Is classic D&D alignments not the STUPIDEST FRICKING CONCEPT ever cooked up in the entire history of TTRPGs?
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Alignment
Is classic D&D alignments not the STUPIDEST FRICKING CONCEPT ever cooked up in the entire history of TTRPGs?
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No. Hitpoints are worse.
People would rather argue about alignments than even acknowledged that you're right.
No. Not at all. It's just a tag system. Stop reading so deeply into it.
It's so you know X spell affects Y types. It's so autists don't get around 'Well actually, I'm sacrificing babies to a primordial god, so this spell doesn't affect me because I'm demonic'.
Wrong. People who get held up by hit points are the most supreme autists out there.
'oh no we created an integer metric for health, my immersion is RUINED'. I tend to always hold the opposite view of these types.
If it's a near ubiquitous mechanic in videogame RPGs or tactical videogames, then it's a good mechanic.
Because he's wrong. How else do you track health? You're just an autist who can't understand abstraction. The only other system is half-baked tag systems like FATE which are just too arbitrary most of the time.
Just as a side you are ALL autists. Design a game for once in your life before you complain about simple mechanics like this. Alignment is EASY, what do you want instead? There's a requirement that it IS easy, universally applicable, can be used in multiple spells, is intuitive, and doesn't require random adjudications on the spot.
You're all going to coverage to alignment or your going to make a system where most 'evil' things are demonic, have a negative chi, etc. which is just saying evil in a different way. The fact that there are even two axes is already enough nuance.
The only actual bad piece about it, is that it is not mechanically enforced, or clear enough, in general.
>If it's a near ubiquitous mechanic in videogame RPGs or tactical videogames, then it's a good mechanic.
What about rarity rainbow loot tiers?
Only exists because there's not an actual GM running things (I.e., GMs often tailor loot to their players/game but you can't predict players well as videogame dev). HP on the other hand isn't a thing their using due to a lack of a GM, it's because it's effective.
Also, I think if we actually ran games with real compute, and not shitty vtts or tables, rainbow loot WOULD become a much more common occurrence. As is players forget what they have and don't have easy buttons for use like in videogames.
>How else do you track health?
I'm not "anti-HP" or whatever, and on top of that I think that alignment is fine, but if you can't imagine different ways to track health, you need to play more games. There's a host of games that actually track wounds instead of hit points, and where there's no such damage abstraction, and where things like stamina and dodging and so on does not factor into damage taken at all.
Yes and those systems are largely unused in videogames for a reason. They may feel better narratively, I'm not saying HP is the be all end all, but mechanically they're for the most part disappointing.
Wound tracking is also typically just more difficult to affect HP. I think in everything I've played, Fate is the only one that gives more narrative to wounds and even then it's really just HP. Again, anyway that you track is going to mechanically feel like HP, whether it's a big number you chunk down easily or whether it's a small number (3-7ish) that is much more difficult to affect, it's still HP.
I feel like this board really doesn't understand why mechanics are put in place or what their purposes are. Typically very tight mechanics have twins or very similar, more robust, systems in videogames. This tightness comes with a loss of flexibility.
Wounds, which again are just HP that are harder to directly affect, can be more narratively flexible, BUT don't work as well in very tight systems where you're trying to really think tactically.
bruh, honstly i despise people who fricking go out of their way to b***h about hp but offer no solution and when prodded for one they still offer nothing to up the ante.
either nut up or shut up homosexual.
I've come to the conclusion that they only really work for me if used in combination with an injury mechanic, so you get the 'luck/grit/superficial damage' context of a bag of hits, which gives way to more impactful debilities when either depleted or exceeded as a threshold. You get your cake and eat it too.
HP aren't an issue per se, it's just that the d&d implementation doesn't offer context other than being a quantum pool of damage obfuscation points with only a binary set of derived conditions (fine/ko).
Complimenting the mechanic with codified case limits (eg: in older editions you can get coup-de-grace'd if defenceless no matter the amount of hp), thresholds for crippling effects and combat aftermaths (eg: fatigue) fix any of the perceived problems.
I loved Harryhousen special effects. Soul dropping out of his pockets. The amount of work was amazing. Now, you just call Indian programmers and ask them for ~25 USD's CGI.
its genuinely fine for being a rough and fast guide for how unimportant npcs would behave, it just falls apart when actual autists try to apply it to their own character, other player characters, or fleshed out NPCs with established personalities and intelligence above that of an animal
being able to describe a monster as lawful neutral just communicates to a DM how to play it in two words where normally you might need a few phrases
>it just falls apart when actual autists try to apply it to their own character,
yeah it's a good thing the game doesn't make you record your PC's alignment on your character sheet. that would be stupid.
It does indeed fall apart if used RAW, I'm glad we're all on the same page
I wrote
But I do require my players to record their alignment. It's a summary of their character's world view. Now, the players are the heroes of the story and narrative, thus, they can develop and those alignments may shift. They are not roleplaying societies, they are roleplaying notable individuals who, ideally, will impact a larger narrative. Thus, development can and should happen. However, this can have consequences, particularly to players who decide to play a religious character, like a Druid, Paladin, Cleric, or Warlock. There are certain lines that, whether it be an oath sworn or a pact taken, when crossed, will have significant consequences for that player. And that adds to their character growth and stories. I've had a player within a session lose all of his Warlock abilities (but become a great Fighter) solely because he, overtime, managed to escape the Pact he was in.
Also, things like Chaotic Evil are very easy to understand. You aren't going to reason with a mindless demonic beast that exists only to hunger and feed, and if you can't handle that then you need to experience more of the real world.
Chaotic evil is extremely hard to understand, because everyone knows a few chaotic evil people, and most people don't know how to admit that. Modern society trains them to avoid admitting that. They think that "chaotic evil" describes some fantastical inhuman extreme, then they become confused and upset when the term is used to describe humans like the ones they know in real life.
>mindless
Anything mindless should be unalig.ned.
> they are extension of behavior
They are description. In your example, the hobgoblins don't refuse mercy because they are lawful evil. They are lawful evil because they refuse mercy.
Modern players reject it not because of "muh american politics" but because it is an unnecessary sacred cow. Something more easily killed off by people who have not spent years internalising it as something core to the game.
>Anything mindless should be unalig.ned.
That is ignoring the in-setting caveats that is a part of alignments.
You are proving that you do not understand the broader implications and application of alignments in D&D settings.
That's how it works. Or worked until Wizards of the Coast decided anything people consider to be evil needs an evil alignment, even if they were previously considered neutral/unaligned due to being unable to actually think. You can see that change occur in the majority of "mindless" undead, such as skeletons, across the monster manuals.
That is really a FR caveat than anything else.
Undead are explicitly powered by negative energy in FR, and negative energy dominant creatures are evil, because negative energy is Evil aligned.
4e, for example, had most undead as Unaligned, with some being Evil if they were actively malevolent, intelligent, or if they were from a FR source book.
Paladins, Clerics, Warlocks and Druids being beholden to alignment rather than rules specific to their oath/god/pact/circle is by far one of the worst things to come from alignment. There's a world of difference between "Just be lawful good. There's a debate about what that means at the table? Well get fricked no more class powers" and an unequivocal "Never lie"
>It's a summary of their character's world view
Which is moronic, because you cannot confine someone's worldview into one of nine arbitrary boxes. Well, you shouldn't be able to; simpletons see the world in black and white like literal children, when the world is actually shades of gray. People are not cut and dry good or evil and any system or setting that simplifies sapient creatures into black and white break their own verisimilitude and create boring, bland, one-dimensional game worlds where everything plays out like a Saturday morning cartoon, except for the last decade even those have had actual nuance.
