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

[Maxperson]

Funny enough, the revenant is another creature that can be described as a relentless, revenge-obsessed hateful killer. And it's neutral in alignment. I don't know what side of the alignment argument that supports, but I thought it was interesting.

It supports my side. The descriptors alone don't provide a clear enough picture to know the way the creature was intended to be played. That's okay for many who want to just run with it and do what they like, but it's not okay for many who don't and want clearer guidance.

(Rather than removing alignment, now I kind of want to see some monsters listed with guidance for multiple possible alignments, or at least good-evil-neutral suggestions. That would make monsters that really are innately mono-alignment, like devils, stand out all the more.

I don't have a problem with that.

Seems clear after Candlekeep and Ravenloft that alignment is out altogether, though.)

Maybe. They could also have been to test the waters.

 

[Oofta]

First it's a terrible descriptor. "Evil" covers a huge range of things and we have arguments in this very thread about what it means. "Sadistic" and "cruel" are clearer.

Second it's a terrible descriptor, simply declaring certain races to be evil and therefore worthy of killing.

Let me be clear. I have no problem with writing "evil" in the description or even statblock of individual monsters like Strahd, or of supernatural entities like demons or even legendary magics like the Book of Vile Darkness. But it shouldn't be in the actual statblocks of intelligent free-willed races like orcs or even gnolls. The statblocks are a place for mechanics rather than vague descriptors.

Of course it's a "default" to declare that members of certain races are evil and therefore genociding them is a good action.

So "causes problems" means "I don't like it". How is that a problem outside of your personal preference? It's a rather circular argument: I don't like it because it causes problems, the problem it causes is that I don't like it.

Alignment for race is just a default. If you have descriptions of race X that includes things like they're "...savage raiders and pillagers ... that satisfy their bloodlust by plundering villages, devouring or driving off roaming herds, and slaying any humanoids that stand against them", how is it any worse to label their alignment as CE?

It should be much clearer that these behaviors and alignments are just a default and can and should be changed as DMs and authors see fit. But unless you eliminate every negative description of every monster in the MM I don't see why it makes a difference.

 

[Oofta]

Well, beyond literally decades of arguments about what alignment is, and people who still insist that certain creatures (such as orcs) must be of a particular alignment with only very rare exceptions... alignments don't so much cause problems as they don't really actually do anything useful. I mean, if you come across a person who is Lawful Good, all you know is that they probably aren't going to steal from you or murder you. Saying a creature is a particular alignment doesn't really tell you what it's going to do. A chaotic evil person isn't necessarily going try to murder you unless they have a good reason to... but the same can be said about a lawful good person. It's just that what counts as a good reason is going to differ quite a bit between the two.

What D&D really needs is to replace it with a motivation or small table of motivations (like in the Cypher System) for each creature.

*
Same circular argument. I don't like it so therefore it causes problems because I don't like it. Because I don't like it I argue about it* instead of just ignoring it.

Almost every major aspect of D&D has been argued about for decades. How spells work, why do we have dungeons, dragons are stupid, we should use AC, HP or a D20. The list goes on. If we eliminated every aspect of D&D that has ever caused controversy we wouldn't have a game left.

*I'd never know alignment was a controversy if it wasn't for forums and I've probably played with hundreds of people over the years.

 

[Cadence]

You don't need alignment. Alignment just encourages it. And has as far as I can tell precisely zero positive effects at this level.

Multiple other people in other threads have said they find it helpful to have a quick classification of non-humanoid monsters like that when looking at choices to populate dungeons and the like.

Two words. So if I were to add M----r F----r to every post of mine that would have precisely no impact on how you read the post?

You seriously find the two alignment letters the equivalent of MF in every post!?!? Why are you still playing the game if it insults you that much?

When you start using it to describe races of sentient beings with free will then yes there is.

The consensus from most other alignment threads seems to be that not having it for humanoids would be ok with most people who use it (hence the upcoming variety of drow).

 

[Minigiant]

Misuse of a tool is not the tool's fault.

Indeed. Though constant misuse of a tool is the toolmaker's fault. Unfortunately TSR1 is gone and WOTC never corrected the instruction manual until recently.

 

[hopeless]

Going by the other stuff that individual wrote? Yes, they very much were saying that without alignment written out, they could just interpret anything any way they want, because everything is "now subjective."

