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

[Hex08]

No I did not, and no I am not. To not be aware of these issues is to be willfully ignorant. You don't have to be "online" to recognize racism in popular culture. You are entirely too forgiving of racists. That reflects badly on you. Being anti-racist is hard work but it needs to be done, even in gaming.

You did and you do.

I am not forgiving of racists but I am forgiving of the limitations of normal people. No one can be as informed as you expect them to be. You are simply unwilling to accept that no one is able to be aware of everything. TTRPG's are a niche hobby, and a small subset of those people probably follow it online or are even intimately familiar with the rules/rulebooks. No one anywhere has any obligation to deeply informed on every topic. I envy your god-like omniscience. To be so self-righteous and self-assured is a luxury few have but one that, unfortunately, some embrace even though it is an obvious illusion.

The people in any gaming group who are casual players have no obligation to read the Monster Manual. They have no obligation to be aware of the racial implications of the presentation of fictional monsters in a book they have never read. Even those who have read them but have never made the connection that some see does not make them racist.

That you are willing to make badly thought out assumptions about other people reflects badly on you and for that you have my pity.

 

[Aging Bard]

You did and you do.

I am not forgiving of racists but I am forgiving of the limitations of normal people. No one can be as informed as you expect them to be. You are simply unwilling to accept that no one is able to be aware of everything. TTRPG's are a niche hobby, and a small subset of those people probably follow it online or are even intimately familiar with the rules/rulebooks. No one anywhere has any obligation to deeply informed on every topic. I envy your god-like omniscience. To be so self-righteous and self-assured is a luxury few have but one that, unfortunately, some embrace even though it is an obvious illusion.

The people in any gaming group who are casual players have no obligation to read the Monster Manual. They have no obligation to be aware of the racial implications of the presentation of fictional monsters in a book they have never read. Even those who have read them but have never made the connection that some see does not make them racist.

That you are willing to make badly thought out assumptions about other people reflects badly on you and for that you have my pity.

No, it reflects badly on you to forgive people's blatant ignorant racism, what you call the "limitations of ordinary people". It's vile that you forgive this. I expect people to be informed about what they can see with their own eyes. It has noting to do with the Monster Manual. People of goodwill and thoughtfulness can tell when art incorporates racism. You are the self-righteous one to forgive this. You are a bad person who thinks they are good because you forgive other bad people. No, it's bad all the way down. Stop digging.

 

[Cadence]

No, it reflects badly on you to forgive people's blatant ignorant racism, what you call the "limitations of ordinary people". It's vile that you forgive this. I expect people to be informed about what they can see with their own eyes. It has noting to do with the Monster Manual. People of goodwill and thoughtfulness can tell when art incorporates racism. You are the self-righteous one to forgive this. You are a bad person who thinks they are good because you forgive other bad people. No, it's bad all the way down. Stop digging.

I'm pretty sure folks who don't spend time on message boards and twitter have a good chance of never having thought about it enough in that light to realize some of these issues are a thing. I might be inclined to give them time to stumble across it and digest it before judging them as "bad people".

 

[Minigiant]

You consistently assume that they have data that they've done nothing to gather?

I consistently assume they make or decline changes based on data and not gut feelings, personal desires, or unresearched backlash.

Er, I just pointed out how if you remove alignment entirely, all the problems still remain. That means that it isn't either alignment or a failure to teach properly. It's primarily problem people and fluff lore. I agree that they should teach better, but that doesn't make that the issue, either.

My point is that the lore is based on alignment. Drow are chronic backstabbers because that what a group of CEs do to each other (aka demons)
Orcs are shortsighted selfish raiders because that is what CE savages do (aka demons)

The problem is CE demons are immortal, don't eat, and their power is collectively conserved and it is hard to sap energy from the fiendish feedback loop. It doesn't make sense for CE humaniod nations whose members eat, die, and don't come back after death. Prescribing alignments on nations only make sense in epic fantasy AND it sometime it doesn't even work there. This needs to be taught.

I don't necessarily agree with that, but I'm open to teaching better anyway. I think if it was taught better, some of those currently finding no use would finally get it.

Before last year, most of the anti-alignnment discussions I've seen were either story/lore related or restriction related.

"Drow are poorly written" and "Menzoberranzan doesn't make sense" are old conversation starters.

In the context of, "My opinion is that it has no use, remove it!!!!!!!" As I said above, if people just advocated for a better explanation rather than removal, they'd get a lot of support.

People are people.
They will op for removal of they don't like over change.
Only those who like the item will suggest adaption.