>Now, the players are the heroes of the story and narrative, thus, they can develop and those alignments may shift
They will shift constantly and frequently because all it takes is one action not of their square to make them something else, which is why alignment is moronic.
>They are not roleplaying societies, they are roleplaying notable individuals who, ideally, will impact a larger narrative
Except they are part of a society, and even then real humans constantly contradict themselves and you could not reliably put a real human anywhere on the alignment grid.
>Druid, Paladin, Cleric, or Warlock
Only two of those are religious, Druids are simply nature casters and warlocks don't have to make pacts with any creature of divine or infernal nature.
>Also, things like Chaotic Evil are very easy to understand
They really aren't, it's almost indistinguishable from NE.
>You aren't going to reason with a mindless demonic beast that exists only to hunger and feed
if it's mindless, then it would be Neutral, because it's operating out of instinct, not any sort of willing malice.
>if you can't handle that then you need to experience more of the real world.
Right back at you, the real world is not black and white.
Neutral is the only box. Unless you use exalted and vile alignment in which case Neutral Good and Neutral Evil become boxes.
Your whole post is just you crying "you can't, you can't, you can't". To which I reply that we can and we do and it's not that complicated, it's just subjective, other players and GMs will answer the same questions differently and that's fine.
I already wrote alignments can shift and no where is alignment set in stone. But Lawful Evil does exist and the average person can become Lawful Evil. The NKVD stuffing people into a ditch and shooting them all is great case of Lawful Evil. They have a strict ideological code but have no moral issue using extremes to achieve it.
>genuinely fine for being a rough and fast guide for how unimportant NPCs would behave
This is the thing though, that's genuinely not what Gygaxian Alignment is trying to be. That's just what most decent players are going to boil it down into because otherwise its a mess.
I like Gygaxian Alignment.
But it means something like this:
Lawful: Community
Chaotic: Individual
Good: the needs of the many outweight the needs of the few, sacrifices for the greater good
Evil: competition is good, the best will emerge naturally, helping others would actually hinder their development and turn them into weak, spoiled and dependent people
Its interesting how Gygax tried to show how evil people justify themselves (after all no one but a cartoon villain would think of self as "evil", or "wrong"), and doing this Gygax inadvertedly criticized (labeling as evil) the most individualistic and pro-competition aspects of the american capitalistic society.
It really makes you think: was Gygax a commie?
None of that is what Gygaxian Alignment is about. Chaos and Law are metaphysical or cosmic forces which are worshipped or venerated like religious entities, Good and Evil are much the same.
>if you criticize capitalism in any capacity you're a commie
moron.
>Conflating Good with Lawful and Evil with Chaotic
Double-moron.
What you say is true, but it's important to note that those cosmic forces do come with conceptual patterns, such as Lawful implying community and ordered hierarchies and principles while Chaotic implying anarchic dispositions, individualism, competition, doing what you feel is right rather than following principles, etc.
>if you criticize capitalism in any capacity you're a commie
It's moronic but it's true.
Capitalism has only really existed for maybe a couple hundred years. Communism is around 150 years old.
What were people before these came about?
bad bait. Sage.
>Communism is around 150 years old.
Hussite communes of early 15th centure were essentially proto-communist. The only meaningful difference was that they were religious, while 19th century communism shuns such "opium of the masses" but in every other respect they were basically junta.
Feudal societies, so pretty appropriate to DnD
Russian legend has it Poles "discovered" communism before Marx and invested into social engineering in order to make Polish society innately anti-communistic; Karl did call for a "revolutionary holocaust" (sic) against the Poles once the first war ended.
You can make a game about elves being attacked for creating an anti-pride society.
Good with Lawful and Evil with Chaotic
That's how it was originally.
Gygax thought cutting hands off thieves was Lawful Good. The whole system is just him trying to enforce a medieval kind of morality as some kind of objective universal. It's fine if you want to run that kind of game and need simple shorthands but hopelessly stupid if you spend more than 10 seconds thinking about it.
>Gygax thought cutting hands off thieves was Lawful Good.
you gotta remember it's said in context of world where growing limbs back is possible
Anyone resorting thievery is absolutely not getting anywhere near limb regeneration magic. That's high level magic, if you're not in a big city finding a cleric capable of casting it would be an adventure in and of itself. That's not even getting to the cost of doing so.
Yeah but that's still a scenario where if it turns out you *didn't* do it, lawful king might pay to restore your hands.
Not at all, actually. His going example was Anglo-Saxon Britain.
>Gygax thought cutting hands off thieves was Lawful Good.
Yes, and? Lawful Good does not mean Lawful Nice. If you don't want to be the harshest possible interpretation of Lawful Good, that is fine. If you want to be a good person that isn't interested in punishments or principles at all, but would just like to do good, there's always (Neutral) Good.
This insistence on viewing Lawful Good as the "best Good" and that it thus has to conform to what you personally think is the goodest is pathetic.
>hopelessly stupid
Yes you are, but more than that, you're probably just autistic.
So what? It's still a vicious, pointless punishment. In fact, if the limbs can be easily grown back where's the deterrent? It's just pointless cruelty. Waterboarding in real life won't damage you either but it's still torture and bad.
>Lawful Good does not mean Lawful Nice.
Platitudes make poor arguments.
> If you want to be a good person that isn't interested in punishments or principles at all, but would just like to do good, there's always (Neutral) Good.
Implied here is the notion that in order to be Lawful one must subscribe to retribution. However, according to Gygax this should come in extremely violent forms. Why can't the thief just pay a fine? No, it must be some psychopathic ultra violent nonsense. Shouldn't the punishment fit the crime? Violent lunatics masquerading as justice doers is a tale as old as time.
>This insistence on viewing Lawful Good as the "best Good" and that it thus has to conform to what you personally think is the goodest is pathetic.
I'm not the one insisting on anything. Gygax is the one who's doing it by making a moronic comparison to medieval Britain and making some nebulous argument about how great it was. He thinks extreme retribution is great and wants to push it on us. So he says, "sure guys, this is all Lawful Good". A fricking gulag would be Lawful Good according to this guy.
When you point out how extreme and stupid all this is you get morons who come as with you stupid shit like "Lawful Good does not mean Lawful Nice"
>Platitudes make poor arguments.
Stopped reading there. It is not a platitude. It is a fundamental part of the concept, and if you cannot understand that, whether due to being sub-65 IQ or autism, nothing you have to say on the topic can be of any value.
Well, you've spared yourself any further thinking and I suppose that's what really matters both for you and Gygax
>A fricking gulag would be Lawful Good according to this guy.
Well the USSR was a Lawful Good society, so yeah
>Implied here is the notion that in order to be Lawful one must subscribe to retribution. However, according to Gygax this should come in extremely violent forms. Why can't the thief just pay a fine? No, it must be some psychopathic ultra violent nonsense. Shouldn't the punishment fit the crime? Violent lunatics masquerading as justice doers is a tale as old as time.
It is with regards to the medieval setting that he is writing. It is easier to get away with crime so deterrent is more important. There aren't modern courts or whatever. LG is designed to still allow you to kill a bunch bandits and orcs without paperwork or "reading out their rights".
israelite
No. No. No. and no. This is not how alignment works. What you're describing is the ill nformed interpretation of alignment that Gankerers think is what gygax came up with. It's incorrect. How do I know this for a fact? Because I knew and worked with gary,(on legendary adventures). Good is simply the force that seeks to create weal. Evil seeks to create woe. Law is the preference for an organized implementation of forces for the desired end, chaos is the preference for freedom of the individual to achieve their goals over structured methodologies. Gary built the alignment structure around the works of Moorwiener's Enternal Champion ideal. If you want to understand the law vs chaos portion give Louise Cooper's Initiate series a look. Law and Chaos are paths, not requirements that prohibit achieving goals
only to brainlets and freaks
I was going to say "cluster Bs and morons" but yeah, same thing
To be honest, I actually miss the old near-constant alignment thread shittery. Even though it was always people rehashing the same 5 or 6 points, it was still lively and fun. Plus we got stuff like the sandwich alignment chart which led to discussions about whether a hot dog is really a sandwich.
