D&D General Why do people like Alignment?

[EzekielRaiden]

I think we have vastly different ideas on what makes a trickster deity (or its followers) tick.

Gaming the system would be the purview of, to use alignment terms, a Lawful Evil sort, or maybe Neutral Evil. Chaotic Evil or Chaotic Neutral would more want to upend or destroy the system in favour of unpredictability, randomness, and chaos.

A Chaotic Neutral trickster deity is out for chaos, pranks (whether harmful or not), practical jokes (ditto), and the dismantling of heirarchies and organized structures and systems wherever they may be found. It's pretty easy to imagine CN trickster deities seeding things like Decks and Wands of Wonder into the world just for the chaos they cause.

Sounds to me like you are presuming alignment and then using it to derive other things.

Perhaps it would be better to start from what tricking people is like? Pranks aren't chaos, they're just frivolity. "Dismantling of hierarchies" is often done specifically by bending the system back upon itself.

Again, you're not talking about tricksters--people who hoodwink others for some benefit or advantage. You're talking about anarchists. An anarchist need not be a trickster at all. In fact, I would say most anarchists aren't. Likewise, most tricksters aren't anarchists. Some are quite happy to exploit flaws in an existing system to enrich themselves without bending the knee to said system.

Remember, Anansi is a trickster. Crow is a trickster. Maui is a trickster. There are tons of trickster deities that aren't interested in tearing down any systems. Heck, several mythologies have a trickster deity as the creator of humanity--or, at the very least, the happy tutor of humanity, giving us the wily ways to survive in a world full of hostile environments and dangerous animals.

Casting Cure Xxxxx Wounds doesn't make a servant out of a Cleric's deity. Other than grnaing the spells in the morning, neither the deity nor its assistants have to be involved.

Sure it does. You have to call up that energy from somewhere when you cast it. Prepping spells is unrelated to the actual energy of casting it.

Commune, however, is a different beast because in this case you in fact are forcing the direct involvement of the deity (or a high-placed associate) to provide the answers to the questions asked.

Nope! It just requires an "otherworldly entity". Nothing whatsoever is specified about deific anything, since druids and wizards can also cast it and they don't have any divine hierarchy to call upon. Specifically, the relevant spell text says: "You receive an omen from an otherworldly entity about the results of a course of action that you plan to take within the next 30 minutes. The DM chooses the omen from the Omens table."

Perhaps it might have been otherwise in previous editions! But it isn't in 5e.

As such, Commune is the only spell that forces God to answer the phone; and it's perfectly understandable if on receiving multiple such calls from the same Cleric in short order re what is in the grand scheme of things a trivial subject, God gets a bit hacked off. Because here, you are treating God like a servant at your beck and call.

It forces no god to do anything at all. It simply gets an accurate (albeit imprecise) answer from an "otherworldly entity" once per day, and then progressively higher risk of getting either a random result (5.0) or total silence (5.5), until, once you've cast it four times, it's guaranteed random/silent.

 

[Lanefan]

Sounds to me like you are presuming alignment and then using it to derive other things.

Perhaps it would be better to start from what tricking people is like? Pranks aren't chaos, they're just frivolity. "Dismantling of hierarchies" is often done specifically by bending the system back upon itself.

Again, you're not talking about tricksters--people who hoodwink others for some benefit or advantage. You're talking about anarchists. An anarchist need not be a trickster at all. In fact, I would say most anarchists aren't. Likewise, most tricksters aren't anarchists. Some are quite happy to exploit flaws in an existing system to enrich themselves without bending the knee to said system.

Remember, Anansi is a trickster. Crow is a trickster. Maui is a trickster. There are tons of trickster deities that aren't interested in tearing down any systems. Heck, several mythologies have a trickster deity as the creator of humanity--or, at the very least, the happy tutor of humanity, giving us the wily ways to survive in a world full of hostile environments and dangerous animals.

Chaotic = anarchist, at the root.

The tricksters you're describing don't seem very Chaotic. (Ab)Using the system or exploiting flaws to benefit yourself is IMO Lawful Evil all day long.

Sure it does. You have to call up that energy from somewhere when you cast it. Prepping spells is unrelated to the actual energy of casting it.

No idea how 5e handles it but in earlier editions you got your 3rd-5th level spells delivered by a minion during morning prayers while your 6th-7th level spells came direct from your deity. That was the extent of their involvement for the day; you've been granted the ability to cast those spells today so off you go and cast them. The actual magical energy used is the same as what arcanists use, only manipulated and accessed in a different way.

Except for Commune. Here you're asking questions direct of your deity and - one assumes - expecting answers.

Nope! It just requires an "otherworldly entity". Nothing whatsoever is specified about deific anything, since druids and wizards can also cast it and they don't have any divine hierarchy to call upon. Specifically, the relevant spell text says: "You receive an omen from an otherworldly entity about the results of a course of action that you plan to take within the next 30 minutes. The DM chooses the omen from the Omens table."

That sounds much more like how Augury used to work. Sure you're not mixing the two spells up?

And if that is in fact the modern Commune, boy have they ever nerfed that into the ground.