D&D General IMO, Alignment should be "Fill in the blank"

[overgeeked]

that's amazing. Alignment has only provided endless arguments for my groups (granted, this is mostly playing as a pre-teen, but still)

I have about 37 years of playing various editions of D&D and every single time alignment has come up it's been a quick path to an argument. Doesn't matter what group it's been. Young or old. New group, old. Convention or home game. It's a monumental hassle that's not worth the trouble.

 

[Charlaquin]

It just has to have a cohesive definition that the player at the table agree to. Everyone I've ever played with has been close enough to agreement that it works.

Right, but then that’s your world’s objective standard of morality.

 

[Oofta]

Right, but then that’s your world’s objective standard of morality.

Why would that be a problem? It's a game. As long as people share a general understanding it works. Just like most of the rules of D&D.

 

[Oofta]

I have about 37 years of playing various editions of D&D and every single time alignment has come up it's been a quick path to an argument. Doesn't matter what group it's been. Young or old. New group, old. Convention or home game. It's a monumental hassle that's not worth the trouble.

I've played since first edition. It has never once been an issue. If there was ever any disagreement (not that I remember any significant ones) the DM made a call and we moved on.

If you find yourself in constant arguments about it, maybe the problem isn't alignment.

 

[overgeeked]

I've played since first edition. It has never once been an issue. If there was ever any disagreement (not that I remember any significant ones) the DM made a call and we moved on.

If you find yourself in constant arguments about it, maybe the problem isn't alignment.

Of course you would assume that. No, after watching others get into a few arguments about it I simply avoided it whenever possible. I've been eating popcorn while watching others have a hassle about alignment for decades. But hey, thanks for being so...charitable.

 

[Charlaquin]

Why would that be a problem? It's a game. As long as people share a general understanding it works. Just like most of the rules of D&D.

Like I said, the problem occurs when you try to use alignment in a setting that doesn’t have an objective moral standard. Then you end up, like others have expressed, in disagreements over what it means to be “good,” “evil,” “lawful,” or “chaotic.”

 

[overgeeked]

Like I said, the problem occurs when you try to use alignment in a setting that doesn’t have an objective moral standard. Then you end up, like others have expressed, in disagreements over what it means to be “good,” “evil,” “lawful,” or “chaotic.”

Don’t forget neutral. People even argue about what neutral means.

 

[pemerton]

Don’t forget neutral. People even argue about what neutral means.

I think it's clear that Gygax based his idea of True Neutrality - which he described as a "naturalistic ethos" that holds that intelligent action is generally a threat to the balance of nature - on (perhaps a stereotyped conception of) certain real world views: Daoism, Stoicism, at least some strands of Zen Buddhism, and similar outlooks that stress the importance of overcoming intention/desire and establishing harmony with natural processes.

This is why animals are neutral - they are natural processes in animate form, and hence (unless subject to some forms of domestication or to magical control/interference) can't but be in harmony with those processes.

This is also why all alignments are "part of the whole" - alignments are the orientations/thoughts/aspirations of intelligent beings, which ultimately are themselves manifestations of natural processes although apt to become alienated from and perhaps threatening to those processes.

Trying to think about true neutrality in a way that is divorced from these actual real world views seems to me pointless at best, and silly at worst.

 

[pemerton]

And here's my take on the problem with alignment:

Too much of D&D, and hence too many D&Ders, try to approach it in a way where all alignments are true.

Which is, I think, obviously absurd. If True Neutrality (= roughly Daoism, Stoicism, etc) is true than Lawful Good (= roughly the idea that collective human effort can meaningfully increase people's access to both material and more abstract/"spiritual" wellbeing) is obviously false. And vice versa.

So if LG is true than Concordant Opposition is a horrible place. If TN is true than the Seven Heavens are a horrible place. Checking out those two places should therefore settle the matter of which is true and which is not.

But beginning perhaps with Appendix IV of the PHB, and certainly by the time of the Manual of the Plane a decade or so later, the game has attempted to present Concordant Opposition and the Seven Heavens as both being consistent with both alignments. Which reduces alignment to just a preference about whether to live in a leafy suburb, or one with fewer trees but more cafes. Which is fair enough as far as it goes, but hardly seems worth killing anyone over! (Which is what alignment was meant to be about.)

 

[Oofta]

Of course you would assume that. No, after watching others get into a few arguments about it I simply avoided it whenever possible. I've been eating popcorn while watching others have a hassle about alignment for decades. But hey, thanks for being so...charitable.

If it weren't for public forums I would never know it's an issue. As with all rules, if there's a difference of opinion the DM makes a call. It has even less impact in 5E which IMHO is a good thing.

I do apologize though, I was tired when I wrote my response. All I was trying to say was that some people love to argue about things that don't really matter or even have one single answer. Like who would win a fight Batman or Superman*. Doesn't mean that the depiction of either one is pointless.

*Obviously Superman. All he has to do is bombard Batman from orbit.