We didn't know how good we had it, boys.
Dapper/Scruffy Gentleman/Hooligan was fun too.
> whether a hotdog is really a sandwich
I DONT GET THIS! is it an anglo thing? we call it hot dog sandwich, or sausage sandwich.
it is literally a sandwich of a sausage. You put a piece of bread, and cut it in half, then put sausage in the middle. Where is the confusion? why do people deny it is a sandwich?
You don't cut a hot dog bun in half.
You don't?
No, you just cut the bun open, like a submarine sandwich which is also a sandwich.
>We didn't know how good we had it, boys.
I blame the infamous /tg/man for that
A pOp TaRt Is A sAnDwIcH!
No, everyone just uses it wrong because noone ever told them how its supposed to work
The better use of alignment is not to describe, but to coerce behavior.
Just as a low intelligence character can't remember useful information even if the player does it, low wisdom characters can't come up with good ideas even if the player does it, and low charisma characters can't use good persuasive arguments in game (my GM usually forbids actions like this because it wasn't in-character), a GM may also forbid inadequate alignment behavior instead of allowing it and pushing for a alignment "change" later.
A game where alignment matters have some spells, items and class abilities working differently accordingly to the alignment of the character. For instance, only Good characters can cast healing spells. Only Evil characters can use Necromancy spells. Chaotic characters roll a proficiency dice, roll HP when level ups, and roll other things. Lawful characters always get average instead of rolling dice.
In my games, neutral characters aren't allowed. Why would a Neutral character bother to be an adventurer?
Situations with narrow options force creative solutions, and RPGs are all about stimulating creativity.
The game is a challenge to the character you built, not you. He has to find solutions within is own limits. This diegetic way of thinking is important.
This raises a question I've never really thought to ask. If neutral morality just does whatever seems like a good idea at the time, what possible circumstance could lead to someone deciding dangerous adventuring could possibly ever be a good idea for self-preservation? How DO you justify true neutral?
most people are true neutral
>church isn't for me but I think religion is a fine thing
>I don't steal but I feel no shame in occasionally cheating the system
>I will complain about taxes but I regularly appreciate the things they pay for
in other words
>I have an idea of how a person should act, and I do act that way, but I know that there are exceptions to rules, and I often forgive my own hypocrisy
every alignment except True Neutral is noteworthy and rare
>"I'm an armed criminal, because I know that the only things you really own are the things you could win a fight for"
>"I am willing to execute a kind man for failing to meet my moral codes; some things are more valuable than life itself"
>"I will relentlessly lend my enemies aid and extend forgiveness to every person, no matter their crime, because we will all be joined in the afterlife and all scores will be made equal"
My point exactly. Adventuring is an exception to the rule of how society ticks; why the frick would someone without intrinsic motivation sacrifice everything to go fight things with weapons and travel to unknown locations hoping to earn enough money to not starve to death before they bleed to death?
Since when does neutral mean "no motivations"?
You anons just gonna play funny games targeting specific word choice or should I keep opening this thread hoping one of you dipshits intends to actually address the initial point I brought up?
What the frick are you talking about? That's a genuine question. Your entire point hinges upon neutral meaning "I do not want anything" which is not what it means. Explain yourself or accept that your point is idiotic.
Can't have sefless motivations, that would be Good.
Can't have selfish motivations, that would be Evil.
Can't just follow orders, that would be Lawful.
Can't do things at random, that would be Chaotic.
>can't have selfless motivations
Yes you can. You can do things selflessly without being good. I can be an awful or apathetic person, but I can still go on a quest to cure my sick lover because they're the one person I care about. If my town is beset by monsters or a lich threatens the world and I'm a warrior it's in my best interest to go and kill them, regardless of whether or not it saves others.
>selfish motivations
Wanting money for my own comfort is selfish. It's only evil if I go too far in the pursuit of it.
>follow orders
Makes no sense, otherwise EVERYONE who isn't an outright criminal would be lawful. Neutral people more often than not are regular law abiding people. Doing what someone tells you isn't inherently lawful, you need a code that you very strictly adhere to. If I join a mercenary company and I listen to my boss when he tells me to go kill a dragon, or I worship a neutral god who tells me to go kill the necromancer intruding on their domain, that doesn't make me lawful.
>do things at random
Doing something on a whim doesn't automatically make you chaotic.
Your alignment is a DESCRIPTOR of the SUM of your actions. It is not "You are physically unable to do anything that could ever be considered outside of this purview"
>go on a quest to cure my sick lover because they're the one person I care about
you obviously don't understand what selfless means
Regardless of whether or not it's selfless, it's still a motivation for a neutral person to adventure is it not? Or are you going to argue that's evil?
Helping someone because you personally care about that particular person is inherently selfish, helping random stranger would be selfless.
Right sure okay, but is it or is it not a motivation a neutral person could have to adventure?
Realistically, no. Of course some groups will bend both the rules and the verisimilitude of the setting for the sake of moving their game forward, but that's a serious red flag.
>Realistically, no
In what is that not an impetus for an otherwise neutral person to adventure? In what way are all of those examples insufficient as reasons to adventure? Your entire argument is based around defining "neutral" as "stands around doing nothing all day"
literary me except sitting
>verisimilitude
Do not ever again defend "every person in the world pick the exact same option from 1 of 9 every time they make a decision" as an example of verisimilitude. It is quite literally the opposite.
Non-good ideological zealots and political leaders tend to be neutral, because they're generally selfless but are also willing to perpetrate evil in the name of their cause (their clan, their country, whatever).
Helping your in-group is neutral (leaning towards good) and always has been. Evil people help their in-groups but they are the least likely to do so. Good people help more overall (and they certainly favor their ingroups) but the best parents in the world are probably neutral, because a good person would compromise the wellbeing of his children if there was enough at stake, a neutral person wouldn't. It's like that for any personal cause, unless your personal cause is goodness itself.
Neutral characters can also be greedy but pragmatic, honorable but egomaniacal, bloodthirsty but ashamed, just about any virtue/vice combo can be exaggerated to create a neutral hero with a big personality.
The 3e PHB and related content says that humans favor no alignment, not even neutral. Some people are really convinced that neutral is the most common alignment, and I'm not going to convince them otherwise, I just wanted to throw that out. 1/3rd of people are supposed to be good, 1/3rd of people are supposed to be evil, this tells you that you don't have to be Gandhi to be good and that you don't have to be Kissinger to be evil.
When a character is Neutral in the "Alignments are Universal Forces that need to be kept in balance for a stable existence" type and is dealing with something that tips that balance.
Neutrals are not without intrinsic motivations, anon. Druids are traditionally True Neutral, for example, precisely because their motivation is the natural world and nothing else. How they go about this may affect their alignment somewhat, but they must traditionally maintain some form of Neutral alignment again precisely because their focus is on something that is fundamentally unaligned.
Another good example would be a soldier or warrior that doesn't really care about anything other than his family, and will act in their interests at all times. His actions may mark him as Evil or Good, Lawful or Chaotic, but he'll likely always gravitate towards some form of Neutral, because he doesn't give a shit about anything else, and will feed the poor or kill orphans in the interest of his family.