 

[Maxperson]

No, it reflects badly on you to forgive people's blatant ignorant racism, what you call the "limitations of ordinary people". It's vile that you forgive this. I expect people to be informed about what they can see with their own eyes. It has noting to do with the Monster Manual. People of goodwill and thoughtfulness can tell when art incorporates racism. You are the self-righteous one to forgive this. You are a bad person who thinks they are good because you forgive other bad people. No, it's bad all the way down. Stop digging.

Ignorance about whether something that they aren't even doing is racist is not racism. It reflects badly on you to be calling people who don't know better and aren't engaging in racism, racists.

 

[Maxperson]

I consistently assume they make or decline changes based on data and not gut feelings, personal desires, or unresearched backlash.

That's a bad assumption to make. Companies fail that metric every day and WotC is no exception. They didn't do the research and the information doesn't come to them through the cosmos on fluttering butterfly wings, so they don't know.

My point is that the lore is based on alignment. Drow are chronic backstabbers because that what a group of CEs do to each other (aka demons)
Orcs are shortsighted selfish raiders because that is what CE savages do (aka demons)

They're chronic backstabbers because that's what Lolth made them through the lore. They were assigned the CE alignment, because that fit the lore. Remove it and they are still chronic backstabbers. Neither alignment, nor failure to teach properly are the issue there.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

Now I'm wondering how large numbers of good ogres, hill giants, trolls, merrow, ettercaps, and other creatures could possibly be handled. D&D took a bunch of creatures from folklore and mythology that were almost always a dangerous threat to people, but current sensibilities seem to demand that the dangerous, man-eating creatures of centuries prior should be humanized.

There's a kind of novelty to the idea, but changing the assumption from, for example, "trolls are mostly evil monsters that ambush people to devour them alive" (as they have been for centuries) to "trolls are people with no particular leaning towards evil versus humans" ends up defeating the reason why trolls are even in D&D in the first place. Monsters are meant to be challenges to overcome (both in D&D and throughout gaming). The recent humanization of monsters that for centuries were almost uniformly depicted as evil upsets things quite a bit. If trolls and other beings are no longer predominantly evil, will the average D&D city change to one where you can see trolls and ogres and giants as visitors and citizens?

I'm curious if WotC will go along with the humanization of monsters or make more of them either supernaturally evil in origin, like gnolls, or evil people who voluntarily transformed into monsters, like lamias, minotaurs, medusas, and yuan-ti. I'm also curious if such a change would affect how monsters are handled throughout gaming, or if D&D alone would change.

 

[Mecheon]

That's pretty bad. LOL I haven't read Theros much.

Mate, if they published Deities and Demigods today, lemme tell you, I would tear that book an absolute new one.

Now I'm wondering how large numbers of good ogres, hill giants, trolls, merrow, ettercaps, and other creatures could possibly be handled

I mean, pop culture has a really famous example of a good-ish ogre. Just wants to be left alone in his swamp, and all.

I've had thoughts on it going back to 3E's forest trolls, which were smaller, more player-friendly trolls, basically going full wendigo with 'em and implying trolls grow bigger if they eat more, which makes them hungrier and turns them into the crazed regular trolls we all know and makes their regen go into overdrive.

Ettercaps are fine, they're just spider dudes doing spider things

 

[Cadence]

Now I'm wondering how good ogres, hill giants, trolls, morrow, and other creatures could possibly be handled. D&D took a bunch of creatures from folklore and mythology that were almost always a dangerous threat to people, but current sensibilities seem to demand that the dangerous, man-eating creatures of centuries prior can't all be evil.

There's a kind of novelty to the idea, but changing the assumption from, for example, "trolls are mostly evil monsters that ambush people to devour them alive" to "trolls are people with no particular leaning towards evil versus humans" ends up defeating the reason why trolls are even in D&D in the first place. Monsters are meant to be challenges to overcome. The recent humanization of monsters that for centuries were almost uniformly depicted as evil upsets things quite a bit.

I think one alternative being pushed is to treat the ones that are basically people in masks and have sentience, especially if they can breed with humans, as "people". Basically, the "humanoids". So the "giants" and "aberrations" and the like could still be monstrous by that.

Others want everything with sentience treated that way. It feels like the definition of sentience used in the discussion generally leaves out various mammals, birds, octopi and others that science seems to debate over, so the poor stirge, kraken, or hellhound might be leftout even if there brain is up to snuff.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Trolls are kind of on the fence; some universes make them nonsapient animals (e.g. the Elder Scrolls) while others make them fully sapient human-analogues (e.g. Warcraft). So that's sort of one where you have the leeway to make a decision, but you must decide. No more of this "dangerous man-eating creature....that is also just as sapient as a human."

Unless, of course, you do something like mindflayers, where they're gross and weird and openly parasitic and living by literal murder (not just PETA "murder"). But even there, there's a push to either make it a choice (e.g. "brain moss" is an alternative) or drop them.