D&D 5E RIP alignment

[Maxperson]

This is a flaw that should be changed.

This is an opinion that I think is wrong. Alignment is part of the game as a whole, not an aspect of individual settings. How alignment fits into each individual setting might vary, but the presence of alignment is should be in all of them. Unless of course the DM wants to remove it for his game.

That there should not BE default states of being, but rather that we, as the creators of these settings, should take the responsibility implied by that creationism, rather than hiding behind "tradition!" or "simplicity!" or "default!" as though such things could absolve us of our responsibilities as creators of things, fictional or otherwise.

Of course there should be default states of being. That's what makes it a game. If there are no defaults, then D&D is just one big game of Free Form Roleplaying which is then given shape by the DM who decides which rules are present and what those rules are.

 

[Mistwell]

This is a flaw that should be changed. That's the key assertion here: that things are enforced to a uniform default, when they should be chosen and intentional. That there should not BE default states of being, but rather that we, as the creators of these settings, should take the responsibility implied by that creationism, rather than hiding behind "tradition!" or "simplicity!" or "default!" as though such things could absolve us of our responsibilities as creators of things, fictional or otherwise.

Are you going to do that with AC, and hit points, and ability scores, and attacks, and damage, and all the other average factors of monsters? These are ALL just short hand averages for simplicity sake. Why would alignment be singled out for this special treatment where you shouldn't have a shorthand average listed for those who want it?

By the way it's not any more a "responsibility" for a DM to work out those details for themselves than it is for any of those other stats. It's all an issue of saving a DM time by designing it for them. It's, yah know, the purpose of all rules. Any DM can tailor it, but it's nice to have a baseline to work from.

 

[Umbran]

No. But it does explain a lot of how things came to be. How can you know where you are going if you do not know where you are coming from?

Am I a passive passenger of my past to some predestination? If not, then I know where I am going because I choose to go there.

Old does not equate to bad and useless New does not equate to better and progressive.

Strawman, sir. Big time. Nobody argued either of these points.

The Maxime:"Do not repair it if it ain't broken!" is quite apt in this situation.

Except, of course, for all those who are saying it is kinda broken. And the very existence of the history of threads just like this one fairly establishes that, broadly speaking, it is unreliable, at best.

 

[teitan]

So alignment can easily be replaced with the ideals, bonds and flaws portion of the character sheet. When I saw those originally I thought it was a much more valuable tool than alignment as it has evolved. A paladin's Oath also enforces the idea and intent of Paladins much better than a straight jacketed "Lawful Good" alignment. That's for PCs. Like I said just tagging Evil or Good on a monster is good enough to understand exactly what that would mean in regards to that monster. We don't need long descriptions of traits etc. I know that when I DM I do not have the time to look over the description of a given monster to see where it lies on the G vs E axis. Having a notation like "Demon", "Devil", "Angel" or even "Fiendish", "Celestial", "Humanoid" and "Monstrous" and a few others would be enough as long as they limited the categories to a handful that are easy to remember. But then we already have that ;-) WHere it really matters is named NPCs and PCs to be honest.

 

[Mistwell]

So alignment can easily be replaced with the ideals, bonds and flaws portion of the character sheet. When I saw those originally I thought it was a much more valuable tool than alignment as it has evolved. A paladin's Oath also enforces the idea and intent of Paladins much better than a straight jacketed "Lawful Good" alignment. That's for PCs. Like I said just tagging Evil or Good on a monster is good enough to understand exactly what that would mean in regards to that monster. We don't need long descriptions of traits etc. I know that when I DM I do not have the time to look over the description of a given monster to see where it lies on the G vs E axis. Having a notation like "Demon", "Devil", "Angel" or even "Fiendish", "Celestial", "Humanoid" and "Monstrous" and a few others would be enough as long as they limited the categories to a handful that are easy to remember. But then we already have that ;-) WHere it really matters is named NPCs and PCs to be honest.

What exactly does "humanoid" do for you that it's a guideline in regards to trait tendencies and the G vs E axis?

 

[teitan]

Except, of course, for all those who are saying it is kinda broken. And the very existence of the history of threads just like this one fairly establishes that, broadly speaking, it is unreliable, at best.