Neutrals can have just as strong motivations as anyone else.
>How DO you justify true neutral?
There's three different kinds of "true neutral". There's the "Neutral", which is for everyone that just happens to be in the middle of the alignment chart. This could be because they don't care about issues that are naturally aligned. It could also be because they haven't dedicated themselves to anything in particular yet. Or they could be transitioning between alignments, or even fluctuate enough to end up hovering around this middle ground.
Then there's the "True Neutral". This is philosophical dedication to the concept of neutrality and balance in all things, and not necessarily taking sides. Many monks and druids but also clerics and priests in general fall into this. This is zen and dedication to the natural world, or cosmic holistics or whatever.
Then there's Unaligned. Things and people that have yet to register as aligned, for whatever reason. Very young children, animals, etc., are fundamentally neutral because they are incapable of moral judgements or informed independent action.
> a low intelligence character can't remember useful information even if the player does it, low wisdom characters can't come up with good ideas even if the player does it, and low charisma characters can't use good persuasive arguments in game
This is supposed to be what checks are for. Whether a given edition makes modifiers relevant enough for that to work as intended is another story. I can’t stand the belief that low-intelligence characters literally never know anything relevant, as if they don’t have any lived experiences before they existed as a level 1 barbarian or whatever.
>but to coerce behavior.
That is unequivocally the worst use alignment. If my character would do something but the DM says "but that's not what your alignment says!". I am no longer playing "John Fighter" the man with his own opinions and nuances, I am now playing the words "Neutral Good". Absolutely moronic way to run things, no offence to you but full offence to your methodology.
>Why would a Neutral character bother to be an adventurer?
A question answered with 5 seconds of consideration. Are there not riches to be made in spite of the risk. Can a neutral person not desire wealth or glory or to exercise the skills of their profession? Can a neutral person not wish to kill the monsters that threaten their own existence? Do you think being neutral means you stand still all day doing nothing but blinking and breathing with no thoughts of individuality?
>In my games, neutral characters aren't allowed. Why would a Neutral character bother to be an adventurer?
Are you by any chance autistic and/ or mentally moronic?
he's right though you fricking moron.
>low charisma characters can't use good persuasive arguments
This is stupid. Being uncharismatic doesn't mean you never say anything that makes good sense, it means people typically ignore you or pay your words no mind. On the flip side, someone charismatic doesn't necessarily make GOOD arguments, but they make their arguments WELL regardless of how good or bad they are. If the low charisma player makes a good argument you have two options
>Just let the argument work
Being below average in charisma does not mean it is physically impossible for you to be persuasive or charismatic, just like being below average in Wisdom does not mean it's impossible for you to say something worth a damn.
>Make them roll for it
They are more likely to roll poorly. Now you have accounted for their bad charisma and the player is not told to frick off for daring to try and roleplay.
Does your DM tell high wisdom or intelligence characters the best thing to do in each situation? Does he tell high charisma players exactly what to say to automatically persuade people? If not he's actually just jerking himself off with his power fantasy.
May as well go"hmm, I've looked at your stats and your dex is low. I've assumed your low dex means every attack will just hit you so I'm not going to roll to hit and just apply damage. Actually your con isn't very high so it wouldn't make sense for you to survive being hit, so instead of rolling for damage I'll just say your character is automatically dead."
your gm sucks, first of all, it's a game, it's about having fun, that sounds more restrictive than anything, leaves no room for character development.
Mortals aren't alignment restricted, thats why they can change, they arent extraplanarian beings like demons or angels which are Good and Evil by nature.
>low intelligence character can't remember useful information
That's what you roll for it, just cause you have 22 INT doesn't mean your player is gonna remember the important fact needed for the scenario, but other players may remember it, so thats why you make a roll for it, you make things more fair and even.
>low wisdom characters can't come with good ideas
A broken clock gives the right time twice a day.
>low charisma characters can't use good persuasive arguments in game.
This is bullshit, Diplomacy, Bluffing, Playing instruments, etc are Skills that are affected by the CHA mod, not by Charisma itself. Thats why you can have ugly people being politicians on real life, it's not about looks, it's about how others see you and how you manage to transmite your message.
>A game where alignment matters have some spells, items and class abilities working differently accordingly to the alignment of the character. For instance, only Good characters can cast healing spells. Only Evil characters can use Necromancy spells
Fair enough, we even had a talk with my dm about either making a new school for more "tame" necromancy spells which doesn't look sound or act evil at all. or just changing their school.
> Chaotic characters roll a proficiency dice, roll HP when level ups, and roll other things. Lawful characters always get average instead of rolling dice.
why are you trying to reinvent the wheel? that sucks at all, you are just making sure everyone plays lawful, just ban chaotics characters and be done with it. My dm directly banned evil characters instead of heavily crippling them.
1/2
>In my games, neutral characters aren't allowed. Why would a Neutral character bother to be an adventurer?
Does Greed or Lust for Glory do not exist in your fantasy world? or they are just robots which has been programated?
>Situations with narrow options force creative solutions, and RPGs are all about stimulating creativity.
Its about having fun on a weekend with your friends a sunday evening or a saturday night like the nerds you all are.
>The game is a challenge to the character you built, not you. He has to find solutions within is own limits. This diegetic way of thinking is important.
once again another fair point see? you probably have 2 Wisdom in real life yet you made two good ideas, see?
They are robots. If you make a neutral character in my game you have to be, but I don't allow it, so you can't
>In my games, neutral characters aren't allowed. Why would a Neutral character bother to be an adventurer?
You are so moronic there a many reasons why a neutral charter will become an adventurer
>I want to date a noble but the only way they will date a lowborn is if I become well respected adventurer
>I wish to hunt fearsome beasts
>I want people to write legends about me
>I'm a scholar and forgotten libraries contain information that would otherwise be hidden away
>I have a wasting curse that can only be lifted in a specific way
All a good reasons why a neutral charter would travel
a neutral character would never do those things you fricking moron.
>People who are neutral with respect to good and evil have compunctions against killing the innocent but lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others. Neutral people are committed to others by personal relationships.
>Someone who is neutral with respect to law and chaos has a normal respect for authority and feels neither a compulsion to obey nor a compulsion to rebel. She is honest but can be tempted into lying or deceiving others.
Say it with me, moron: Alignment is descriptive, not prescriptive.
Alignment doesn't define what people can or cannot do, let alone will do. People of Good alignment may routinely commit minor acts of Evil. People of Evil alignment can easily have friends and family that they genuinely care about. Lawful people can still lash out in anger or act spontaneously at times. Chaotic people can live by individual principles.
To anyone not deeply autistic or suffering from form of severe moronation, this is not rocket science.
You literally used to lose levels for shifting alignment.
So shifting alignments was possible? Almost like you can act outside of your given alignment because it is descriptive? If it was prescriptive acting out of alignment wouldn't cause a shift, it would cause the DM to say "You can't do that" then move on.
Yes, congratulations. This is where you hopefully realize that singular acts do not generally shift your alignment, because that would be absurd in the context of a game where you'd lose experience whenever your alignment changes.
The loss of experience was meant to be indicative of a crisis of faith or a shift in viewpoint and motivations, usually as a consequence of a consistent pattern of behavior at odds with your previously settled alignment.
You were A, but over time you acted more as B than A, which you could do precisely because alignment is descriptive and not prescriptive, and thus you eventually fell into the category of B, and at that point you pay the accumulated price for your overall shift. I shouldn't have to explain this to you but there you go.
Your right all true neutral charter would just stop breathing due to sheet apathy.
Sorta the same reason why all good charters HAVE to give all their possessions to charity
For all evil charters to dropkick baby, even if they are related.
