There's nothing wrong with the alignment system. People hate it because DM's are shit at implementing it as intended.
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Alignment is good
There's nothing wrong with the alignment system. People hate it because DM's are shit at implementing it as intended.
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People keep trying to say my barbarian character "Kor, Taker of Widows" who is based on Genghis Khan is CE.
Genghis Khan was CN
>Killed a shitload of slopes, Slavs and durkas
>Any alignment but Good
I wish Mongolia would rise again
Genghis Khan was LG you fools
Genghis Khan was Lawful Neutral.
It's a good tool to quickly sum up a characters' morals but if you enforce it in any kind of mechanical way it's just an encumbrance. It's also just a leftover from 2e's lore that hasn't been a significant part of D&D lore since.
The issue isn't alignment, it's that people act like it's requisite.
This really isn't hard.
>Do you prefer order over freedom
Lawful
>Do you prefer freedom over order
Chaotic
>Are you a selfless and altruistic towards non-Evil people?
Good
>Are you an butthole towards non-Evil people?
Evil
The question isnt its complexity, the issue is that people fail to adhere to it and 5e just gives frick all about your characters alignment,
Every person ever born is True Neutral.
Mtg's color wheel is better
I don't like that one because it excludes my favorite color.
What's your favorite color?
It really isn't.
The problem with alignment is that it uses incredibly broad ideas in very narrow ways, which confuses people and obscures that it's just a simple system for determining how groups react to one another.
Labelling someone or something Chaotic or Lawful Evil is pretty easy, things get blurred between good and neutral.
What does that have to do with what I said?
>as intended
Which is?
Is Lawful Evil and Chaotic Evil the same guy or am I just dumb?
LE is Sauron and CE is Melkor (big Sauron)
Oh, okay, I've heard of Melkor, didn't know Sauron was coping his look.
>There's nothing wrong with the alignment system.
Then who don't any good systems use it?
>Paladin is enjoying dinner at an inn on the road and like any Good Paladin, casts Detect Evil to make sure there isn't any Evil lurking nearby. Some of the inn-goers are Good and most are Neutral, nothing out of the ordinary, but the sleepy-eyed, scrawny inn-worker taking orders and cleaning glasses pings as Chaotic Evil. It's only a mild aura and no sign of demonic taint but genuine malice and hate for authority burns inside of this wagie. Paladin stops eating his cabbage and thinks for a moment.
What is the proper response in this situation? Should the Paladin rise from his seat and strike this commoner down for possessing a truly blackened soul or should he take him into arrestive custody, that he might be redeemed at a Lawful Good temple? The Paladin can sense that he's not a ruthless murderer or hardened criminal, though this may be more out of weakness than moral scruples, and there can be no doubt that the potential for vile darkness is there. Is it the Paladin's responsibility to investigate this man's life and find why he's Chaotic Evil, if at all, or is it the way of things that some are twisted and a Paladin's only duty is to cut down the weed lest it strangle the wheat?
That's when the Paladin strikes up a conversation with the wagie to better ascertain the context and see if their are any signs of concern.
After this the paladin would consult the Law of Lawful Good (depends on the setting and GM interpretation) and see if there is a proper punishment. If there is it is enacted.
If there are no rules being broken then the Paladin is obligated to try and reform the wagie for as long as duty allows (if there are more important things needing to be done they take priority) in a way as they see fit (this can be anything from as you said taking them to the temple to just trying to talk and change their worldview) on risk of punishment if the way they go about it is improper to their vows and god.
I'm trying to gauge how much weight a Paladin should give to genuinely Evil but largely harmless individuals. The sort of man that would sign a pact, kill an innocent, or rob his neighbor if the opportunity fell into his lap but doesn't have anywhere near the ambition to seek it out. On one hand, there's bandits, monsters, and occultists preying on the innocent in the wilderness, but on the other, a random wagie is filled with enough spite that it's managed to shift the metaphysical alignment and spiritual destination of their soul into something closer to a fiend than a pious commoner. Sure, it's mostly not a big deal from a danger perspective, but does it warrant prolonged concern, is the question. If a Paladin should delay hunting greater Evils to take an afternoon to work through a murderously sadistic man's anger to a society he perceives to have taken advantage of him, rightly or wrongly, is that a dereliction of higher duty or only to be expected from a true exemplar of righteousness? Is it at the Paladin's own discretion? By the same token, is it an Evil act to be opposed to and distrust a Paladin? Suppose this wagie were to, on realizing the Paladin is approaching, turn and try to make his way to the chamberpot to latch the door shut and wait for him to leave, would the Paladin then be justified in forcibly detaining him? Would he be in the right to make a scene, batter down the door, and drag him to the nearest temple by the hem of his shirt? Everyone knows how a Paladin should respond to an out-and-out, foaming-at-the-mouth, baby-eating cultist of the chthonic powers, but what about mundane, Evil, yet currently innocent, low-status commoners who hardly have the strength to act on any foul ambitions?
I think the problem is people make assumptions about characters' role in stories based on alignment alone.
"Oh, the Inquisitor is lawful good, that MUST mean they're on the hero's side and not someone who would burn peasants at the stake just because they did a little herbalism, right?"
"Oh, the king is lawful evil, that MUST mean they're a villain I need to overthrow and not just a normal tyrant whose actions are relatively standard for monarchs throughout history."
That's literally the role of alignment though, to provide an easy way for players to tell what someone's role is.
No, it's to turn complex morality into an easy to understand trait. A random lawful evil king in whogivesafrickistan that the party is just passing through does not need to be immediately overthrown just because he is lawful evil. He is incomparably not on the same level as the BBEG because random npc king does not have the ambitions for world domination that the BBEG has. He just is a selfish butthole with draconian laws. That's it. That's lawful evil in a nutshell, but it has no bearing on the NPC's role in the story.
It's not about morality, which is why its called "alignment" rather than "morality". It's about whose interests align with whose, particularly in terms of the supernatural.
Smaug with thay quote is Chaotic Evil. Nothing really Neutral about it.
turbocope