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

[Helldritch]

So you can have thoughtless fun with better tools just as easily. And you can do more with better tools.

Ok, shoot. Show me a tool that will require about 18 sentences that will be neatly resumed by two letters and applicable through out the games. So far, you have shown no better alternative that would be as concise yet vague enough so that it can be useful at any table or ignored if wanted. What would you do to make such a tool not be alignment?

If you want to sell me on an alternative rule, it has to take as little space as a two letter resume and about 20 lines to explain fully. If you want to remove something, you must have something to replace it. But I seriously doubt you will have something as good.

 

[Helldritch]

1)Who has been acclaimed when their motivation is "Because I'm evil"? Which are these stories you are talking about? There are a few comedy people like Dr. Evil and Team Rocket - but beyond that evil as a motivation is mostly saturday morning cartoons stuff.

2) That's the fallacy of the excluded middle.

3) And Stormtroopers are generic characters. But part of the reason the OT works and the prequels are meh is that the Empire has an ideology and the First Order are cosplayers.

1) Don't you dare mock down Team Rocket! And not all evil that claim :"Because I am Evil!" are cartoonish. Some are actually quite scary and disgusting.

2) I am not ignoring the middle either. I claim the right to use everything at my disposal to make good stories as fast and as efficiently as possible.

3) The first order is in the sequel, not the prequel. But that aside, yep COS players must be the bane of cinema... they are the reasons that movies and video games are so bad nowadays...
But jokes aside, you must see the point that not all villains needs to be fully described. Or your prep time must be in the stratosphere. I know that the sky's the limit but boy must it be long to prep. I am a maniac of preparation, and the amount of work need for each no name to have a background is just too much. It is a game. Not paid work.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Ok, shoot. Show me a tool that will require about 18 sentences that will be neatly resumed by two letters and applicable through out the games. So far, you have shown no better alternative that would be as concise yet vague enough so that it can be useful at any table or ignored if wanted. What would you do to make such a tool not be alignment?

I've already given the start to one a few pages back. It wasn't down to two letters or even two words (which is what the Monster Manual uses) but four on a first draft. And could be ignored. This is the current state - and it already in four words tells me about a thousand times more than "Chaotic Good" does.

• Who do you count as insiders? (Self, Team, Family, Clan, Country)
• How do you treat insiders? (Loyalty, Dominate, Trust, Backstab)
• How do you want to treat outsiders? (Welcome, Convert, Ignore, Distrust, Use, Dominate, Eliminate)
• What is best in life? (Power, Wealth, Comfort, Glory, Sex, Art, Excellence, Knowledge, Order)

If you want to sell me on an alternative rule, it has to take as little space as a two letter resume and about 20 lines to explain fully. If you want to remove something, you must have something to replace it. But I seriously doubt you will have something as good.

I disagree. Any rule has a cost. And much of the alignment system has a worth that's outright negative from what I've seen. If it were to be removed from every monster in the monster manual the cost of using the monster manual would be lower and not a single thing of value would be lost.

 

[Maxperson]

So you can have thoughtless fun with better tools just as easily. And you can do more with better tools.

I have yet to see a better tool offered. At least for me. Alignment isn't this super shallow crappy storytelling tool that people keep trying to make it out to be. It might be that way for them, but it's not that way for me. Apparently I get far better use from alignment than you and @Minigiant do. And that's fine. You guys don't have to use it and can just gloss over the two words in the stat block.

 

[Neonchameleon]

But jokes aside, you must see the point that not all villains needs to be fully described.

Not all villains need to be fully described. But that doesn't mean that a simple "Lawful Evil" tells me much - it doesn't even tell me anything that the name "Stormtrooper" and the uniform doesn't.

To clarify, there are only a tiny fraction of examples where the nine point alignment system provides meaningful information. They are almost all exceptions - and almost all detailed enough that describing them using nine point alignment is redundant.