For all lawful charters to follow everything written by law, like not breaking into the dark lords mansion because its illegal
The same reason why all chaotic charters have to shit their pants if there isn't enough chaos in a scene
What the frick are you talking about? Where did you read that nonsense?
You're obviously a trolling idiot or a idiot troll....Either way...You're a idiot.
I'm talking in extremes.
if you don't think a neutral charters would try to lift a wasting curse they have on them, then I don't know what to tell you.
On this board its impossible for me to judge if posts like yours are sarcastic responses or you believe those nonsensical statements.
When there's been thousands of muppet's who would claim burning down an entire village just to punish its inhabitants for harboring a criminal is Lawful Good
or that its possible to be Good and own slaves I tend to think the worst when someone makes moronic claims about some of the more contentious alignments.
My apologies...
For the record Neutral characters a.k.a. "True Neutral". characters, as rare as they are, would indeed try to rid themselves of a wasting curse.
Oh no, I understand what your saying
I don’t know if you were the same guy I responded to but he was saying that
A true neutral charter
Would not want love
Would not hunt
Wouldn’t want people to remember them
Wouldn’t want to study
And wouldn’t want to cure themselves
Basically thinking that neutrality is apathy, and my point was if that’s is what neutrality was then true neutrals would just stop breathingxg
I am not the Anon you had responded to. Aside from my replies to your posts these are the only other posts I've made in this thread
Neutrals do possess a certain degree of apathy especially towards more far reaching aspects of society like, for example, who rules what country, should they live their lives to promote the power of others, and is wealth not important or all that matters in life.
But not to the extent that the Anon you responded to thinks....They are not walking embodiments of indecisiveness and uncertainty.
I now fully understand the points you have made.
As a follow up to my last post
On a humorous note...
I've been a DM since I was 12 (In 1983) and that means I've occasionally had players who think being Neutral means all important decisions the character makes is based on a coin toss.
One player in particular would literally flip a coin to see if he should help the other party members or not, especially during instances when they were in combat.
The other players got so annoyed that they decided to each flip a coin to see if their PC's should beat the "Neutral" PC senseless and bury him up to his ankles in a hole. Based on the coin flips the Neutral Character was dropped in a hole, head first, and buried up to his ankles.
Since that game night I often warn players who run Neutral characters to not be so extreme when making choices for their character without bias or compulsion.
I'm fairly new to TTRPGs but I have been playing for about 3 years now. Neutral alignments have always been my favorite. My first character was a chaotic neutral thief rogue who was given a second chance at life after wasting his first one, and he spent it trying to be the best petty criminal he could be. He held a decent set of ethics, like not hurting people in ways they couldn't recover from financially or physically, not stealing from friends, not getting random people involved in his bigger heists, but he made a game out of being a thrillseeking thief and getting chased out of towns. He gravitated towards crime and only took himself seriously when a deal or job was on the line.
Currently I'm playing two true neutral characters in separate games. One, a changeling rogue/artificer trying to understand how people work, other is a tabaxi wizard with one goal of finding her lost mentor so she can learn to control her power. The wizard grew up privileged. Everything she knows was taught to her by her mentor who took her in after she was kicked out of a big magic academy for recklessness with spells, I.E. exactly what you think.
Changeling had bad experiences with mages in the past which caused him to flee home until he got lost. He ended up being pretty distrustful of humans but after a human traveler's act of kindness while in the wilderness, he knew that even if he could survive on his own, he would need help eventually, and he couldn't remain apprehensive for long, so he assumed the human's form and found a party.
Both of characters don't care what choices the party makes so long as they aren't starting wars or lend aid they can't afford. They ask for payment, speak softly, and try not to voice opinions on matters if they know it won't be of consequence, but they're true neutral for different reasons. Changeling is a bit naive and impressionable, while tabaxi is afraid of forming bonds because emotions make spellcasting harder for her.
Obviously you understand that Alignments are not inflexible scripts with boxes you must check with every decision your character makes.
There is some variation within each Alignment. There are boundaries that have to be acknowledged and maintained, but as long as your character isn't drifting too far into the framework of another Alignment their usually isn't any need for the DM to shift you to another more suitable Alignment or penalize you in some way.
>Why would a Neutral character bother to be an adventurer?
EX
FRICKING
SCUSE ME?
I think he's half serious. He's smart enough to imagine a neutral adventurer but he also doesn't really understand how neutrality fits into the alignment system and he's taking this position so people will explain it to him.
TBF her response to most quest bait would be "that's a shame. I'll be on my way now" unless it tickles her sense of curiosity or self-preservation.
That's a rule for travelers in general: "Don't interfere in other nations' matters".
She's literally on a self-directed adventure. The fact that she's not a bleeding heart like Shizu that thinks she can solve everyone's problems doesn't make her unadventurous. Besides which most RPG quests result in compensation, and Kino's curiosity is engaged by things as terrible as, "Everyone says this country is awful".
You're discussing alignments with someone whose Alignment is clearly Autistic Stupid.
bait
Incredible bait
No, it's actually an interesting idea that few people understand how to use.
No, the only ones really having problems with alignments are the people that are too stupid to understand them, despite them being very basic.
They're not even close to the moronation that is Spell Slots.
I'd rather play a game with alignments than a game with classes.
Also this.
So much this.
Yeah, alignment can be fully ignored, but spell slots are a core mechanic that you can also ignore with the superior Spell Points variant rule.
Probably not. It isn't any good, but there must be something worse.
Cool alignments:
>Lawful Evil
>Chaotic Good
>Lawful Neutral
Mid alignments:
>Neutral Good
>Neutral Evil
Cringe alignments:
>True neutral
>Chaotic neutral
>Chaotic Evil
>Lawful good
>Chaotic Good
>Cool
shit taste
It was fine up until it was the three hearts and three lions or moorwiener war of powers cosmic factions, after becoming the characters moral stance indicator lost any semblance of meaning.
One way to fix alignments is to employ the LotFP stance: the vast majority of people is unaligned (pure neutral) and any step deviation from that indicates a level of glaring, fanatical, deranged obsessive behaviour, so a l/g guy isn't simply honourable and altruistic but one that weights these ideal more than his own (or others) life.
First part of this, but also lose the good-evil axis.
It was only put in after biblethumpers took over TSR and paniced that their favorite book TM wasn't included.
So, alignment goes L-N-C.
With beasts and animals being neutral and sentient beings being either chaotic or lawful.
>pic
At the first glance this seemed like a random scramble but the more I think about it the more sense it makes.
If at least half were chaotic evil it would make more sense
Lawful Good: paladin, cleric
Neutral Good: ranger
Chaotic Good: bard
Lawful Neutral: artificer, monk
True Neutral: druid, fighter
Chaotic Neutral: barbarian
Lawful Evil: wizard
Neutral Evil: warlock, rogue
Chaotic Evil: sorcerer
cringe
someone doesn't like spell casters..
cleric is NG
ranger is CG
wizard is LN
artificer is N
warlock is LE
there I fixed it
Adapt it to your game, it's a mess. For example in an indian setting, replace Alignements with the goals and spiritual qualities of hinduism: Dharma instead of Lawful, Sattva instead of good. Instead of a Lawful Evil Devil, you'll have Rackshasa following the Dharma to the letter but unable to resist their violent nature (Tamas).
Or just use MBTI then Devils are INTP.
It's a simple system that's poorly described and uses misleading terminology. Which leads to many people misunderstanding it, often badly. It's also not actually very useful, so misunderstanding it doesn't actually cause many more problems with the game, just pointless arguments.
If only it were the stupidest thing in RPG history.
