D&D General The Problem with Evil or what if we don't use alignments?

[Maxperson]

But that's what the existence of alignment does. It makes every discussion about potentially interesting and complex moral problems collapse into inane debate about two letters.

This is false. Alignment does not do this at all. People who rabidly hate alignment, even though it no longer has teeth or causes much problem at all are what cause this.

 

[Vaalingrade]

That is difficult to discuss without bringing in real life attitudes to region, which is expressly against forum rules.

Ignoring all the alignment in here because as usual is it bad and poorly argued.

Not really. I mean the concept is largely the same as a Shadowrun Johnson betrayal.

The bigger issue is that if you do this and one of the PCs is a member of that religion and maybe was following the 'bad' precepts... well that could cause problems. It's not something you want to spring on a player if they're not into it. You either want to work with the player to pull it off or have it happen to a religion external to the party.

PCs are mercs after all. It'd be kind of interesting to have a legacy sect or even the god themselves set them off on a mission to uncover the deception. Or something PRETENDING to be that god...

 

[Baron Opal II]

I don't know if this is addressed at all in the other thread, but what I wanted to ask is would the game be better if alignment wasn't present?

Anyway have you ever run games where the PCs eventually discover the various churches aren't exactly the alignment their god is supposed to be?

If this ever came up in your games how did you or your players react to such a reveal?

Anyway I got a little into the character that I developed a faith for her, but I'm getting off topic how do you handle alignments in your game?

Alignment is a tool like any other. I find that it is most useful as an attitudinal shorthand as mentioned earlier. (e.g, Lawfuls value rules to govern society, Goods value the wellbeing of others, &c.) Just remember people are complex and contain internal contradictions. Regardless of a mortal's alignment, however, spells that target different alignments don't function against them in my game. They're just not able to be committed enough, unless you're a high level cleric perhaps.

For more cosmic matters like gods, I group them into a small number of alignment like groups (Law, Chaos, Vril, Oblivion), mostly from what metaphysical source they spawned from. These ancient or primal entities are better exemplars of an old-school alignment, because of reasons in my game. A spell like holy word would be mostly just vexing to a mortal but potentially devastating to an opposed primal creature.

False priests are great when used sparingly. Their powers are usually supplied by some other agent on the sly. You do have to present some kind of "tell" that ultimately shows the person is a shill or a dupe. Rarely, the priest isn't false at all, and then there is a heterodoxy to resolve if the church is particularly large.

 

[Maxperson]

Ignoring all the alignment in here because as usual is it bad and poorly argued.

What a coincidence. It's the same on your side. "It's bad, because things happened 20 years ago!!" and "It's bad, because it has no use just because I don't like it!"

Not one good argument from your side for it's removal.

 

[Dausuul]

CIVILIANS. Deliberately targeting them is evil. They're no threat to you (or anyone else).

You keep changing "risk of civilian casualties," which is what @Crimson Longinus asked about, to "deliberately targeting civilians," which no one but you had brought up.

 

[Oofta]

Unlike every other alignment thread, there's an actual worthwhile and engaging subject in the OP and we're all doing our level best to ignore it to talk about the opposite of that.

For what it's worth, I do occasionally put people into positions of authority that are the opposite of what they seem. The head of the church of Tyr (LG in my campaign) in one region for example was really a CE cleric of Loki. It was quite fun because people just assumed he was a good guy when of course he was really working to bring the house down.

In other cases, I've had good NPCs who really did have the best intentions but were biased or simply mistaken; alignment doesn't make you perfect. Their motivations and reasons behind what they did was good, but the end result turned out evil. When they realized what they had caused or let happen they were horrified.

It can be useful now and then for story telling. Where we probably differ is that I see alignment as just one descriptor amongst many, and most people don't adhere to their alignment 100%. Nor is it necessarily static, many people change over time without even realizing it.

 

[Faolyn]

Gygax also thought storming a creche and murdering Orc children by the score by bashing their brains in with a hammer was 'Lawful Good' because 'Nits make Lice'.

Not exactly the greatest moral arbiter.

I kind of wonder if the "misunderstanding and confusion" alignment caused was because one or more other players pointed out that killing children (who, presumably, had done nothing more evil at that point than being born an orc) wasn't Lawful Good. Or Chaotic Good. Or Neutral Good.

 

[Faolyn]

I like alignments and have always used them. I even like alignment languages, which make even more sense to a modern mind (they're moral meme-speak, basically). I like campaigns with religions and religious conflict (and covert religions--great idea!).

I just don't understand how one alignment could create a language and other alignments couldn't learn to understand it.

 

[Maxperson]

I just don't understand how one alignment could create a language and other alignments couldn't learn to understand it.

And what happens if you change alignment? Do you forget one and instantly learn the other? I ditched that as soon as I read it back during 1e.

 

[Oofta]

I just don't understand how one alignment could create a language and other alignments couldn't learn to understand it.

Alignment languages were one of the silly things we ignored.