 

[Maxperson]

I've already given the start to one a few pages back. It wasn't down to two letters or even two words (which is what the Monster Manual uses) but four on a first draft. And could be ignored. This is the current state - and it already in four words tells me about a thousand times more than "Chaotic Good" does.

• Who do you count as insiders? (Self, Team, Family, Clan, Country)
• How do you treat insiders? (Loyalty, Dominate, Trust, Backstab)
• How do you want to treat outsiders? (Welcome, Convert, Ignore, Distrust, Use, Dominate, Eliminate)
• What is best in life? (Power, Wealth, Comfort, Glory, Sex, Art, Excellence, Knowledge, Order)

I get far more out of chaotic good than I would from that. I mean, that's nice as well, but it's not as good for me as alignment is.

And much of the alignment system has a worth that's outright negative from what I've seen. If it were to be removed from every monster in the monster manual the cost of using the monster manual would be lower and not a single thing of value would be lost.

You guys have yet to show 5e alignment to be negative. So far I'll I've really heard are the horror stories from 13+ years ago when mechanics still applied to alignment.

 

[Maxperson]

Not all villains need to be fully described. But that doesn't mean that a simple "Lawful Evil" tells me much - it doesn't even tell me anything that the name "Stormtrooper" and the uniform doesn't.

Let's see. White armor like the clouds, storm and trooper. I got it. He's a warrior who fights in inclement weather!!

Lawful Evil provides me about 1000x more than the name does.

 

[Helldritch]

I've already given the start to one a few pages back. It wasn't down to two letters or even two words (which is what the Monster Manual uses) but four on a first draft. And could be ignored. This is the current state - and it already in four words tells me about a thousand times more than "Chaotic Good" does.

I disagree. Any rule has a cost. And much of the alignment system has a worth that's outright negative from what I've seen. If it were to be removed from every monster in the monster manual the cost of using the monster manual would be lower and not a single thing of value would be lost.

Ok. Do not look at your list.
The troopers of the Sun Empire are generally
SDWW.
The orc of the Turosh Empire are generally
SLUS
The knightly order of the Trifond are generally
CLDG...

With just three example of your list, you can see that it does not add up. And what if I made a mistake and the Orcs of the Turosh Empire are actually CDWW and not SDWW? This amount of referring back and forth to your system would be a pain in the (you know the reference I am sure). Alignments are resumed by two letters and it gives me all the info I need to run any of the organization above.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Let's see. White armor like the clouds, storm and trooper. I got it. He's a warrior who fights in inclement weather!!

Lawful Evil provides me about 1000x more than the name does.

From this I can either conclude that you are ignorant of 20th Century European history or are trolling me.

Either way I see no point in continuing this. Goodbye

 

[Neonchameleon]

Ok. Do not look at your list.
The troopers of the Sun Empire are generally
SDWW.
The orc of the Turosh Empire are generally
SLUS
The knightly order of the Trifond are generally
CLDG...

With just three example of your list, you can see that it does not add up.

All I can see is that you're pretending that acronyms are confusing when you don't have familiarity - which is why the 5e statblocks in the Monster Manual use the alignment written out in words. So do the 3.5, 3.0, 2e, and 1e.

So you are trying to set rules for alignment that no edition of D&D has ever followed. This is pure special pleading.

And what if I made a mistake and the Orcs of the Turosh Empire are actually CDWW and not SDWW?

I don't know. What happens if you make a mistake and declare all orcs to be Lawful Evil when they are in fact Chaotic Evil. The way 2e did. You're not proposing anything that makes this worse than 9 point alignment

This amount of referring back and forth to your system would be a pain in the (you know the reference I am sure). Alignments are resumed by two letters and it gives me all the info I need to run any of the organization above.

But alignments aren't given two letters in any of the main monster manuals. They are given two words - which eliminates all the referring back and forth.

Your entire issue here is that "If you do something with this system that has not been done in any central monster manual it makes it harder to learn". Which is why D&D does not do things the way you are proposing in any central monster manual when using nine point alignment.