D&D 5E (2014) Do you find alignment useful in any way?

[Cadence]

I'm also not aware of any time where he healed with a touch. He did use herbalism and the Athelas(kingsfoil) herb to heal, though.

 

[Maxperson]

Right. Use of herbs. Kingsfoil use was a secret of the kings(Dunedain).

 

[Cadence]

Right. Use of herbs. Kingsfoil use was a secret of the kings(Dunedain).

Read to me like the not-in-great-shape herbs came in for the follow up treatment though (since the worst was already over after the metaphysical part).

 

[Hexmage-EN]

Coercion, violence, and threat of violence is what "hierarchy" means.

A "doctrine of legitimate violence" is a (cynical) minimalist definition for the term "politics".

And laws and "enforcement" of laws are violence.

If Law=hierarchy, then Law is violent, and Chaotic cannot have hierarchy.

I'll be honest, I'm not certain I understand this post, but I guess the difference boils down to devils obeying the law of the Hells because they believe it will improve their situation in the long term by offering opportunities of advancement, whereas demons submit out of fear of being immediately destroyed by someone more powerful.

For demons, might makes right. Any claim to authority has to be backed up by the ability to kill anyone who challenges you. For that reason the majority of demon lords throughout the Abyss are too busy fighting one another for dominance to make an impact beyond that plane, which is why only a small handful of the demon lords that exist are ever prominently featured. Lesser demons submit to the rule of demon lords because they'll be destroyed if they don't. However, most demon lords don't "rule" so much as they lay claim to a territory and anything in it without any interest in establishing formal laws or local leaders. They're more like the warlords of a Mad Max movie.

In contrast, devils can hypothetically enjoy great legal authority and power without actually being physically powerful (although they are usually rewarded with increased physical power by Asmodeus through promotion). The Hells is basically a single, cohesive organization with two major goals: oppose demon invaders and win mortal souls to their plane. If Asmodeus can be thought of as the CEO of this organization, every other devil in existence (that hasn't been exiled, like Moloch) is an employee who seeks a higher position. These promotions aren't handed out lightly, either, as they are evaluated by the Ministry of Promotions, one of several ministries in the Hells devoted to different subjects (such as the Ministry of Mortal Relations, which requires that devils summoned by mortals submit reports recording what occurred during the summoning). Unlike the Abyss, where stronger demons threaten others with immediate death to ensure obedience, the Hells actually has laws forbidding devils from physically harming one another unless they file for a license of lawful combat, after which they may battle in the Duelist Chasm in Stygia. Basically, every devil is a temporarily-embarrassed millionaire.

 

[FrozenNorth]

So the embezzler Cleric's in the clear provided he only targets NPCs? Not cool.

If the Cleric's got a history as an embezzler then who he targets next - whether PC or NPC - should make no difference; never mind that the PCs, being likely considerably richer than most NPCs, would soon make very inviting targets for this sort of thing.

There can be a million reasons why the cleric doesn’t target the other PCs.
Number 1 being that targeting people you spend all your time with is a terrible idea. Number 2 is that he might actually like the PCs and not want to screw them over.

 

[Cadence]

There can be a million reasons why the cleric doesn’t target the other PCs.
Number 1 being that targeting people you spend all your time with is a terrible idea. Number 2 is that he might actually like the PCs and not want to screw them over.

I would have thought the cleric might spend time with their church and not hate them. On the other hand they might just have met the party and not imagine they'd need to associate long term.

Now, swindling another church...

 

[Krachek]

Unless every monster just becomes a human with a different form, unless you get rid of a core concept of D&D having monsters that are monsters, I think there will always be issues. Without alignment people will point to the picture and the description and saying how dare you make a monster out of [insert group or ethnicity here].

Much like the "alignment horror stories" that are really about bad DMs and jerk players unless you get rid of monsters, removing alignment doesn't do anything other than take away a core representation of how the average monster of that type tends to interact with the world.

You’re probably right. The race adjustment in Tasha was an easy task, the MM is a much bigger challenge. With the explosion of genre adaptation an inclusive MM will require to have a good-evil version of half the monsters! If we consider that someone could be offended to not find an evil unicorn in the MM. We just hope that nobody will complaint to not have lawful Good ooze with normal intelligence!

 

[pemerton]

Speaking of bureaucracy, that Durkheim guy I mentioned earlier was one of the architects of the concept. He (naively) believed it would lead a true meritocracy where power was taken from kings and nobility who wield authority through birthright to people who were truly deserving of possessing it.

Durkheim's also interesting for that whole "Gilded Cage of Rationality" thing. He knew the systems he was helping create were going to suck for a lot of people, but he did it anyway because he believed they would inevitably dominate civilization through efficiency. Sounds like a LN or even mildly LE to me.

I think you may be confusing Weber and Durkheim. Weber was the great theorist of bureaucracy. Durkheim's most famous work was on suicide and social solidarity/anomie. Durkheim's favoured model of social organisation was a type of social democratic corporatism, which would integrate necessary administration/rationality with real social life.

 

[pemerton]

In the passage that @Cadence quoted, we see Aragorn engaging in spiritual struggle with the evil that has overcome Faramir. The metaphor of travel is used - familiar from other mythical/legendary treatments of (near-)death and return to life, including in the fantasy literature context in Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea stories.

When Faramir awakes he knows that Aragorn is his king. Not because Aragorn has told this to him in any mundane fashion; but because Aragorn has spiritually "(re-)called" him from the "dark vale" of death.

Any RPG where this is modelled by to acquire herbalism proficiency, you must be of Good alignment has radically failed to grasp the significance of JRRT's story.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

I think you may be confusing Weber and Durkheim. Weber was the great theorist of bureaucracy. Durkheim's most famous work was on suicide and social solidarity/anomie. Durkheim's favoured model of social organisation was a type of social democratic corporatism, which would integrate necessary administration/rationality with real social life.

Yeah, I think you're right. Got my wires crossed somehow.