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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mistwell" data-source="post: 8286699" data-attributes="member: 2525">OK. Where would you like me to tell it to them? I've used good aligned orcs in every edition of D&D sometimes with no trouble. What was it that caused you trouble when you tried it with a prior edition?I am not going to argue on behalf of ImagineGod. I think that's a silly argument. I don't buy that the alignment listing for NPCs resulted in obedience to that alignment, or that removing it causes DMs to just flap in the wind like an untied flag completely unable to determine how to play an NPC. All I am arguing, and the only position I intend to defend, is that alignment can be useful sometimes for DMs who, by necessity in the moment, need to make a judgement on the fly based on a glance and the alignment section could be helpful for that. Removing it removes a tool I and others sometimes found useful, but all it ever represented was a baseline tool and not something set in stone.Yes I would have. Of course I would have, and I think most DMs who gain experience do that. IF I had the time to prepare. What I've been saying (and which I feel you've been ignoring) is that alignment as a tool comes up most often, at least in my games, when on the fly the PCs do something which involves an NPC that I didn't anticipate would happen. And so on the fly I have to determine how that NPC will behave without pausing the game, and alignment could be a useful tool to do that. It also MIGHT have something to do with the plot later on that the writers anticipated and so it sure is helpful to know what they had in mind for this NPC in the moment. Of course I can change it. And of course it can be useful to have it. It's the later you don't seem to want to address.Who is reading all that description on each monster's page in the MM in the moment it comes up in a game? Not me! If rando gnoll NPC comes up in a game where I didn't expect it would need to, I am not opening the MM to read all about gnolls. I am glancing in the moment quickly at a stat line and coming up with something on the fly, and the alignment will be part of the tools used to do that. As will intelligence, wisdom, charisma, equipment, and possibly their physical stats as well. Do most gnolls have a reputation for being chaotic evil? If yes, then either I am making this gnoll chaotic evil too OR I am quickly coming up with some reason why they break from that reputation, all influenced by the context of the encounter and setting we're playing in. But alignment first and foremost is an efficient tool which communicates something about an NPC which the DM can use or decide to not use.Expediency in the moment. Much like we could be running D&D with wound systems and luck systems and faith systems and speed and other factors each independently calculating a total for that system for each creature, OR we could for expediency sake use the shorthand known as Hit Points to represent all those things and more. Same goes for Armor Class, for example. It's just a stat like any other stat: it represents a larger array of elements, and has flexibility behind it to focus on one of those larger elements when the need arises, but it can be used as a summary also when expediency is called for.It's not an entire races moral and ethical outlook however. It's not represented as such in the MM either. Directly from the MM, "The alignment specified in a monster's stat block is the default. Feel free to depart from it and change a monster' s alignment to suit the needs of your campaign. If you want a good-aligned green dragon or an evil storm giant, there's nothing stopping you."  This, by the way, is fairly similar to how the MM describes monster equipment entries as well.It's a baseline for typical encounters. Exactly like equipment. You can vary equipment, but if you need to know on the fly what a typical gnoll you might encounter in this game might carry, it's a spear and a longbow. Which is why their entry includes a spear and longbow entry. Much like you can vary their alignment, but if you need to know on the fly what a typical gnoll you might encounter in the game might have for an alignment it's chaotic evil, which is why their entry includes it.There have been decades of arguments on scimitars too. Like WHY OH WHY CAN DRUIDS USE A METAL SCIMITAR? Page and pages of debate on that question alone. More debates on why even have a scimitar when it's just a curved sword and we could just use a longsword and describe it that way. Even more debates on how long a scimitar might be, and the difference between a scimitar and a tulwar, kilij, pulwar, shamshir, szabla, shotel, and kirpaan. And can a scimitar be a piercing weapon or must it be a slashing weapon even though some historically used it both ways? And why is a cutlass not considered a scimitar?It's a rules focused forum. If you think there have not been decades of arguments on pretty much anything in the game which has existed in most or all of the editions, you're mistaken. Alignment is no different.</blockquote>

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