No, alignment discussions are interesting and enrich the game. Number crunching too detailed combat rules is worse.
>Evil and Good are main features of every Fantasy novel out there
Alignments just measure it on a one dimensional scale for plot and game purposes. Human personality and morals are a complex matter, and it's not D&D work to provide an extensive explanation of it, but simplify it to good and bad.
Sorry for bad Engrish. Clearly an ESL.
>Human personality and morals are a complex matter, and it's not D&D work to provide an extensive explanation of it
This.
It is fine, the problem is when morons start thinking that's the only way of doing things
>Is classic D&D alignments not the STUPIDEST FRICKING CONCEPT ever cooked up in the entire history of TTRPGs?
yes, a simple chaoitc as evil, good and neutral works just fine if this characteristic used.
There is no neutral, TN, unless its a chair or an animal. Your lack of conviction of pseudo-philosophical neutrality does not make you neutral but a passive lethargic weakling in all aspects.
Good cannot be chaotic. Chaos is evil, Chaos is cancer, and nothing more than a synonym for evil. Chaotic Good is just egotistic good which they cook up to make it seem as if its not the evil of chaos but something else. Its called egoism.
CN is only for the insane. It is not a free spirit, it is an even worse idiocy than TN. All the worthless people in real life take CN and they can go to hell once they drop dead, may it come soon, so so we won't have to tolerate a world with their stupidity.
As writing a wall of text would be pointless with alll the morons that cannot understand basic concepts, you can only be GOOD or EVIL. Neutral is for objects or animals or automated things like automatons and the such.
The game is a distortion, it was even before the inclusive diversity additions.
Or do not use alignments at all, observe the players for a year or 30 to 50 session and then tell them what their behavior was and what their alignment thus was.
Alignmets have also been used by players to give zero personality to their characters. They put an alignment that think that this is it, the personality and everything.
Most people irl would fall under chaotic good, a general conviction to better the world but without any set dogma to follow, chaotic good is just going on gut instinct while doing good. Chaotic neutral is going on gut instinct while opposing evil. Chaotic evil is cringe shit.
>Chaotic evil is cringe shit.
Because everyone play sunday cartoon villians, actual chaotic evil irl people are serial killers or rapists, pedophiles, real psychos,like sicarios or CIA black ops agents.
It's an alignment made for the enemies of the party.
Most people are chinese and indian so most people would fall under neutral evil
>Most people irl would fall under chaotic good
No, CG is a meme.
The L-N-C alignment system is a faction system from the game's war game roots. Adding the G-N-E axis was when the game became about small parties. It was never about personality. It is just a shorthand for who will stab your dick and who to dick stab. Nobody cares to hear random goblin's philosophy thesis. Unaligned is a mistake.
All of the alignments except CG and TN (which is only a placeholder and used to be an illegal alignment choice) are fairly well explained. Robin hood is a terrible example of CG.
>It was never about personality
9-point was about personality since AD&D introduced it
>9-point was about personality since AD&D introduced it
Not in the MTG colors way. That is why MTG color as alignment fricking sucks. As explained by Gygax, LG can come across as butthole-ish. In fact, I remember that Gygax complained that 5E just had everyone be LG. Sure this is the guy who wanted CN to be a clinically insane schizo but alignment isn't meant to be minor political differences.
My oldest pet peeve is people not understanding Yin and Yang.
>So Yin and Yang is good and evil?
>It is about balance between two opposite attributes. Neither are good or evil what is desired is balance
>Oh so there needs to be a balance of good and evil?
lol, I know this feel, it's hard for anglos to parse "negative" and "positive" as both being neutral.
I'm not really agreeing with you. The concept of Heaven and Hell preceded Christianity.
>I remember that Gygax complained that 5E just had everyone be LG
Gygax died one year into 4th. Or are you referring to something else than E DnD?
In orthodox Christianity, a sin that doesn't plausibly result in death doesn't deserve the death penalty.
Find one game with a Christianity expy and I guarantee to find a dev who was deep in occult autism.
A character can absolutely be true neutral.
I would base it on Wu Wei, which is a Chinese philosophy that (by my understanding) preaches inaction because the inert energy in the world will sort itself and lead to the best result, its human action that disturbs this flow and causes chaos and evil. So a true neutral char would be some sort of monk who spends his time meditating, trying to find peace by connecting with the inert Qi forces of the galaxy away from good, evil, chaos, law.
A TN char wouldnt stop a group of bandits from murdering innocent villagers. Its just the way it is, its not their role to disturb the flow of things. On the other hand, they wont join a group of paladins who want to take down a Lich either, its not up to them to decide whether this quest succeeds or not. Whatever happens is the "good" outcome. Its much like how the camera team of a nature documentary wont safe a cub that lost its mother leaving it to die, its not up to them to disturb nature. Nature isnt evil or good, it just is so why disturb its design.
A TN char also wont argue with the group about strategy or where to go, they just accept the parties decision whatever it may be, they let the wind, fate, carry them and they are fully convinced that everything will be fine in the end, whatever may happen.
TN philosophy is basically: we are all gonna make it bros, stop worrying.
TN being an alignment for animals and objects is a midwit take.
idk whenever you see a freak accident video from India all the people in the vicinity storm to help the person in need even if it brings them into danger themselves. Indians are pretty aloof and eccentric but I would say they are generally good people.
Its just that we get the biggest c**ts coming here.
>Wu Wei
Etsubatsu
>Good cannot be chaotic. Chaos is evil, Chaos is cancer, and nothing more than a synonym for evil
t. Holy Orders of the Emperor's Inquisition
>Your lack of conviction of pseudo-philosophical neutrality does not make you neutral but a passive lethargic weakling in all aspects.
Cringe
>Good cannot be chaotic. Chaos is evil, Chaos is cancer, and nothing more than a synonym for evil. Chaotic Good is just egotistic good which they cook up to make it seem as if its not the evil of chaos but something else. Its called egoism.
>Good cannot be chaotic. Chaos is evil, Chaos is cancer, and nothing more than a synonym for evil. Chaotic Good is just egotistic good which they cook up to make it seem as if its not the evil of chaos but something else. Its called egoism.
Based
>There is no neutral, TN, unless its a chair or an animal. Your lack of conviction of pseudo-philosophical neutrality does not make you neutral but a passive lethargic weakling in all aspects.
It's nice that moronic pseuds like you always out themselves so fast
It's funny how DnD players get kinda lost without it. I've had this interaction happen 2 or 3 times
>So what's my alignement
"I don't know. This game doesn't feature that"
>What? But How do I know how to act then?
"What would your character do?"
>"He'd follow his allignement."
I agree. People have gotten way too lost in the literal written interpretations instead of playing the game out.
Yeah, I think alignment is decently important for most tabletop players, and it's a good descriptor of how certain NPCs can act, in a pinch. No, its not the end all be all decider in a PCs decisions. Over time and effort, alignments can change, just like how people can change their views over time.
The issues I see is when people try to play by the letter of the law in alignment (like most other annoying rule lawyers do with most other rules that seem to have issues following) and fail to see what the intent of it is all about. Tl;dr - player problem
Alignment as a personality chart sucks. Alignment as cosmic allegiance works nicely. Basic D&D alignment of L,N,C works well, as does 4e 5-point.
9-point, 2-axis AD&D alignment was a mistake.
It's not you're just crippling autistic and moronic
No.
It is a great autist test, tho, because they are the ones who can not understand it.
Pretty sure that properly understanding an esoteric fantasy roleplaying concept requires advanced autism
No, it's actually fairly simple, and I am amazed that there's still people that genuinely seem to struggle with it. Whenever someone denounces alignment as a general concept, I always assume that they have sub-65 IQ.
