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

[Cadence]

The clerics following an alignment will have to live and preach by this alignment. This means that the cleric would.be hard pressed to preach one thing while actually believing something entirely the opposite.

Believing the opposite of everything being preached seems hard. It isn't hard at all irl to find examples of hypocritical religious leaders (or hypocritical politicians or...).

It might work for a short while, but at some point, when does preaching becomes belief? And divine magic comes from belief. So preaching something you do not believe and act as if you actually believe will, eventually, make you believe what you ate preaching. Much like a self brainwash...

So unless our cleric is infiltrating an enemy church, if he is not following a god he might end up becoming exactly what he was trying to undermine! Remember that for a godless cleric, belief is what gives him his divine abilities. At some point, preaching a different ethos or set of beliefs will affect him. A god will not be there to shield him or her from the influence of the heathens.

I would think so too. But there's apparently a decent sized contingent (see the Strixhaven thread) that would never take powers away from a Warlock or Cleric or Paladin unless the player wanted them to lose those powers.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Has a single person claimed they give as much detail as a few sentences of motivation? Every MM size set of motivation sentences will also leave out a huge variety of situations too. And so we have the multiple page treatment for some creatures given in other sources. And they also leave out how a particular one might react in some situations...

The two letters give a start and are quickly scannable. If they're in the ballpark the few MM sentences give more. What they leave out the DM makes up.

What "two letters"? If we're going by the 5e Monster Manual it's two words.

And if we're going with two words then there are plenty of sets of two words that would do much better than "Chaotic Neutral" - "Hostile Territorial", "Agressive Slavers", "Elusive Pranksters", "Xenophobic Traders", "Hungry carnivores" all tell me a lot more in two words.

So if the purpose of alignment is to give a two letter summary it doesn't do that. If it's to give a two word summary it's very bad at that.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I would think so too. But there's apparently a decent sized contingent (see the Strixhaven thread) that would never take powers away from a Warlock or Cleric or Paladin unless the player wanted them to lose those powers.

There's a reason that paladin falling mechanics are no longer a part of the game. The stories that happen from crises of faith are much better without DM brute force being the driving factor - and there are plenty of "the Order/Church is corrupt" stories that instant losses of power prohibit.

 

[Cadence]

What "two letters"? If we're going by the 5e Monster Manual it's two words.

[I thought I had edited the post to specify just before your reply hit, but apparently not. Anyway I assume it was clear.]

I don't have any 5e modules. Do they still use just the two letters in the stat lines in them? In any case, I assume you understand the concept of abbreviating by just using the leading letters when it is unambiguous by context (such as having a space in a list of layout designated for alignment).

And if we're going with two words then there are plenty of sets of two words that would do much better than "Chaotic Neutral" - "Hostile Territorial", "Agressive Slavers", "Elusive Pranksters", "Xenophobic Traders", "Hungry carnivores" all tell me a lot more in two words.

Will the PHB or DMG give a few sentences defining each of these? Or will we trust the readers to go with the natural English meaning of the word? (How does that trusting work with lawful, good, etc...)

Does Xenophobic mean against those from other villages? cultures? species? non-demihumans? non-humanoid? Do the pranksters do non harmful pranks or harmful ones? Are the slavers doing press gangs or chattel slavery, and are the kidnapping themselves or purchasing? What do the traders trade? Hobbit level hungry or non-stop eating hungry?

So if the purpose of alignment is to give a two letter summary it doesn't do that. If it's to give a two word summary it's very bad at that.

It feels like any limited description of human behavior (whether two letters, two words, or two sentences) quickly runs out of usefulness.

 

[Oofta]

And while I'm on the subject, D&D is a game that should be entry level. If too many people are hitting their thumbs with it then it's a flaw in either the design of the game or the use of the hammer.

It would be clearer to see with a power tool; if a band saw were to take too many fingers then you could blame the fingers lopped off and some amateurs would. On the other hand any responsible professional environment would do a health and safety check and realise that the whole thing was unsafe and look at installing finger guards.

One person hurts themselves is user error. A substantial fraction of people hurting themselves means that you look at the design of the tool.

Yes, the most successful TTRPG in history is failing miserably because someone somewhere might misuse alignment. Oh, and alignment is defined by what some dead guy said decades ago.

On the other hand, if people are using alignment in a way that is not approved by the Anti-Alignment Police but still having fun, why does it matter to you? If a group decides that creature X is always evil and go out to exterminate every last one, why do you care? If someone somewhere decides that orcs in their world are all LOTR orcs or controlled puppets of Grrumsh why does it matter to you? If you don't like that style of game, don't join that group. If you don't like alignment, don't use it.

The current official materials significantly downplays alignment, when it even discusses it at all. There is no more cosmic orientation by alignment. While I do believe it should be clearer, the alignment of any creature in the MM is just a default, it's not set in stone. The official published settings all have exceptions for at least some monsters. It doesn't matter what some dead guy, even Gary Gygax said who knows how long ago. In the current edition, alignment is just one descriptor of many for PCs. It's just the default for other groups, a quick label that gives DMs and players a general idea of what this fictional creature's role in the game is.

