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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JEB" data-source="post: 8346260" data-attributes="member: 10148">If some folks misread the instructions before assembling a chair, and they build the chair wrong... the solution is to end the chair's entire product line, for everyone?The mistake is in reading the alignment listing as stating it's the race itself that's inherently "always" or "often" evil, rather than the default culture as presented in the book. This is something they could have (should have) clarified, without eliminating alignment completely.As noted, this could also be improved by having multiple default cultures, or explaining more clearly when the one listed is merely an example, not a fundamental characteristic. Instead, they went for the superficial "fix", without actually addressing the issue.Yes, some folks want to play D&D like a video game, with just enough behavior to guide the monster's "AI". And there's nothing wrong with that. Simple "beer and pretzels" gaming is as legitimate as deep, story-focused gaming.My guess as to what those folks will do, now that alignment is gone and nothing similarly simple has replaced it? Most will just drop "lawful" and "chaotic" and "neutral", and treat all their good guys as "good" and their bad guys as "evil". Nine imperfectly detailed shades of behavior will become a mere two. If some thought those folks were playing "wrong" before, what about now?If they give monsters default behaviors of any stripe, isn't that biological essentialism? When we say a sapphire dragon is warlike, isn't that essentialism?If the answer is always yes, then I suppose the logical next step is to delete default behaviors - and perhaps all creature lore - entirely. Leave DMs to fill in the gaps. Makes for a very dry core game, but it does fix the problem, I suppose.If, however, there's room for describing possible defaults without it being essentialism, such as what I described above... they didn't have to delete alignment to do it, unnecessarily taking away a tool some found useful. That they did so raises doubts as to whether they really understand the issue...</blockquote>

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