D&D 5E RIP alignment

[teitan]

From what I can see, the alignment system is guilty of racism by association with racial bias in the MM... There is a lot of confusion between alignment and society.

Except... it’s a fantasy game. Orcs aren’t real.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Except... it’s a fantasy game. Orcs aren’t real.

You may wish to look up "coding," and how people have used and continue to use fictional things to communicate messages about real things. (Bugs Bunny has some old cartoons with pretty ugly messages, for example, some of which are explicitly racist, while others use coding.)

Or, for a more simple example, consider the flaws of the video game Detroit: Become Human.

Is it really so hard to believe that a fictional thing can be a stand-in for a real thing, even if the author never intended it to be such? Or that flaws in the presentation of a fictional thing that IS meant to have subtext can thus result in an ugly message unintentionally?

 

[Aldarc]

This looks like a promising thought. Albeit, perhaps the five should be: Celestial, Devilish, Demonic, Aberrant, Unaligned. That's not quite there, but something like that might allow more nuance in the meaning of said "alignment".

It seems potentially neat to take alignment in the literal sense of "aligned with": the options for which can then vary by campaign setting.

I'm a huge fan of aligning with factions. I think 13th Age does this in a great way with their Icon system. You can have positive, negative or complicated relationships with the major players in the world. This actually adds to the game in a way that 'good/evil' just really cannot. IMHO.

So if they wanna replace good/evil/netural/etc with an alignment system that focuses on relationships with powers that be in the game world, I'm 100% behind this.

This would definitely be a welcomed improvement as well, but my hypothetical was purposefully meant to include Alignment and its respective cosmological forces (i.e., Chaos, Law, Good, Evil). But one could easily present this to GMs and say, "here are different ways that you can model Alignment for your games. This set up includes 9 Alignments, but you can use 5 (G-E-U-L-C or 4e's LG-G-U-E-CE) or even 3 (LvC or GvE). You can also replace Alignments with the following Factions." But yeah, overall, if there is to be Alignment, I would prefer if it involved "aligning with," much in the fashion of alignment in Moorcock. And this would come with various risks/rewards as part of gameplay.

Except... it’s a fantasy game. Orcs aren’t real.

You say this as if people weren't acutely aware of this point in numerous other discussions and debates over this topic. You are more than welcome to read through many of the past threads debating orcs and racism over the past few decades on this forum.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Except... it’s a fantasy game. Orcs aren’t real.

And thus any human atrocity can be depicted in the game with no issues whatsoever, because it's a fantasy and none of it is "real".

Right.

Well hey, trying proving your theory the next time you go to a convention and play a game with a bunch of people you don't know and see how well your "Don't worry, this is a fantasy game... everything my PC is doing to torture these random villagers is perfectly fine because it's not real." idea goes over.

 

[Oofta]

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.

Funny thing is, the Pinto was no more dangerous than other compact vehicles built at that time [1]. It's reputation is not deserved. Unlike what you see on TV, cars rarely catch fire and Pintos were no exception. In fact "When all types of fatalities are considered, the Pinto was approximately even with the AMC Gremlin, Chevrolet Vega, and Datsun 510. It was significantly better than the Datsun 1200/210, Toyota Corolla, and VW Beetle."

So in a way, I think this is an apt analogy. Racism is bad. Dying in a car fire is a horrible way to go. But just because a lot of people are vocal about it does not mean there's an issue.

For me, alignment is a quick shorthand, one that can easily be ignored if you wish an only represents a general tendency and clues you in on someone's moral compass. Like HP, it's a game construct that simply works well enough for a game and it's only an issue when people over-analyze it.

 

[teitan]

To be clear I think saying it’s “racist” is to diminish very real racism and trivializes it. I find it distasteful at best and disingenuous at worst. To take up the fight against racism by carrying a banner for made up creatures like Orcs, goblins, Drow etc completely diminishes the battles fought by blacks, Asians, Jewish peoples etc. It implies the plight of Orcs are on near or equal footing with the victims of the Native American genocide. There is a lack of perspective going on and what’s real and what’s fantasy has been lost, the line between reality and fiction being blurred so much that how Eclavdra is not really evil and the “problem” of alignment are seen as worthy and noble social justice causes. I am all for eliminating alignment but that it always turns into “white supremacist” arguments. It’s not only silly, it’s further marginalizing and really says “I’d rather fight for the rights of goblinoids and dark elves than actual plights of modern humans because alignment is problematic in my fantasy role playing game”.

 

[teitan]

And thus any human atrocity can be depicted in the game with no issues whatsoever, because it's a fantasy and none of it is "real".

Right.

Well hey, trying proving your theory the next time you go to a convention and play a game with a bunch of people you don't know and see how well your "Don't worry, this is a fantasy game... everything my PC is doing to torture these random villagers is perfectly fine because it's not real." idea goes over.

Absurdism at its finest. Again abdurdam de reductio.

 

[teitan]

You may wish to look up "coding," and how people have used and continue to use fictional things to communicate messages about real things. (Bugs Bunny has some old cartoons with pretty ugly messages, for example, some of which are explicitly racist, while others use coding.)

Or, for a more simple example, consider the flaws of the video game Detroit: Become Human.

Is it really so hard to believe that a fictional thing can be a stand-in for a real thing, even if the author never intended it to be such? Or that flaws in the presentation of a fictional thing that IS meant to have subtext can thus result in an ugly message unintentionally?

No it’s not but experience has shown that racists are going to use real races rather than killing Orcs as a way to express their hatred. I played with people who turned out racist and they had no problem trying to turn it into hunting aboriginals in fantasy Africa rather than it being about how Orcs are codes for black people (more like Vikings with elements of Russian steppes)

 

[Remathilis]

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.

Ok. I want wizards to cast healing magic. In my setting, wizards are the masters of all magic and should have access to every spell ever made. The PHB should accommodate that. Also, battle mages exist so wizards should get d20 HD and heavy armor proficiency for free. Lastly, not all wizards use spellbooks so they should be allowed to cast any spell they know without it. I'm sure none of that will be a problem as there should not be a default assumption that wizards are weak bookish glass cannons. Think of all the options you open up with this! The potential stories that D&D hasn't told yet. No reason to be bound to the traditions of yore, wizards can be whatever you want them to be!

 

[Aldarc]

To be clear I think saying it’s “racist” is to diminish very real racism and trivializes it. I find it distasteful at best and disingenuous at worst. To take up the fight against racism by carrying a banner for made up creatures like Orcs, goblins, Drow etc completely diminishes the battles fought by blacks, Asians, Jewish peoples etc. It implies the plight of Orcs are on near or equal footing with the victims of the Native American genocide. There is a lack of perspective going on and what’s real and what’s fantasy has been lost, the line between reality and fiction being blurred so much that how Eclavdra is not really evil and the “problem” of alignment are seen as worthy and noble social justice causes. I am all for eliminating alignment but that it always turns into “white supremacist” arguments. It’s not only silly, it’s further marginalizing and really says “I’d rather fight for the rights of goblinoids and dark elves than actual plights of modern humans because alignment is problematic in my fantasy role playing game”.

And this can easily read as "Keep any real world social issues out of my fantasy elf game." Don't worry. The message is loud and clear: fighting racism is okay and worthwhile as long as it's "out there" and never "in here," whether that's in sports, media entertainment, comic books, gaming, business, etc.

But none of this necessarily speaks to the merits or lack thereof of Alignment in D&D.