Some people just want to play the TTRPG version of DOOM and don't care what categorization the monstrous opponents have. Some people probably want to play My Little Pony Dragon where all conflict is just a misunderstanding and we all just need to hug it out. There is no wrong way to play as long as everyone at the table is having fun.

Oh yes. Their personality is "Lawful Evil." That's not a personality unless you're playing a comedy game based on Saturday Morning cartoons.

Again, no one is saying alignment is all encompassing. But even if it is for some groups, why do you care? How is it a problem?

 

[Cadence]

There's a reason that paladin falling mechanics are no longer a part of the game. The stories that happen from crises of faith are much better without DM brute force being the driving factor - and there are plenty of "the Order/Church is corrupt" stories that instant losses of power prohibit.

It feels like the famous cases in the real world holy books or myths I know of are where the powers stop working when they break too far away (or they are threatened with them not working or they are said they get to do them because of their exemplary faith or perfection). Do corrupt order stories work because no one in the hierarchy was doing obvious miracles on a daily basis?

I'm fine with cosmologies where miracle workers keep doing them even when lacking faith or going against the desires of their deity... but those aren't the only stories out there.

 

[Neonchameleon]

[I had edited the post to specify just before your reply hit. Sorry.]

I don't have any 5e modules. Do they still use just the two letters in the stat lines in them? In any case, I assume you understand the concept of abbreviating by just using the leading letters when it is unambiguous by context (such as having a space in a list of layout designated for alignment).

The only 5e module I have (Strahd) uses two words in the statblocks.

I understand the concept of using two letters. I also understand why 5e has chosen not to do this. Two letters is not common practice as far as I'm aware and hasn't been for a long time. Also if you have a section marked "alignment", which 5e statblocks do not, then it's not two letters - it's one word and two letters.

Will the PHB or DMG give a few sentences defining each of these? Or will we trust the readers to go with the natural English meaning of the word? (How does that trusting work with lawful, good, etc...)

Without getting too deep into politics for this board there are certain (mostly religious) groups I have extreme disagreements with over the nature of what good is, and this isn't limited to fringe groups like Westboro Baptist. I can't think of any groups I have such obvious disagreements with over words like "Xenophobic".

If you are calling one group good and another evil this is almost always a political stance, and one that will not be agreed with by a substantial group of players. See @Galandris and his post on orcs and quaggoths earlier.

Does Xenophobic mean against those from other villages? cultures? species? non-demihumans? non-humanoid? Do the pranksters do non harmful pranks or harmful ones? Are the slavers doing press gangs or chattel slavery, and are the kidnapping themselves or purchasing? What do the traders trade? Hobbit level hungry or non-stop eating hungry?


It feels like any limited description of human behavior (whether two letters, two words, or two sentences) quickly runs out of usefulness.

It's a starting point. There are much much better starting points than "This group is good, that group is evil and all people can be divided into nine categories".

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It feels like the famous cases in the real world holy books or myths I know of are where the powers stop working when they break too far away (or they are threatened with them not working or they are said they get to do them because of their exemplary faith or perfection). Do corrupt order stories work because no one in the hierarchy was doing obvious miracles on a daily basis?

I'm fine with cosmologies where miracle workers keep doing them even when lacking faith or going against the desires of their deity... but those aren't the only stories out there.

There's also middle ground where the gods technically can shut down the powers of their clerics and paladins, but are distant cosmic beings who are not super fussed about small scale human level stuff like whether their worshippers are jerks, so in practice almost never do so. As long as their temples stand, the rites are carried out and the worshippers do not directly and obviously go against the god's cosmic agenda the powers will keep working just fine.

 

[FrozenNorth]

No. Alignment is something objective in D&D. Orcs are not evil because of some resistance to land taking. Those orcs that are evil, are evil because they are actually evil. Not all orcs are evil by RAW.

And this is probably the entire reason why the two sides are disagreeing.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Yes, the most successful TTRPG in history is failing miserably because someone somewhere might misuse alignment. Oh, and alignment is defined by what some dead guy said decades ago.

The most successful edition of the most successful TTRPG in history is the most successful in part because it winnowed through things people had a problem with. Including flushing alignment out of the core rules. Even Paladins aren't very alignment restricted these days. It just didn't quite finish the job because it kept legacy elements that were iconic to D&D. And when it comes to making memes 9 point alignment is pretty good.

The current official materials significantly downplays alignment, when it even discusses it at all. There is no more cosmic orientation by alignment.

Indeed. It's one of the remaining relics kept in there not because it's useful or makes for a better game but because it was there in the early editions when D&D had a huge first mover advantage.

Again, no one is saying alignment is all encompassing. But even if it is for some groups, why do you care? How is it a problem?

If you want to play an all encompassing alignment system in your game then keep that in your game. It just doesn't belong in the default rules and races shouldn't be categorised by alignment.