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

[Helldritch]

Exactly how often do real life military squads or platoons, or the equivalent units in less organized forces, break down into squabbling between their units in the middle of a 30-second long deadly fight? That's what 'chaotic creatures don't coordinate and cooperate during combat' actually translates to in real life, not large-scale social movements fracturing into subgroups over longer-than-a-minute times and without the threat of guns directly firing at them.

I'm also confused by the implicit statement that, since this appears to be your characterization of Chaotic demons, it wouldn't apply to devils. Are you really saying that you'd expect devils "without the presence of strong leadership" to avoid fracturing into squabbling subgroups, even though that happens all the time in published works? If it's not a difference between devils and demons based on their alignment, what does it have to do with this specific conversation?



I'd also suggest reading about real-life political ideologies and what happens when small groups of them are involved in combat situations, because real people don't behave like you're saying. I mean, even the 'so over the top it would be unbelievable in a game' Chaotic Evil nation of Nazi Germany fielded military units that used excellent tactics all the way from small unit to operational level.

Have you never heard about a bad or obnoxious commander getting killed "accidentally" by a lost bullet from his own company/unit? It did happen, does happen and will continue to happen. This why the military investigate any officer's death when it is possible. Because such things happen in real life combat. Is it so hard to believe that demons, the epitome of chaos and evil can do it?

And as was so often said:" Evil feeds upon itself."

 

[Oofta]

I do ignore alignment.

The problem that I see is that, each individual player or table may find alignment very useful, but it's so depending on that individual's or table's belief that it's very hard for it to be consistent across the board. Like, would a Lawful person respect a high-ranking individual who is incompetent? (Or who isn't evil, good, or neutral enough.) Wanting to remove that individual from power and put a better-suited person in their place is at least a bit chaotic, especially if there aren't any hard and fast laws for expelling someone from office. And a Chaotic person can have great respect for someone just because of their title and status, even if there's no actual power in that title. They just might decide that the highest-ranked member of the Pastry Chef Guild is more worthy of respect than the Queen, because the Master Pastry Chef is really, really good at their job and clearly earned that title through hard work, while the Queen just had to be born to the right family.

And that doesn't even take into consideration people who play Lawful Awful or Chaotic Stupid or Neutral Boring.

Basically, while yes, I'm sure that you find alignment useful, I just don't think it's as useful as people think it is. I think people come in with a lot of their own decisions as to how individuals or societies work and only afterwards take alignment into consideration. (Seriously, how many people really play elven societies as Chaotic Good?)

I give a brief overview of how I view alignment in my session 0. Beyond that? I don't care if anyone follows a specific alignment or not. It's a guide for me as a DM, the players never know the alignments of NPCs or monsters. It's useful when I run a character. It's not a straightjacket, there is no penalty for not following your alignment (which we always ignored). Other than my broad no evil rule, I make no restrictions or judgements, I don't know or care what my PC's alignments are.

Therefore outside of a broad "don't do evil stuff, don't be a dick", it doesn't matter what individuals think of alignment. If someone does something I would consider evil I'll warn the player. Which is the issue I have with people saying we should get rid of it. There is no "wrong" way to run a specific alignment, I would just hope that people who do use it are reasonably consistent with in it's application. Despite what haters claim I find that most people are in the same ballpark in their interpretation of alignment.

As far as elves, I view them as a communal democracy. They may have kings and queens, but they only seem permanent from a human short-term perspective. I would peg a lot of depictions of elves as NG or even just straight up neutral.

 

[Dessert Nomad]

Have you never heard about a bad or obnoxious commander getting killed "accidentally" by a lost bullet from his own company/unit? It did happen, does happen and will continue to happen. This why the military investigate any officer's death when it is possible. Because such things happen in real life combat. Is it so hard to believe that demons, the epitome of chaos and evil can do it?

And as was so often said:" Evil feeds upon itself."

As I keep repeating and you keep overlooking, we were not talking about 'what will demons do' but 'what will demons do differently than devils that you can determine from the fact that they are Chaotic while devils are Lawful'. Are you asserting that devils, in contrast to demons, will not frag one of their leaders if they think they can get away with it? If devils also do it, then it fails to demonstrate an alignment difference. If you claim that devils don't do it, you're heavily at odds with the lore - a quick check on the Wiki entries for Zariel, Orcus, and Asmodeus show their subordinates constantly scheming to overthrow them.

As was so often said "Evil feeds upon itself" - but the difference in alignment between devils and demons is the law/chaos side, not good/evil.

 

[hopeless]

I picture elves as more Neutral with somewhat good tendencies however that does mean there are some evil tendencies too and I'm not talking drow here!

 

[Helldritch]

As I keep repeating and keep overlooking, we were not talking about 'what will demons do' but 'what will demons do differently than devils that you can determine from the fact that they are Chaotic while devils are Lawful'. Are you asserting that devils, in contrast to demons, will not frag one of their leaders if they think they can get away with it? If devils also do it, then it fails to demonstrate an alignment difference. If you claim that devils don't do it, you're heavily at odds with the lore - a quick check on the Wiki entries for Zariel, Orcus, and Asmodeus show their subordinates constantly scheming to overthrow them.

As was so often said "Evil feeds upon itself" - but the difference in alignment between devils and demons is the law/chaos side, not good/evil.

