D&D General Rethinking alignment yet again

[Helldritch]

I think it’s probably something along the train of logic of ‘if it’s in the books then it’s official, if it’s official then people are going to want to use it, if people want to use it then I’m either going to have to play in their game with it or will be asked to use it by them’
Or simply put: ‘it exists, and therefore the chance also exists I might be made to play with it’ and some people would rather that chance not exist at all.

Yep, and that is why there is a session zero. If any of my new players ever had a problem with alignment, I would have discussed it. The "No evil" policy has been in my games for what... 30 odd years now?

But how often does it actually affect the game? If I put CG on my character sheet, that's kind of the end of it as far as the game is concerned, outside of maybe 1 or 2 spells that will likely never be encountered.

I have TIBF on most of my PCs, but after character creation and a game session or so, I'll probably forget what I put.

For a player? Not very often. Most of my players will forget the TIBF as soon as it is written. Alignments will still be known and played upon however... much easier to retain.

 

[CreamCloud0]

But how often does it actually affect the game? If I put CG on my character sheet, that's kind of the end of it as far as the game is concerned, outside of maybe 1 or 2 spells that will likely never be encountered.

I have TIBF on most of my PCs, but after character creation and a game session or so, I'll probably forget what I put.

The frequency that it would actually happens doesn’t matter to them, the possibility exists it might and therefore it has to go.

 

[Oofta]

Yep, and that is why there is a session zero. If any of my new players ever had a problem with alignment, I would have discussed it. The "No evil" policy has been in my games for what... 30 odd years now?

Same here. I don't need alignment for "no evil" but it doesn't hurt.

For a player? Not very often. Most of my players will forget the TIBF as soon as it is written. Alignments will still be known and played upon however... much easier to retain.

I don't know what the alignment of my player's PC's are, it's up to them to decide if it's useful or not. For me, I'm far more likely to think about alignment than TIBF. In my experience TIBF is pretty pointless but I'm not constantly complaining about it or saying it should be removed.

 

[Oofta]

The frequency that it would actually happens doesn’t matter to them, the possibility exists it might and therefore it has to go.

Good grief. Let's all jump on the hyperbole train. If we got rid of everything that could be potentially theoretically offensive to someone somewhere at some point in time we wouldn't have a game.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Good grief. Let's all jump on the hyperbole train. If we got rid of everything that could be potentially theoretically offensive to someone somewhere at some point in time we wouldn't have a game.

I know, I know, I’m not saying it’s a good reaction just that it is one.

 

[Oofta]

I know, I know, I’m not saying it’s a good reaction just that it is one.

There are two spells I can think of that care about alignment - spirit guardians and glyph of warding. The former just cares about good/evil as far as whether you're going celestial or necrotic damage. If you don't care about alignment, you can always use the rules for neutral casters who get to choose which type they get. Glyph of warding almost seems like they missed the fact that you could specify alignment as a trigger.

On the list of things to be concerned about, two spells that have minimal impact on the game simply doesn't rank very high on my list.

 

[Maxperson]

I don't know what the alignment of my player's PC's are, it's up to them to decide if it's useful or not.

Same. I couldn't care less if they use it or not. It's up to them. They're going to play their PCs how they play them and the game world will react accordingly. For me alignment is best used for NPCs/monsters.