Justice and Rule
Legend
1) Alignment first. Always. That tool is as important for me as the stat block. But nice analogies you got there. After so many years, it is easy to forget that the need for foes precedes their society. D&D has its roots in wargames afterall.
Interesting. I think I'm the reverse, where I try to make my cultures first and (when I was using it) I'd apply some sort of alignment. One of the few reverses of that was making up Elvish culture, because I took their weird alignment/lore disconnect as a challenge.
2) not for me
It is not weird but natural. Alignment foe society does not mean that everyone in that society believe that it is the only way. But it represent how the vast majority of that society behave, strive for and idealize. It could also be an absolute or not. It all depends on the DM.
Sure, but I'm talking about more of defining a society as an alignment, like how you did with the merchant republic. Like, I agree with what you did, but I think it gets really weird because defining something as "Chaotic" can be a bit difficult since I find societies are based around rules, making them inherently "Lawful" at some level. Plus it's pretty easy to apply the "Neutral" or "Evil" parts to a government, but I'm always hesitant to apply "Good".
They made a shift in race definition, but removing alignment is more than needed for now.
Humanoid and culture will be describe with a wider spectrum in future products and thus alignment will still be needed. We will see more sample for orc, drow, gnome, and they will simply avoid to cornered them in a single behavior. In fact it will make better products.
I wish everyone was as positive with such a change. We can disagree, but I really wish people looked at this as an opportunity.
WHo said anything about law abiding cogs in their society? I called out EVIL. Drow society is undoubtedly evil. Dark Elves who come from Drow Society do not have to be Evil just like a random German or even German military personnel during WWII have to be evil. Don't confuse the society and culture for the individual. What makes Drow society worse is that those who aren't evil turn a blind eye or they leave because... Drow society is THAT evil and oppressive.
I think it's more that Drow society comes off as very Lawful because it is so structured, but all Drow have Chaotic Evil as their alignment.