And did you forget my first answer to you? I have shown you when and why, and you replied that no military units would do such tactical blunders. I show they did and still do and yet, you bring back the same argument about law vs chaos that I have shown you... So just read again the previous post and keep in my the other. You will have all the answers you need to prove that this part of the alignment works. And if this one does, then the other aspects do too!

 

[Dessert Nomad]

And did you forget my first answer to you? I have shown you when and why, and you replied that no military units would do such tactical blunders.

I simply did not say that, and based on this I don't see any point in further discussion between us.

 

[Faolyn]

Interesting list, thanks for sharing.

Assuming the 2024 revision removes alignment (which seems likely), going to be interesting to see how some of those change. For example, will artifacts that expect evil wielders be perfectly cool for pious paladins to use? Or will they now look for specific BIFT descriptors? Or will DMs just get to choose whether a PC is "evil" enough?

I think those artifacts would work extra hard in corrupting good people, probably by inflicting unpleasant Flaws on them.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

As I keep repeating and you keep overlooking, we were not talking about 'what will demons do' but 'what will demons do differently than devils that you can determine from the fact that they are Chaotic while devils are Lawful'. Are you asserting that devils, in contrast to demons, will not frag one of their leaders if they think they can get away with it? If devils also do it, then it fails to demonstrate an alignment difference. If you claim that devils don't do it, you're heavily at odds with the lore - a quick check on the Wiki entries for Zariel, Orcus, and Asmodeus show their subordinates constantly scheming to overthrow them.

As was so often said "Evil feeds upon itself" - but the difference in alignment between devils and demons is the law/chaos side, not good/evil.

Devils will do it on occasion if they think it will be of benefit to themselves and that they can get away with it. This is because their Lawfulness is tainted by Evil (unlike the modrons), though a devil that tries to work their way up the hierarchy based on treachery alone will likely find themselves overwhelmed when it comes to actually being able to meet soul quotas, lead troops in the Blood War, and other duties. All devils ultimately answer to Asmodeus and are subservient to him, so they can't just bully other devils into submission like a demon would; they have to be able to do their jobs or be demoted.

Meanwhile, demons frequently fight amongst one another unless forced by a more powerful demon to cooperate under threat of destruction, and even then there are lots of demon lords and would-be demon lords warring against one another. If Demogorgon, Graz'zt, Orcus, Yeenoghu, Baphomet, Zuggtmoy, Juiblex, Fraz-Urb'luu, Kostchtchie, Malcanthet, Dagon, Pazuzu, Oublivae, Ugudenk, and the many other demon lords actually worked together they'd probably be able to defeat the devils and the Nine Hells relatively quickly with the sheer size of the Abyss' hordes. The thing is that they'll never work together (or if some did, it won't be long), because each is too covetous of being the greatest of demon kind to compromise. It'd be more likely for an outsider to learn the true names of a large number of demon lords and force them to work together than for them to do it on their own.

There are those among the archdevils who wish to take Asmodeus' place, but they're still willing to play their role in the system while Asmodeus is at the top because it is through the system that they gain and maintain the power that Asmodeus sees fit to grant. Meanwhile, the demon lords would be loath to fall in line under Demogorgon or any other leader both because they do not personally benefit from the authority and power of a leader the way that all devils in existence benefit from Asmodeus and because it would be against their nature to suppress their individual desires and serve.

 

[Marc_C]

I see people got bored of TSR3 threads.
Back to the same old "comfort food" debates.

 

[Helldritch]

Devils will do it on occasion if they think it will be of benefit to themselves and that they can get away with it. This is because their Lawfulness is tainted by Evil (unlike the modrons), though a devil that tries to work their way up the hierarchy based on treachery alone will likely find themselves overwhelmed when it comes to actually being able to meet soul quotas, lead troops in the Blood War, and other duties. All devils ultimately answer to Asmodeus and are subservient to him, so they can't just bully other devils into submission like a demon would; they have to be able to do their jobs or be demoted.

Meanwhile, demons frequently fight amongst one another unless forced by a more powerful demon to cooperate under threat of destruction, and even then there are lots of demon lords and would-be demon lords warring against one another. If Demogorgon, Graz'zt, Orcus, Yeenoghu, Baphomet, Zuggtmoy, Juiblex, Fraz-Urb'luu, Kostchtchie, Malcanthet, Dagon, Pazuzu, Oublivae, Ugudenk, and the many other demon lords actually worked together they'd probably be able to defeat the devils and the Nine Hells relatively quickly with the sheer size of the Abyss' hordes. The thing is that they'll never work together (or if some did, it won't be long), because each is too covetous of being the greatest of demon kind to compromise. It'd be more likely for an outsider to learn the true names of a large number of demon lords and force them to work together than for them to do it on their own.

There are those among the archdevils who wish to take Asmodeus' place, but they're still willing to play their role in the system while Asmodeus is at the top because it is through the system that they gain and maintain the power that Asmodeus sees fit to grant. Meanwhile, the demon lords would be loath to fall in line under Demogorgon or any other leader both because they do not personally benefit from the authority and power of a leader the way that all devils in existence benefit from Asmodeus and because it would be against their nature to suppress their individual desires and serve.

Excellent analysis. Same stance as I have but much more detailed. And, though we do not know each other, we have the same understanding. Impressive for something that is supposed to be so vague that no one can agree on anything on it...

In all the tables I have been on or simply coached; most of the times, alignments are relatively straight forward and most disagreements were minor squabbles. I find it strange that those that are pro alignment agree about the generalities but not those against it... I guess it is simply a matter of preferences.