Or possibly this, because there seems to be a tremendous overlap between moron-autism and not grasping cosmic alignment conceptually.
It being simple doesn't make it good or useful.
NTA
D&D 4th ED and D&D 5th ED-Alignment is useless by design so there's no point in whining about, just ignore it.
D&D 3.5 and any edition of AD&D before it, Alignment is "good and useful" if you took the time to read the 3 or 4 pages in the PHB that explains its function in the game and you're not a complete moron.
It having rules in the book does not make it good or useful. FATAL has you roll for anal circumference, and the roll can affect your character. That does not mean it is a good mechanic.
Nobody said that it was a good mechanic just because it was in the books. He said that it was explained in the books. You're realize the difference if you weren't a clueless autistic moron unable to grasp even the simplest of concepts.
Then please enlighten everyone on how Alignment functioned in D&D previous to 4th Edition when it actually had a impact on Spells, Magic Items, the Planes of existence, monsters, deities, character classes, NPC's and the player characters themselves.
Not your uniformed opinion but how the Players Handbooks and/or the Dungeon Masters Guide described the purpose and function of Alignment in D&D.
Show us your not just another ass-hat who pretends to know enough about Alignment to criticize its implementation in D&D while never having read how it actually functions in the game.
are you calling me a normie?
Why are they stupid? Generally speaking, they are extension of behavior that also help keep NPCs and players consistent. For example, this LARP of Tiefling Paladins "XDDD RAAWR SO RANDOM" is the kind of cancer that could only exist when players reject the alignment system. The alignment system helps set a tone for certain peoples. For example, a Hobgoblin warband given specific orders to eliminate every man, woman and child from a village are not going to suddenly find "compassion" -> their alignment is an extension of their world view. They are Lawful Evil. They have no moral problem killing what we perceive to be innocent people, and their military culture makes them fiercely obedient to orders. The reason the alignment system is a problem for a lot of modern players is because many modern liberal people have a very naive world view that everyone is as passive as they are.
To expand:
A Hobgoblin warband would find the notion absurd that there is some moral issue with exterminating an enemy village. For them, they fight within a strict military code that also, by extension, means total war. Their belief would be that there are no innocents, given that a state of war exists and thus anyone on the other side is a valid target. They simply do not have the moral issue with killing them.
So trying to say that a Hobgoblin would be some Chaotic Good robin hood already sounds completely absurd. Now, could an outlier exist? Sure, the Drizzt books are all about the exception to Drow culture -- but in Homeland Salvatore makes a pretty clear point that Drizzt was against an entire cultural world view that would be impossible to single-handedly change. So, the idea of there being any kind of Good or Neutral Drow is simply absurd to the point that the kind of exception we are talking about can be counted on one hand.
People try to stage the argument the alignment system can't work because "muh moral relativism" are simply lying.
>For example, this LARP of Tiefling Paladins "XDDD RAAWR SO RANDOM" is the kind of cancer that could only exist when players reject the alignment system
As opposed to the LARP of human paladins "DEUS VULT I JUST MURDERED 500 BABIES BUT THEY WERE NEUTRAL EVIL BABIES SO ITS TOTALLY A LAWFUL GOOD ACTION" happening? Frick off, moron.
>The alignment system helps set a tone for certain peoples
Yeah, morons and literal children who can't understand that morality is relative and you cannot squeeze people cleanly into one of 9 boxes, lest they become two-dimensional caricatures.
>a Hobgoblin warband given specific orders to eliminate every man, woman and child from a village are not going to suddenly find "compassion"
Okay but why are they doing this? If they have no motivation for these actions then it shatters verisimilitude within the setting. You cannot seriously expect me to believe that an entire warband just decided to go commit genocide for shits and/or giggles and also take your world seriously.
>They are Lawful Evil
That's a Chaotic Evil action actually.
>The reason the alignment system is a problem for a lot of modern players is because many modern liberal people have a very naive world view that everyone is as passive as they are.
No, the reason people have issue with it is because it shatters verisimilitude within a setting and leads to boring, one-dimensional characters - both PCs and NPCs - because they have to be contained within one of nine boxes and cannot act outside of these boxes.
it also supports metagamey bullshit, because rather than the world reacting to the actions of the characters living in it in a realistic, nuanced way, you have moronic bullshit like what you fricking described where these hobgoblins are just committing genocide for no reason and this is a regular occurrence.
>Is classic D&D alignments not the STUPIDEST FRICKING CONCEPT
No
>Is classic D&D alignments ONE OF the STUPIDEST FRICKING CONCEPTS
Maybe
>Verification not required
What about the color system from MtG, how does that rate compared to DnDogshit's take on Alignment, and do you agree with this chart I found on things (not that it includes 3 color or more combinations)?
The color wheel is dogshit in completely different ways that really aren't comparable to alignment at all. It's closer to a personality trait system than a value system.
As to the chart, it's pretty horrifically wrong to even categorize these things into good/evil at all considering the actual color alignment of a character has basically nothing to do with how good or evil they are, with the exception of black usually being evil because WotC can't write for shit.
The notion of absolute good and evil is a Christian doctrine that is still absent to this day in other faith.
Gygax was a Mormon, a particular kind of heretical cult that split off.
Every single popular religion in the world has clearly defined good and evil, not just Christianity. The ones that didn't, typically "we have to kill people so the world doesn't end" type of religions were squashed out because those belligerent practitioners were eventually ganged up on. And before you say "but these offshoots or misinterpretations of real life religions exist!", I said popular, as in practiced by large bodies of people and not just secluded cults or rich people societies. Frick yourself with this redditor "uh good and evil doesn't exist" bullshit.
>Every single popular religion in the world has clearly defined good and evil, not just Christianity.
You're never really going to understand nonanglos.
You need to understand that Christianity practices orthodoxy while all the other faiths practice orthopraxy; their ideal of good and evil is based on works first. For example, other religions allow subterfuge and deception including lack of evidence.
DnD's alignment system simply doesn't work outside of Christian philosophy.
Often the normals who don't care to think outside their lukewarm Christian upbringing fail to see the additional opposites.
Yin Yang - Female Male - Black White - Cold Hot - Night Day - etc.
It's not good versus evil. In fact, Christian thought delegates evil to the lack of good and bad a tool of God to use.
>For example, other religions allow subterfuge and deception
You're actually genuinely moronic, aren't you?
Have you read their extended commentaries? Their in-group vs. out-group is off the rails. The ahadith are little different from the Talmud which allows sex with 3-year-olds, and Hindu and Buddhist literature allow lying by ommission and changing numbers to fit the bill.
alignment is fine because it gives a good guide post to understand a particular npc/monster behavior. get a little bored of everyone always wanting to play the exception and not the rule.
OP is the type of freak that probably writes #NotAllOrcs and thinks Sauron was a liberal champion.
it applied a name to most character archetypes that a GM is likely to have to cook up on a whim, so it's not too bad.
I have dramatically less kind opinions toward crap like spell slots, D&D magic mechanics in general, and class levels.
>this thread again
Good/neutral/evil is a measure of morality.
Lawful/neutral/chaotic is a measure of working inside or outside of the laws and established social customs.
A character with an alignment *usually* acts according to that alignment, but not always.
Different characters with the same alignment might act differently because morality and lawfulness vary from person to person and society to society.
If you disagree or this doesn't make sense you are either:
>a pseud getting hung up on the word chaotic
>literally autistic
>a high schooler
>a moron
>about to drop a dumb hot take for fun
Stop making this fricking thread nogames.
>Lawful/neutral/chaotic is a measure of working inside or outside of the laws and established social customs.
No, sometimes the laws are written by 5th columnists.
