Or their words. Whether he's a new user or not, he is aware of and has knowledge of the older editions, as does everyone else I've been talking to.
Wait, so now it isn't "new people" now it is "knowledgeable people"? That's a pretty big moving of goal posts that you just did.
Information that a minority of people have no use for and a majority do, is not a negative. You don't want to use it, don't.
Quite a bit to unpack here.
1) You have no way of knowing that the majority of people have a use for this information. You are basing this on absolutely nothing.
2) I find it very unlikely that the majority of people would have a use for this information, due to the constraints we discussed. Anyone "knowledgeable" enough about the older editions to already have a use from alignment don't need this information. Those that don't use alignment like myself, will find no use for it. So, the only people who would get use from it are the new people who want to use alignment but find that the current amount of information is inadequate. That does not sound like the majority of players to me.
3) Here is that point that you said was "irrelevant" before. If I don't want to use (or am confused by) it then I shouldn't use it. Which, implies that the game functions perfectly without alignment.
Because it's easy, that's why.
Obviously not, you just seem to think it is easy because you have constructed a decades long paradigm based around it. To you, by this point, it must be easy, but clearly it is not easy for everyone.
Heck, if it is so easy, why do you want an expansion of the alignment text? It is so easy you can't imagine people are confused by it, so expanding it would be pointless. It is too easy to need an expansion.
No. I want it for the people who have limited use because of the limited 5e language. For those of you who refuse to understand it, I don't really care if you read the new text or not.
But it is so easy, so the limited text shouldn't be a problem.
And again, you say that those of us who don't love alignment like you do are simply refusing to understand it. To you, it is impossible for a problem to exist, it must instead be that we are malicious actors.
Their experience is 13+ years old. That was the last time alignment could be used negatively. Since 4e, alignment isn't the problem, bad DM's and bad Players are. Without alignment, they'd just use some other excuse to be abusive.
But 5e alignment needs an expansion because it is inadequate and doesn't work? But 5e alignment is also impossible to be a problem?
Heck, you claim that the only possible explanation for issues people claim to be based on alignment is that abusive players and abusive DMs are being abusive. It can't be the tool they are using, because they'd be abusive no matter what. But, then you are painting those of us who don't like alignment as... what? Ignorant? Malicious? Abusive?
See, you are setting up this perfect little paradigm. If people agree with you about alignment, it is because they are intelligent enough to understand it. But alignment needs an expansion, because 5e alignment is flawed. But if we disagree with you, it is because we are maliciously refusing to understand a system that is so incredibly easy to understand that it is impossible to be confused by. And any problems we have are irrelevant because they stem from versions of alignment from 3.X, which haven't been true for over 13 years.
And how do you want to expand alignment? By making it closer to what it was in 3.X. And if it is something we don't agree with, it is because we have malicious intent. We want to remove something that you use from the game. And if we talk about how it was misused, that is because of abusive players who would have found some other way to be abusive, not because the tool itself was flawed.
At every turn, you set it up so that Alignment is an unassailable good for the game, because anyone who disagrees with you is ignorant, malicious or abusive. In your mind, it is impossible to have a good faith disagreement with alignment.
Necessary" is a Red Herring. Nothing in the game is necessary to play. It can all be removed completely or re-worked in another manner. Hit points? Not necessary. Armor class? Not necessary. Class? Not necessary. Monsters? Not necessary. Experience? Not necessary. Treasure? Not necessary. And so on.
For DnD to function as written Hit Points are necessary, if you remove them the game does not function as written.
For DnD to function as written Armor Class is necessary, if you remove it the game does not function as written.
For DnD to function as written Classes are necessary, if you remove them the game does not function as written.
For DnD to function as written Monsters are necessary, if you remove them the game does not function as written.
Treasure and Experience? I'll give you those two. Amusingly, Experience is something that I loathe and remove from every single game of DnD that I play in. In fact, I've had DMs try to enforce XP... and give up about six sessions in. And treasure is highly variable.
Now, can you rework HP, AC, Classes or Monsters and make a functional game? Sure. I was playing a game earlier today that had none of those things. And it worked very well. But, let us say that I just deleted HP from the game and said "Okay, we are playing DnD and all I've done is remove all hp from the game." Do you honestly think the game still functions as intended? Not for a single session, but going forward for all time in every mode of play the game is meant to contain, does it still work without HP? No. Same with AC. Same with Classes. Same with the concept of Monsters (which I assume you mean to refer to enemy statblocks, and not specific monsters like dragons or beholders, because that is a far different category)
However, I have removed Alignment from my games. Completely. I didn't rework it, it simply does not exist. And my game continues to function just fine. So, much like if you wanted to expand the rules for Expeirence Gain in DnD, I would ask you what the intended good is of that expansion. We don't need it. Quite a lot of people don't want it. And it seems to have no benefit for the game. Unless you can tell em the specific benefits of expanding alignment. Not "The benefits are obvious if you understand the system, which you refuse to understand because you don't like alignment". That is a cop out that denigrates me and refuses to engage. Give me the benefits you would expect to see from expanding alignment.
Who asked the question you mean. It is implied that you think it is not, which is part of my point.
Alignment as it was used in 3e(minus 3e's alignment mechanics) is not a flawed tool at all. There are only people who misuse the tool, making it a people problem, not an alignment problem.
Interesting. So, you do want to take alignment back to the time period that everyone is complaining about, that "your complaint's haven't been valid for 13 years" but you don't want to expand the mechanics of it, just the description. Back to the time which I can say definitively, I found alignment to be very confusing. But to you, this is a problem with the people, not the tool, because the tools cannot be flawed, because you like the tool.
What confused you about it? It's not as if it was a straightjacket. It's just a tool to aid in roleplay. Use what parts of it you like and ignore the rest. And 1e did in fact have 9 point alignment.
The tool did not aid my roleplaying, it hindered my roleplaying. I had a concept I wanted to play, then I was told I was required to put that concept in a box labeled alignment. And that concept did not fit in a box. I have played many characters that alignment seems unable to define.
You say "it isn't a straightjacket" like that has some meaning, yet you don't even understand what issue I had with it. The issue isn't that it is a straightjacket, the issue is that it doesn't make sense. The points they use to define the boxes can even be contradictory, as we have established in this thread and in the thread "Chaos is the Problem" that you have also replied in.
And then we get to the even more amusing part of it. You are talking about 3.X alignment, the alignment you want to take 5e back to. And your advice to someone who says they found it confusing (after being unable to understand how) is to tell them to use what they like and abandon the rest. So, the 3.X version of alignment still had parts that were easily ignored and not needed for the game to be played as intended. So, you want to expand alignment to a version that could easily have parts cut out of it, and nothing of value could be lost. Which seems like... a useless expansion.