Except that alignment as people argue about is not kinda broken. The perception of it is flawed because people thing that when they say Drow tend to CE that must mean all drow are chaotic evil. It does not. It's very explicit. In the case of monsters it defines a tendency within the structures of the society in question. Common sense dictates, just through casual reading, that exceptions to the "norm" most definitely exist. I know I, when running a mob, do not need to know the individual alignments of 5 minute characters but the structure of their society based on Alignment does make it easier to understand how they would engage in a combat encounter or a perception of their society for building encounters and creating strategies for not just combat but also social encounters. It also allows for surprises like the Chaotic Good Goblin warg rider who leads the goblin mob that they just encountered. This breaks expectations and establishes things are different. It's kind of why I like WIldemount, it subverts expectations in much more interesting ways than Eberron.

 

[teitan]

What exactly does "humanoid" do for you that it's a guideline in regards to trait tendencies and the G vs E axis?

It indicates a variable influence but it was just an example and not a specific suggestion.

 

[Helldritch]

1) Am I a passive passenger of my past to some predestination? If not, then I know where I am going because I choose to go there.



2) Strawman, sir. Big time. Nobody argued either of these points.



3) Except, of course, for all those who are saying it is kinda broken. And the very existence of the history of threads just like this one fairly establishes that, broadly speaking, it is unreliable, at best.

1) Or you might think you know where in fact you don't. Knowing the origin of something makes someone more apt at recognizing its value or lack thereof.

2) Thing like it an old concept, out dated and other just clutter threads like these.

3) You kinda prove my point with that one.

I am not against change. Proof is that I play fifth edition. But remember that this forum, though popular, is but a small fraction of the player base. So far, in my entourage many really like the alignment system and what it is bringing. We do have a voiced minority that would get rid of alignment but they are not very numerous. I have seen forums where just claiming that alignment is a good way to be targeted as an heretic.

Do alignments need to be reworked? Maybe, it depends on what would be done. Afterall, I did like the 4ed approach. But to totally eliminate it on the basis that this is racist? No.

Alignment is still a good tool. Use it or not that is your prerogative as a DM.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

No. But it does explain a lot of how things came to be. How can you know where you are going if you do not know where you are coming from?

The vast majority of people cannot tell you the etymological reason why the verb "persuade" contains a d, while the adjective "persuasive" does not (nor why, for example, a television is required for watching a video.) Yet these people are quite capable of using the words "persuade" and "persuasive" correctly.

Knowing origin is only relevant up to the point that it actually influences the task at hand. (And yes, if you're curious and don't know, I can explain why the above d/s changes occur.)

And when you know the origin of something, it is easier to understand if your argument is valid or not. So to which came first? We can safely say, alignment. As in wargames, society is not something that was cared for in those years.

I do know alignment's origin, desired function, and practical effect. I'm quite well aware of Chesterton's fence, and I'm also quite aware that he made very clear that if you DO know the aforementioned things and still wish to tear the fence down, you should feel no qualms about doing so. We are not saying "ugh, I don't get why this alignment thing was ever added, let's just remove it." We are instead saying, "The purpose alignment claimed to serve is far too often not only failed, but actively negated by alignment, creating more problems and leading to arguments, patterns of undesirable association, and bad behavior from both players and DMs. It may have a use when correctly understood and applied, but there is ample evidence that it is too difficult to teach people how to use it effectively. It can absolutey still be used as a tool, but it should no longer be a baked-in default that must be intentionally defied. The benefits of doing so are significant, while the costs of doing so for most players and most DMs will be small, since it's barely got any weight to it anyway. DMs who know they want bad guys will still be quite capable of making bad guys, they'll just actually have to say WHY those things are bad guys."

Old does not equate to bad and useless. New does not equate to better and progressive. Both old and new can be either. The Maxime:" Do not repair it if it ain't broken!" is quite apt in this situation.

"New does not equate to bad and destructive. Old does not equate to better and effective. Both old and new can be either."

