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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Voadam" data-source="post: 9625271" data-attributes="member: 2209">I think there are two general positive views on 4e and 5e alignment taking out most alignment mechanics but having alignment for PCs and monsters.One is having a dislike of alignment and so the huge downplaying of it is preferable to having alignment mechanics for classes and spells and monster mechanics and magic items and planes and such or having it as descriptors for PCs and monsters at all. Having it just as narrative descriptors makes it entirely easy to ignore entirely in practice.The other is liking having alignment being narrative only, a hook that players can use for character portrayal and roleplaying if they want and DMs can use for roleplaying or giving a hook to monster characterization. Definitions of law and chaos and even good and evil are vague and ambiguous and can be done many different ways. Having your own interpretation and going with it means your CE orc society might be different from someone else's CE orc society when they are running, but it gives both of you a quick hook you can use to differentiate them from a LE hobgoblin society in your games. The same for a CG good character who might be focused on treating people like individuals and avoiding prejudices or on being anti-authoritarian. 4e and 5e took out the player mechanics like Paladins falling if they did an evil act where there can be conflicts between a DM and player on what constitutes an evil act and requires DM policing and judging of player choices which requires players to consider how the DM might react to their player action choices instead of focusing on how they feel they should or want to play their character according to their own understanding of a good warrior champion. Leaving in alignments for PCs and monsters means that if a player wants to use classic LG champion as their paladin hook they have some defined definitions to base their characterization off of. Some like to play off the sheet and try to base their characterization off the character creation details (stats, alignment, BIFTs, background, race, class, etc.). While I prefer roleplaying going off of internal concepts or what comes out and develops in play regardless of what the sheet says I am perfectly fine with choosing to use one or some or all of the sheet stuff as a basis for roleplaying.</blockquote>

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