.

 

[Mistwell]

I do find it a bit useful. Not the Good/Evil axis so much, but the Lawful/Chaotic axis can be a useful notation for me. I also prefer either the Moorcock version of Law and Chaos or Poul Anderson's from 3 Hearts and 3 lions.

I agree I get more use out of the lawful-neutral-chaos axis than the good-neutral-evil axis.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

No, I don't find it useful, I find it actively harmful. I dumbs down interesting and complex concepts and makes the game worse. Sooner they get rid of it the better.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Nope. It's pretty loathsome in all respects.

 

[jmartkdr2]

It's as good a set of personality adjectives as any other. So there's some value.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

As a DM, not really. I'm not in the business of telling someone how to play their character. If they're LG on paper and resort to torture at the drop of the hat, I might say something (though really, if a player was creepily-big on torture, I'd probably have a talk with them about the tone of the games I run anyway), but aside from the big deal stuff, I don't really care.

As a player, definitely. It helps me come up with my character's personality and how they respond to situations.

 

[Cadence]

I find the nine division alignment slightly useful in many cases, and problematic in others (sometimes significantly so).

I wonder if: "A few words or a phrase to describe the ethics, morals, and motivations" (or something like that) might do more of what I like about the nine-class alignment set-up with less of the drawbacks.

"Lawful Greedy but doesn't want to see the pain"
"Will bend truth as needed but has a Heart of Gold"
"Habitual Liar with a Heart of Gold"
"Gentle and Friendly unless Hunger makes him Homicidal"
"Strict personal code of honor valuing others efforts"
"Justice over Mercy or Law"
"Law over everything"
"Everything else is food, but food stocks should be managed"
"There is only now, everything else is food"
"Everything else is a plaything, but some playthings are treasured"
"Wants acceptance, tries to be good, susceptible to peer pressure"
"Balance between Law and Freedom, but Chaos is downright evil"