D&D General Why do people like Alignment?

[kermit4karate]

Yeah. I don't think a lot of people realize that the D&D multiverse contains every official setting ever made and ever will be made, as well as every homebrew setting ever made or will be made. People love to reuse gods, so the gods that have appeared in official supplements have made appearances in a great, great many settings. And that doesn't include those gods who are known in another setting by a different name, but are the same god.

Gods are very busy at all times.

Oh, my gosh! I think I just broke the matrix. What if my homebrew setting includes explicit house rules preventing its inclusion in the official D&D multiverse??

 

[Lanefan]

Your deities are limited by something so basic as rate limits of linear time,

Well, yes; barring something highly unusual even deities are bound by the universal fact that time only flows one way.

and how many cognitive threads they can manage at once?

A lot, but there's still a limit; plus they've probably got other things on their plates as well.

 

[Lanefan]

Oh, my gosh! I think I just broke the matrix. What if my homebrew setting includes explicit house rules preventing its inclusion in the official D&D multiverse??

--- poof ---


Your setting vanishes in a puff of smoke.

 

[Maxperson]

There's a deity in 2e's Legends & Lore whose priests are granted the power to cast Commune once each day. I rather doubt that they'd be annoyed if said priests actually used that power every day.

I bet if they were communing to find their lost keys and misplaced silver piece he would be.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Self correcting is a trait of self awareness and use of intelligence guided by wisdom. Not an alignment trait. Libertarians embrace chaos. They think people will adjust and it will all be ok without rules. Self correcting for your mistakes or to change how you do things to obtain goals is not a lawful act. It's an act of intelligence and wisdom to adjust to the world around you so you can succeed. Any creature of any Alignment can do it.

This is why we keep having alignment wars because Alignment is just the belief in how Law, Chaos(freedom),evil (i can hurt people to benefit me) and good (I can't hurt people to benefit me) should be the base of laws, actions and belief structures. It will affect decisions but won't necessarily prevent things like fear, or , self correction, or ego and pridefullness convincing someone that the ends justify the means. (which strangely can be done as an evil person doing good to get to the evil end. Just as much as a good person doing an evil thing to achieve a good end) . Any good person can be afraid and do the wrong thing. They'll just know it was wrong. Any evil person can do a good thing because it achieves long term goals. Or because they are in love or just in a good mood. I really wish DND would clearly state that Alignment is a view of how the world should run not a personality type. Because the idea of Alignment as a personality type is what gets us Lawful Stupid and Chaotic Crazy characters that never ever allow situations or actions to influence thier wierd and crazy behavior.

I did not say it was something specific to Lawfulness.

I said I felt Lawfulness was better at it. That doesn't mean I think it is, in any way, exclusive to it. I don't. I think anyone, and any group, can self-correct. I just think it's easier for one thing than the other.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

There are a near-infinite number of worlds in the Prime Material, never mind what's on other planes. On a lot of those worlds are Clerics to Deity X capable of casting Commune. Even if each of those Clerics only casts Commune once a year, Deity X is going to spend a far-too-great percentage of its time doing nothing but answer questions posed by mortals, often mortals who are too lazy or too timid to find the answers out on their own via other means. Oh, and let's add further to Deity X's workload by throwing in the many devices and effects that grant communes or commune-like effects to that deity.

So yes, if you're casting Commune it had better be for a good reason in the eyes of the answering deity.

As was already said by Umbran: Your deities are rather...small...if they're incapable of handling more than one thread of thought simultaneously and always located spatially and temporally in a single spot.

Like...if you're having a deity that's supposed to be multidimensional and/or managing numerous worlds, they'd better be able to split their consciousness between numerous different simultaneous tasks, or they're literally not going to be able to function.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I'm fine when people call out or have to leave early to pick up their kid from dance or soccer practice. People have lives, and regardless of the effort I put into the game...it's still just game night.

Disappointing sometimes? Sure. Also inevitable? Yup, that too.

I believe it was @pemerton who, some months back, actually engaged with the "well if the players aren't happy they should vote with their feet" answer by saying that he and his group did exactly that. He described the situation he went through, that he had spoken with the other players and they agreed they weren't having fun, and so they left the GM en masse, meaning there was no game.

The advocates for this approach...faulted him (or whomever it was that told the story) for failing to give the GM enough deference and opportunities to fix the problem.

This, among other things, is a large part of why I simply cannot take the "vote with your feet" response seriously. When people actually describe doing so, they're told they're wrong--that the GM deserves even more lenience, even more deference, even more patience.

It's take, only give. And I ain't about that.

 

[Maxperson]

This is why we keep having alignment wars because Alignment is just the belief in how Law, Chaos(freedom),evil (i can hurt people to benefit me) and good (I can't hurt people to benefit me) should be the base of laws, actions and belief structures. It will affect decisions but won't necessarily prevent things like fear, or , self correction, or ego and pridefullness convincing someone that the ends justify the means. (which strangely can be done as an evil person doing good to get to the evil end. Just as much as a good person doing an evil thing to achieve a good end) . Any good person can be afraid and do the wrong thing. They'll just know it was wrong. Any evil person can do a good thing because it achieves long term goals. Or because they are in love or just in a good mood. I really wish DND would clearly state that Alignment is a view of how the world should run not a personality type. Because the idea of Alignment as a personality type is what gets us Lawful Stupid and Chaotic Crazy characters that never ever allow situations or actions to influence thier wierd and crazy behavior.

An evil person can also do good just because it's good. To be evil you don't have to be 100% evil. Someone who is 70% evil is 30% neutral and good, which is how you get those evil folks in the world that wouldn't harm children and instead risk their lives to protect them, and other good acts. That person is just predominantly evil, so gets the E tag on his alignment.

A realistic personality isn't going to fall neatly into say LG. That personality is going to be something like 55%(L), 25%(N), 20%(C), 75%(G), 20%(N), 5%(E) or whatever other combination ends up being predominantly Lawful and Good.

 

[Maxperson]

As was already said by Umbran: Your deities are rather...small...if they're incapable of handling more than one thread of thought simultaneously and always located spatially and temporally in a single spot.

As was said by me, those deities are spread out by the millions of threads simultaneously across a huge number of settings. A bunch of clerics will be communing with him at any given time. Some shlub bothering him over and over and over in order to get a good draw from a deck of cards isn't going to be looked upon favorably. Because if the god allowed that sort of thing, he'd have thousands or even hundreds of thousands of shlubs doing it.

 

[AlViking]

An evil person can also do good just because it's good. To be evil you don't have to be 100% evil. Someone who is 70% evil is 30% neutral and good, which is how you get those evil folks in the world that wouldn't harm children and instead protect them, and other good acts. That person is just predominantly evil, so gets the E tag on his alignment.

A realistic personality isn't going to fall neatly into say LG. That personality is going to be something like 55%(L), 25%(N), 20%(C), 75%(G), 20%(N), 5%(E) or whatever other combination ends up being predominantly Lawful and Good.

Evil is just one aspect of a person's personality and worldview. They may be LE but really love puppies or, even if they are a complete sociopath that can't feel emotions like love they could still value and treat them well. Outwardly it may look like kindness and empathy but really it's just a personality quirk. As you said alignment, or any other systemized personality description, will never encompass the complexity of an individual. It's just one aspect even if it can be an important one.