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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Voadam" data-source="post: 8039871" data-attributes="member: 2209">Alignment in a monster description is a general descriptor using flexible terms.Just because people differ on what the terms mean does not mean it is useless, it will just come out differently under different DMs. Similarly for PCs using alignment as a hook into their character concept.For example orcs in A&D were Lawful Evil despite having been Chaotic in Basic D&D and then Chaotic Evil in 3e and beyond.So a DM can look at the LE designation and think what concepts of Law can I apply to orcs that will be interesting and make sense.They could come up with orcs being accepting of authority and following orders so they readily fall in as armies of orc warlords or other BBEGs and you generally have classic orcs in D&D.Alternatively you can have a different DM saying orcs are templated on an evil version of Warf the Klingon from Star Trek the Next Generation, a warrior tradition very focused on honor and aggressively meeting perceived threats or challenges. Orcs with Stovokor and such is an interesting take and a decent hook from the LE cue.It is also possible to reject the concept of LE as a label for Klingons conceptually and say they are Chaotic.Consider also wraiths and ghosts in 3e. Wraiths and spectres are based on Ring-Wraith templates from Lord of the Rings and are evil, a DM knows they will generally be adversarial bad guys and there is lore about how being turned into one turns you evil. Ghosts can be any alignment. So a ghost can be a bad guy but also a helpful adviser like Lion-O's dad in Thundercats. Both DMs and players generally know in 3e that some spirits like wraiths are always adversarial evil, while ghosts you have a range. So when told in game there is one or the other you can approach them differently, loaded for bear or full avoidance for evil wraiths, with a number of different possible approaches for a ghost such as researching them or talking to them.These are decent ways to use alignment descriptors, and are not useless simply because different people will pick up descriptions of orcs and run things differently.Alignment generally becomes problematic at the interface of DM and players judging the alignment of a PC when there is a disagreement on interpretation and on how a character should be played. The prior editions' use of having paladins fall for any evil action was particularly prone to spurring conflict over the definition of evil acts.</blockquote>

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