D&D 5E RIP alignment

[Charlaquin]

As per Ravenloft and Planescape, the Dragonlance we knew is dead, prepare yourself for the "reimagined" version you never asked for.

Maybe you never asked for it, but there are absolutely people who did. If you want the [your favorite setting] exactly the way it appeared in [your favorite edition], good news. It exists. For folks who want a different take on the concepts those settings explored, there are the new re-imagined takes.

 

[Mistwell]

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.

I can and I do tell you exactly that. Consider the possibility the way you've used AC and alignment in your games might not be representative of most games?

A lot of your response seemed to be "people on message boards (or wherever) complain about this a lot". I gotta call that out. First, none of these forums are representative. Second, we never got the opportunity to speak up about this topic in surveys, which are MUCH more representative than forums. You just made the "squeaky wheel gets the grease" type argument about alignment. I disagree with your assumption that the places you've seen alignment discussed are representative examples of it's use and misuse and general opinions about it among a majority of players.

 

[Mistwell]

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.

You can say the same thing about HP and damage and AC.

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.

Is hit points meat or luck or fate or what? That debate is even more heated and no two people seem able to agree on it than alignment. I know of no movement however to eliminate listing monster hit points despite that issue.

 

[teitan]

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.

You have seen where I said I am fine with its removal yeah? The original intent is obvious though and explicit in OD&D and evidenced Gygax's portrayal of Mordenkainen or the Druids. I am not presenting that the original intent is the end all be all, I am saying that based on that intent, no it is not broken because it isn't. Speaking from a classical level it's very clear and knowing the source material it is clear. That being Moorcock from which alignment as presented is derived. The flaw is that it has not been explained clearly in D&D materials like it has in other places and the game has evolved from that original presentation as I explained in a previous post. I am blaming people that can't read the rules, even in the modern edition, that says Alignment is a guideline and not an end all, be all. That is not a flaw in the system but a flaw in the reader. It's a knee jerk reaction at best.

 

[Umbran]

But remember that this forum, though popular, is but a small fraction of the player base.

You really think that such arguments are a peculiarity of EN World? That's your implication? Dude, arguments about alignment go back to frelling usenet.

So far, in my entourage...

I have said, several times over, that it may work well for you, and that's fine.

But to totally eliminate it on the basis that this is racist? No.

So, I have been arguing it probably ought to go simply on the basis that it doesn't seem to work reliably. Now, I admit that you, as an individual, probably don't care if some other player has issues. They are, quite simply, not your problem.

To reuse my own analogy, yeah, if a Ford Pinto owned by someone you don't know, a thousand miles away, blows up, that's not really material to you, sure. I grant that.

But, folks presenting a game to the mass market really should consider the failures, as well as the successes. In a discussion about looking at what the game going forward should look like, the behavior of your personal entourage is... not really informative.

Alignment is still a good tool.

In a thread that's had a bunch of discussion revealing that the definition of "Good" is not universal.. that assertion maybe doesn't have the power you want.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I can and I do tell you exactly that. Consider the possibility the way you've used AC and alignment in your games might not be representative of most games?

A lot of your response seemed to be "people on message boards (or wherever) complain about this a lot". I gotta call that out. First, none of these forums are representative. Second, we never got the opportunity to speak up about this topic in surveys, which are MUCH more representative than forums. You just made the "squeaky wheel gets the grease" type argument about alignment. I disagree with your assumption that the places you've seen alignment discussed are representative examples of it's use and misuse and general opinions about it among a majority of players.

Then, again, we have nothing further to discuss, because your argument hinges on knowledge that none of us can possibly have: universal information about all possible people who have ever used alignment.

Since you're demanding this information, if you can provide it, I will listen. If you can't, well, we're either in exactly the same "discussion over, no progress made" position as I appear to be with Maxperson, or you're asking for me to clear a bar you aren't requiring yourself to clear first.

 

[Maxperson]

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?

Asking those particular questions about races or classes are meaningless. They're the wrong questions to ask. The default of the game is to have classes in every setting. The default of the game is to have races in every setting. The default of the game is to have alignments in every setting.

You get to pick which of the default classes you want, which of the default races you want and which of the default alignments you want. Not having a class deviates from the default. Not having a race deviates from the default. And not having an alignment deviates from the default.

 

[tetrasodium]

Alignment as written is really used in all settings, in terms how how a creature tends to behave most of the time on average.

Creatures fit different settings differently, but rarely does their behavioral tendencies meaningfully change between settings. And when it does, you spell it out in the setting. You'd still want to know what the average will be for most settings.

Much like psionics might be different in different settings though, you'd still want githyanki listed as a typical type of humanoid for most settings. And then if a specific setting changes psionics and gthyanki, you can spell that out in the setting.

Or if a particular setting has metals as rare, you'd note that some monster ACs which assume metal armor will need to be changed. But you wouldn't simply leave off AC from the average stat block just because some particular setting might treat it differently, right?

Eberron has a very different spin on alignment. People in dark sun are too busy trying to survive for it to be relevant. Ravenloft makes a mockery of absolute morality and dances in glee over it. All three have different planar cosmologies that dont really mesh with the great wheel baselines of cosmic good vrs evil struggles if they open their sphere to it at all. "Alignment as written is really used in all settings" is a club trying to undo all those differences to make the gms job harder& is exactly why or makes a mess

 

[Maxperson]

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 has been almost entirely fixed, though. The vast majority of the issues came from the mechanical interactions with alignment. The DM no longer gets to smash you with penalties, alignment changes, detections, protections, loss of spells, loss of paladinhood(that's shifted to oath breaking), etc.

There are a very few interactions left in 5e, but those are a couple of artifacts. Now, if the DM and player don't agree on what LG is, they simply don't agree. Without a house rule to change things, it doesn't get to go farther than that.

 

[Mistwell]

Then, again, we have nothing further to discuss, because your argument hinges on knowledge that none of us can possibly have: universal information about all possible people who have ever used alignment.

Since you're demanding this information, if you can provide it, I will listen. If you can't, well, we're either in exactly the same "discussion over, no progress made" position as I appear to be with Maxperson, or you're asking for me to clear a bar you aren't requiring yourself to clear first.

My argument all along has been this shouldn't be a change made without consulting the larger consumer base to see what they think first. It's a unilateral change to a fundamental and longstanding aspect of the game without any survey feedback on it first, or playtest feedback on it first, or ANY public feedback at all from a meaningfully larger segment of the player base.

In fact Crawford has repeatedly said the user base of forums like this one DO NOT represent the overall opinions of the user base very well as a generalization. And your entire argument seems to be one based on that very source he's said isn't a very good one.

Not to mention, if "people on EnWorld disagree about rule X" were a good reason to change rules, there would be essentially no rules left by that standard. We debate EVERYTHING about the game, often heatedly. That doesn't mean the underlying rule has any problem. It's just a commentary on what us minority of uber rules fans like to do.

That's my major objection to it. It smacks of "we know better what the user base will like than the user base knows" which was a fundamentally flawed assumption behind some of the least popular aspects of prior editions of the game. I thought WOTC had learned their lesson on that sort of thing.