D&D General How welcome would a wordy and somewhat philosophical treatment of alignment be here? [Thread resolved, thank you.]

[DammitVictor]

That would first require laying out which rules. In 5e, for example, alignment has no mechanical impact whatsoever.

That's one very large step in the right direction, and one very small step away from the right solution.

I don't care what alignment is written on my sheet, as long as it doesn't affect what class is written.

 

[Celebrim]

...point out what should be obvious, that if you need more pages of apologia to justify the rules than the rules themselves contain, that in itself is proof the rules are bad.

I find this argument spurious. Alignment is and has almost always been mostly a species of fluff. Fluff does not need to be concise and benefits from being deep. You can mechanically define something like a dwarf or an elf in no more words than you'd use for a paragraph of text, but defining socially and culturally what an elf or a dwarf or any other race is could fill a book. Yet I don't think anyone would claim that the concept of elf or dwarf would suffer from such an expansive treatment.

Likewise, alignment can be defined mechanically in short order, and hundreds or thousands of tables have been happy to just define it loosely as a game mechanic. But nothing about it detracts from other tables if they want to delve deeper into the concepts.

Your "right solution" strikes me as one that at best is right for you.

 

[Mallus]

You could go all-in and post a 9 page thesis on paladins. Because paladin threads are always fun!

As for your question, post away! Just take people's readability suggestions, esp. breaking your article up into multiple posts, leaving time between them to allow people to read & comment.

And by 'comment' I mean argue vigorously. It is the way (of alignment threads)

 

[DammitVictor]

Your "right solution" strikes me as one that at best is right for you.

I've seen alignment detract from a lot of tables. Not all of them I was sitting at.

Have you ever seen a table benefit from it?

 

[Oofta]

I've seen alignment detract from a lot of tables. Not all of them I was sitting at.

Have you ever seen a table benefit from it?

Yes. It's one of multiple quick character traits. I've only seen it be an issue if someone uses alignment alone to justify behavior or as q straight jacket.

 

[Celebrim]

I've seen alignment detract from a lot of tables. Not all of them I was sitting at.

Have you ever seen a table benefit from it?

Ok, fine.

Every one I was ever at.

By sitting in on both sorts, I quickly came to the conclusion that opposition to alignment chiefly came from two groups: players that wanted to play evil characters but who didn't want their characters labeled evil, and players who wanted to play their characters in pawn stance because they felt this was the best way to win. Neither group in my experience was interested in more sophisticated character driven RP.

I've never once met a good RPer who was like, "Oh there is no way in a fantasy game that I can manage to play a sophisticated character if I'm slapped with a label describing archetypal morality I will gravitate toward in play." I'm sure there is some out there, and I'm sure there are tables out there of players with PhD's in philosophy and doctorates of theology for whom the system is not nearly sophisticated enough for the deeply conceived ethics that they wish to explore, but I have never met either sort.

I have played with a self-described Satanist that insisted the alignment wasn't realistic because there was no such thing as good and evil, only power and the will to take it. And he was too young to realize the irony.

 

[DammitVictor]

Becuase I don't think you can have nuanced morality in a system with harsh punishments for violating arbitrary rules, I'm a selfish munchkin and a bad roleplayer?

Yeah, I'll be taking your arguments a lot more seriously in the future.

 

[Celebrim]

Becuase I don't think you can have nuanced morality in a system with harsh punishments for violating arbitrary rules, I'm a selfish munchkin and a bad roleplayer?

Yeah, I'll be taking your arguments a lot more seriously in the future.

Well, likewise. I replied in the spirit of the question.

I don't think there has been any nuance to your discussion at all.

In fact, I think you've made very clear that you aren't interested in any discussion of alignment except removing it. And you are welcome to that opinion, but you can remove alignment from your game without threadcrapping on anyone that would like to discuss it.

 

[Garthanos]

N O S T A L G I A

 

[Umbran]

Have you ever seen a table benefit from it?

Yep. Several. Over the course of the years, I've had opportunity to teach several folks how to play, who really needed a handle on what a "role" really was, and how you build a character and personality that isn't your own, and display it for the rest of the players. For several of these folks, having a guideline to work with was instrumental.

For a few players, the "there are consequences for your actions" was also a help, and a role-playing tool they liked to play with.

Also, for several tables that were admittedly playing in large part for escapism, the mechanical ability to just figure out, once and for all, whether the bad guys really were bad, was a solid way for them to be ale to relax more into the game.

And, in a couple, the system was well-used to drive some of the metaphysics of the world - when Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos are palpable forces, as much as gravity is, that can be a great story-driving tool.