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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Faolyn" data-source="post: 8286950" data-attributes="member: 6915329">I'm saying alignment useless because it doesn't perform the job you claim it does.Because by that point, the NPC is no longer nameless and you've likely figured out its background and/or personality. And you yourself said that "[questions about motivation] won't be answered by ANY stat block. Again (and I cannot stress this enough), I am not talking about important NPCs with full back stories."So neither am I. You barely even need a few sentences of backstory before it becomes more useful than a written alignment, let alone a full developed one.Also, you keep claiming that alignment is like weapons or AC or hp, but have yet to show how, when those three things have strict definitions and rules as to how they're used and nobody in nearly 50 years can even agree on what any one alignment actually means.If you've been playing D&D for forty years, you're more than capable of telling your players to hold on for a moment while you figure things out. I do. You've failed to understand what I've said:If it's a nameless NPC, then you don't need it to have an alignment. You need it to fill a function. If you make this nameless NPC respond to the PCs, then you will  cause it to naturally develop a personality of its own based on the way the PCs are acting. Thus, you don't need an alignment, because you're developing its personality and that's more important than its alignment. Knowing that a nameless NPC is chaotic evil won't tell you anything about how it reacts to the PCs and won't provide you with any useful information "on the fly." Both a LG shopkeeper and a CE shopkeeper can be meek and obsequious or brash and demanding. But since you keep insisting alignment is somehow important for on-the-fly GMing, what information does alignment actually tell you about the NPC? Seriously. Try actually answering the question instead of whining that nobody is listening to you or we're being mean to you: a shopkeeper is chaotic evil. The PCs enter his shop. Now what? Or are you going to say I'm a jerk and not answer me again?I wasn't aware we were on reddit or facebook, where likes counted for anything. Good to know. Enjoy your internet points.Considering that WotC has decided to get rid of alignment, and most other gaming systems never had alignment to begin with, it's more than "purely us three guys" talking about it. I'd wager it's the majority of the industry and fanbase realizing it's alignment is unnecessary and just a handful of people complaining that they've been using alignment for ever and ever so how dare they change it.</blockquote>

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