Yeah. They don't do enough with it.
The alignment system is very strongly inspired by, if not stolen from Elric of Melnibone's multiverse, where Order (Law) and Chaos are fighting for the dominance of realms, with both being concepts, ideologies, realms of reality and philosophies, while good and evil are both an tangential axis of comparison (paraphrasing from Michael Moorwiener himself, both good and evil people can both be chaotic and lawful).
Had DnD leaned fully onto its moorwienerian inspirations, it would have made so much more sense as chaos and order would both have taken a much larger stake than good and evil.
It literally doesn't matter. It's just a scale. You can have two scales. Different groups can conform it to their world. It being chaotic order is meaningless, it would have gone at the very least added 'humanity' as a scale, especially once VtM hit the scene.
People get autisically held up on these things, but really it's just a scale of selfishness and order conforming. That's all it is to players since they aren't like fricking demons or some shit.
If you are selfish and break rules to get what you want, you are chaotic evil. If you are selfish, but work in the system, you are lawful evil. Etc.
That's all these scales ever were. People might also say there is a certain subcontrext of humanity to the good evil scale as well, but who fricking cares?
I could never allow a player at my table who fails to recognize the importance of D&D alignment.
The fact that they haven't been well-designed and properly implemented in decades makes me wonder why anyone was attached enough to them to feel pissed off anytime there was talk of removing alignments.
Just because they implemented it poorly doesn't mean it's undesired.
The biggest competitors to D&D, effectively have morality scales with defined mechanics (insanity in call of Cthulhu and humanity in VtM). You can say they 'aren't exactly morality' but they are metrics that effectively tell you how far a character has 'fallen'. This is not a bad metric to track and people LIKE it. It's very informative to how pcs and npcs act.
For my homebrew system Alignment is replaced with Religious Affiliation and Attitude.
Religious Affiliation is between two opposed Pantheons, essentially the Olympians vs the Titans. A character can either Affiliate broadly with one Pantheon, to a specific God of one Pantheon, or be Unaffiliated. Being Unafilliated means you're definitely giving up on an afterlife and cannot access the benefits of any religious institution or magic, though, so being a modern atheist is highly discouraged (though not impossible). Most Unafilliated are mindless creatures and automatons, and the occasional "I swear vengeance against all gods!" madmen.
Attitude is a slider between Ordered, Natural and Chaotic where a character must meet certain standards of behavior to meet either extreme.
Pantheon A is the Ordered Pantheon and Pantheon B is the Chaotic Pantheon, but Natural characters can be affiliated with nearly all the Gods of both Pantheon with only the Pantheon 'Heads' requiring absolute Order or Chaos.
I think this gets over and around the problems with Gygaxian Alignment while still allowing for definitive Good vs Evil storytelling since there are ultimately benevolent and malevolent deities and their worshippers.
No because the X card exists.
>ctrl+f
>"combat wheelchairs"
>no results
come on guys.
combat wheelchairs are dumb but they arent really 'official', unless you count minis.
what throws me is that if your character MUST be an incurable paraplegic, there are hundreds of potentially cooler ways you could get them mobile again in a fantasy setting beyond a magic wheelchair.
I like it when it refers to what cosmic team you're on. Certain powers only belong to certain teams, and that's fun. It's not done well in any D&D, but it could be.
In what way is it not done well in *any* D&D? Honestly 2e and 3.X is (mostly) great. It could lean more into it than it does, but I think that'd be overdoing it. It's relevant when it has cause to be and when it's not relevant it sinks into the background, as it should.
You and I have different standards for "alignment done well" and that's okay.
it is if, and only if, you are an absolute pedant (worst kind of idiot).
>How often do you do the right thing?
often
sometimes
rarely
>how much do you respect institutions?
often
sometimes
rarely
is that really that hard or stupid? especially for big picture gameplay purposes?
D&D alignments are far from the worst thing
I know we MUST maintain the tradition that Op is a massive fricking homosexual and thus he needs to exaggerate, shit and piss about how bad alignments are, being a massive fricking contrarian because the reality is that the classic alignments, while shit in practice, are still a lot of fun
just fricking forget about the alingment chart anyway. Does OP even know about fricking FATAL and things like anal circunference? Or from D&D itself how about a lot of the ivory tower bullshit? There are a million of concepts infinitely worse than the classic D&D alignments on objective levels, but you rather be a fricking homosexual and cry, piss and try to circlejerk about the popular thing that's, at least, a beloved meme
No. Explicitly, the majority of Humans in D&D are True Neutral. It's just midwits not realizing their political takes are inconsequential. If you don't care enough to fistfight someone at any fitting opportunity for your alignment, you're True Neutral. Most D&D Humans are opportunist polytheists that don't really consider their actions in the long term. Meanwhile, Elves want their freedom above all and it's nonnegotiable. Chaotic Neutral.
>thread dedicated to morons who cannot comprehend D&D alignment
and to think, this board tries to shit on the game at every turn, too.
Nothing out of the ordinary
No, the only problem is a lack of rules for it. Not in terms of mechanics that affect it, but in terms of actual RULES for what is and isn't evil/chaotic/lawful/good/neutral acts.
I don't know why, on the instant of seeing VtM, whoever owned D&D at the time didn't decide and try codify alignment a bit more. Literally just a table like VtM has for humanity would be enough, where you only have to roll for potentially falling or rising if you do X thing or below/above your current 'Evil Score' or 'Lawful Score'.
Give some mechanical effects too and you'd be guchy
Lawful good (LG) (5th Edition D&D) creatures can be counted on to do the right thing as expected by society.
Lawful Good (4th Edition D&D); If you’re lawful good, you respect the authority of personal codes of conduct, laws, and leaders, and you believe that those codes are the best way of achieving your ideals. Just authority promotes the well-being of its subjects and prevents them from harming one another. Lawful good characters believe just as strongly as good ones do in the value of life, and they put even more emphasis on the need for the powerful to protect the weak and lift up the downtrodden. The exemplars of the lawful good alignment are shining champions of what’s right, honorable, and true, risking or even sacrificing their lives to stop the spread of evil in the world.
When leaders exploit their authority for personal gain, when laws grant privileged status to some citizens and reduce others to slavery or untouchable status, law has given in to evil and just authority becomes tyranny. You are not only capable of challenging such injustice, but morally bound to do so. However, you would prefer to work within the system to right such problems rather than resorting to more rebellious and lawless methods.
Lawful Good, “Crusader” (D&D 3.5 Edition): A lawful good character acts as a good person is expected or required to act. She combines a commitment to oppose evil with the discipline to fight relentlessly. She tells the truth, keeps her word, helps those in need, and speaks out against injustice. A lawful good character hates to see the guilty go unpunished. Alhandra, a paladin who fights evil without mercy and protects the innocent without hesitation, is lawful good. Lawful good is the best alignment you can be because it combines honor and compassion.
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As you can see from my first post 5th Edition D&D is shit when it comes to giving players a clear set of guidelines for roleplaying Alignment.
D&D 4th edition was very elaborate in describing Lawful Good. But they also reduced Alignment to being more of a side note with little influence on the game.
There are only four Alignments in 4th Edition (Good, Lawful Good, Evil, and Chaotic Evil). They also present a "Unaligned" option but since the game doesn't really place any importance on a characters Alignment it is as useless as the Alignments themselves.
The only Editions of the game where Alignment had both mechanical and role playing importance were D&D 3.5 and all the editions that came before it.
There's really no point in debating Alignment as it is applied to 4th and 5th Edition since the designers stripped away or dumbed down its significance in these games.
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Interesting discussion so far. I miss these kinds of threads happening on /tg/.