And the whole point IS that alignment, as it is almost always used, is broken in various ways, and has been for decades. Some of these things relate to player behavior (the classic "But it's my character's alignment!" justification for being a huge ass to the other players, or the Lawful Stupid Paladin), some to DM behavior (the Viking Hat DM who negates player choice because it's "against their alignment," and the age-old, no-win "choose Law or Good and fall either way" Paladin catch-22), some to sociocultural issues or historical representation problems (the problem that most "bad guy races" are coded near-identically to how real oppressors have described real oppressed people, or that somehow matriarchal societies are like 90% likely to be evil dominatrix cults...), and some to changing attitudes about classic options (full-blooded orcs have been a reasonable "at least as often good as bad" option in video games for 30 years or more, that's bound to induce questioning of contrary baked-in defaults).

This is an opinion that I think is wrong.

And you are perfectly entitled to that opinion. But unless you can do more than that, there's nothing further to discuss.

Of course there should be default states of being. That's what makes it a game. If there are no defaults, then D&D is just one big game of Free Form Roleplaying which is then given shape by the DM who decides which rules are present and what those rules are.

Okay. What's the default player character race, which players must intentionally choose to deviate from? What's the default class, which players must choose to deviate from? What's the default campaign tone, which DMs must choose to deviate from? What's the default antagonist? The default pantheon? The default history? The default culture?

Are you going to do that with AC, and hit points, and ability scores, and attacks, and damage, and all the other average factors of monsters? These are ALL just short hand averages for simplicity sake. Why would alignment be singled out for this special treatment where you shouldn't have a shorthand average listed for those who want it?

Other than HP, you don't see long, tedious, tendentious, acrimonious debates about how these averages work. You see a handful of discussions about which stats should be buffed or nerfed (e.g. some think Intelligence is under-valued in 5e, while Dexterity and, for some characters, Charisma are over-valued), and there's a common argument that ability score modifiers should replace raw scores because raw scores are exceedingly rarely of any use. But overall, you see very little debate over "what does Strength even mean?", and you see even fewer horror stories about a bad player/DM who justified bad behavior with "but my ability scores say so." You just don't get the failure modes and lack of understanding that you find with alignment in stats like AC or saving throws. Those things do in fact actually function well, fitting the purpose for which they were designed.

HP is a notable outlier here. The "meatpoints vs gamepoints" debates ARE numerous, tedious, tendentious, and often acrimonious. However, again, you don't see the failure modes that alignment produces in actual play. HP don't meaningfully get used as an excuse for bad behavior. They don't perpetuate harmful stereotypes as default states of being. HP values are rarely discussed with players, and almost never come up in specific conversation outside of explicit game-mechanics talk (e.g. character optimization or monster design). As a shorthand, they actually do shorten things and then disappear into the background.

Alignment does not. It is constantly in one's face. It never hides. It's even more controversial, and has an enormous potential for misuse, abuse, and failure. It is bad at communicating for many, demonstrably hard to teach (otherwise we wouldn't have the constant refrain of "well if people used it PROPERLY it wouldn't be a problem!"), and all too static in the face of shifting perspectives.

By the way it's not any more a "responsibility" for a DM to work out those details for themselves than it is for any of those other stats. It's all an issue of saving a DM time by designing it for them. It's, yah know, the purpose of all rules. Any DM can tailor it, but it's nice to have a baseline to work from.

It is always the DM's responsibility to create a world. And I HUGELY dispute the notion that alignment is exactly equivalent to an AC value in terms of how it affects players and the message communicated by a DM's work. You cannot tell me that it is precisely and exactly the same level of meaning and impact on players whether an antagonist has AC 10 vs 20 as it does whether that antagonist is Lawful Good vs Chaotic Evil.

 

[Umbran]

Except that alignment as people argue about is not kinda broken. The perception of it is flawed

Stop there for a minute.

With only slight exaggeration, no two groups of gamers have agreed upon what it meant, or how it should be used, since it was first published. The perception of it has been flawed, in various ways, for decades, for every generation of gamers, from every edition that included it.

Setting aside what any of us individually may want, the empirical evidence here is kind of important. There is a point at which, after tens of thousands of people could apparently not get it right, that one might want to at least consider that, as a practical matter, the problem isn't the people, it is that the system is not so great, broadly speaking.

That doesn't mean it doesn't work just fine for you.

But the guys who made Ford Pintos couldn't look just at the cars that worked fine. Eventually, after enough of them caught fire, they had to stop blaming bad luck, or the drivers, and look at the design as flawed.