Also, removing the alignment from the stat blocks, leaves monsters like the Relentless Killer (Page 242) without guidance on its moral outlook The text just says Relentless killers are hateful, revenge obsessed creatures.

Yet, by skipping alignment in the stat block, nothing to say if the above are lawfully good actions. Basically, 5e since Tasha's encourages all rules to be read subjectively.

The good news is that no more rules lawyers arguments. Everything is subjective now, and even that Relentless Killer could basically be a lawful good paladin in training, if your table so chooses.

Maybe they were being facetious, but it really seems that they relied on alignment to determine a creature's moral outlook.

So its from whose viewpoint?
Actually that explains a lot!

 

[Minigiant]

*
*I'd never know alignment was a controversy if it wasn't for forums and I've probably played with hundreds of people over the years.

Alignment is less a controversy and more an easy to missue tool that can be used to make a full but nonsensical settings if overused.

The overuse and overdependence is the controversy. Using hard-coded, no-exception alignment as the base of your setting creates nonsensical elements. This is what D&D does and it caused an argument as some defend it and some criticize it.

 

[Oofta]

Alignment is less a controversy and more an easy to missue tool that can be used to make a full but nonsensical settings if overused.

The overuse and overdependence is the controversy. Using hard-coded, no-exception alignment as the base of your setting creates nonsensical elements. This is what D&D does and it caused an argument as some defend it and some criticize it.

I don't see how it's possible to get around some of that. Look at the descriptive text for just about any evil monster ... unless you change all of that what difference does it make? I do agree that it should be reinforced that the entries (including alignment) are just a default.

When it comes to PCs I think TIBF can just as easily abused. The guy that blamed asinine behavior on alignment is just going to blame it on an ideal or flaw. That's a player issue, not a system issue.

 

[hopeless]

I ran a version of the Sunless Citadel set in Kalamar and had a friendly kobold village be the reason an npc ranger was involved in the game as the residents of the Citadel were threatening the kobolds that saved his life.

Its easy enough to just have them be plain old evil, but what if you throw in some genuine reasons for their behaviour?

For example the main reason an orc horde wiped out the half elves village in an Exandria game I had run was because the half elf sorceror had stolen the fancy cape off of a merchant wagon unaware it was a priceless relic stolen from the orcs.

They traced it to the wagon and then to the village and the half elves fled only the power of the cape prevented them from getting killed as it latched on to the shadow sorceror for his awakening powers.

Were the orcs evil?

Yes.

But they had good reason to behave like they did.

Can the game handle reasoning of that sort?

 

[Neonchameleon]

Multiple other people in other threads have said they find it helpful to have a quick classification of non-humanoid monsters like that when looking at choices to populate dungeons and the like.

Having a quick classification of monsters in no way makes 9 point alignment a good classification of monsters. It's a pretty awful one. If it's choices for what to populate dungeons with alliances would be better. 4e did things better in the MM for this by having the monsters with suggested encounter groups. Alliances would do better with what you're suggesting than alignment does. So for that matter would natural environments.

And then there's people not understanding a basis for the Blood War ("We're evil like this. They're evil like that. So we should fight to the death.") because of the seeming symmetry of the alignment chart. 4e on the other hand, by switching to 3+2 alignments made the whole thing make sense.

So even at what you are claiming alignment is good at the main thing to be said for is that it's better than nothing.

You seriously find the two alignment letters the equivalent of MF in every post!?!? Why are you still playing the game if it insults you that much?

I seriously find the idea that it's only a couple of letters therefore shouldn't be a problem to be ridiculous. And I homebrew most of my monsters because monster design (and with it monster fluff) fell a long way between 4e and 5e although still remained better and richer than the prosthetic forehead wizards of 3.X.

The consensus from most other alignment threads seems to be that not having it for humanoids would be ok with most people who use it (hence the upcoming variety of drow).

And to me that's a minimum. As I've said if you want to declare people like Strahd, Acecerak, Lolth, Bane, and their devout worshippers evil it's fine with me. It's also entirely possible to declare Far Realm entities neutral and their prime material cultists evil. Declaring entire humanoid races evil on the other hand is toxic.

And that's entirely without getting into universe specific badness like Dragonlance's "The balance between good and evil should be maintained" (an actively evil idea) or the way supposedly good gods in the Realms were fine with The Wall of the Faithless.