If alignments were never a part of D&D would the greater

>>46696787
If that were the case, all D&D community would have left are edition wars and rules lawyering. It's all the same trash but at least present situation has slightly more variety.

If we'd settled on

>Law
>Neutrality
>Chaos

then the world would be a better place.

The biggest irony is that 4E took a step back in the RIGHT direction, yet everyone complained.

>>46696787
In what way? I don't quite understand how a lack of alignments would prevent rules lawyering, that guy'ism, or the general inability to have calm rational discussion that seems to plague nerd groups.

Alignments are very simple, it's just that some people are stupid. You seem to be one of them.

And, cue the same people making the same responses the last thousand times this thread was made.

>>46696859
You sound like you need a hug

>>46696853
It allowed for a kind of playstyle that was pretty shit. Oh shit, I'm evil (or other alignment)! I'd better play it up to the point of borderline metagaming and nonsensical stupidity so I can keep/justify my alignment! Oh shit my GM doesn't agree on what this alignment means!

>>46696843

>The biggest irony is that 4E took a step back in the RIGHT direction, yet everyone complained.

Mostly because it did it in the worst way possible, by implicitly coupling good to order and evil to chaos, giving us the worst of both worlds.

It seems pretty easy to replace alignment with backgrounds, flaws and ideals in 5e now.

>>46696975
But as a miniature based wargame it was emulating Warhammer perfectly in that sense.

>>46696975
>Mostly because it did it in the worst way possible, by implicitly coupling good to order and evil to chaos, giving us the worst of both worlds.

that's how it was in the first place. before good and evil were alignments, law was the implicit good alignment and chaos was the implicit evil alignment.

>>46696922
That is true. I like the idea of writing down how a character feels about certine things, but I understand the alignment system took some memory work off the DM. So it's a matter of realism vs convenience. Paladins with detect, and smite, anti-social personality disorder just does not have the same ring to it.

>>46697014

Then why would you call it that in the first place? why not just call it good and evil to begin with, and save us the confusion?

If you are going to align your moral compass along law and chaos, you might as well give it a bit more moral complexity.

>>46696975

the odd thing about that was that they looked more like modifiers then anything else. Sure, you are good, but i'm Lawful Good, so that is twice as good as you.

>>46696975
It's not saying they were the SAME though.

You could be good, but maybe you were a Robin Hood type. What alignment is Robin Hood? I'd call him Neutral Good since he does have something of a code, but he's also going against the establishment. Official sourcebooks call him Chaotic Good, simply because he's fighting Lawful Evil bad guys.

What alignment is Batman? He's a good guy yet he breaks the law ... despite having strict rules of his own.

Does it MATTER that Darth Vader is lawful evil? What matters is that he's evil.

4E clears up a lot of ambiguities. Robin Hood and Batman are Good, Darth Vader is Evil. Maybe some people take it a step further by adding politics to it: the lawful good paladin is a good example, as is the chaotic evil demon.

Basic had it best by not having good or evil enter into it. The forces of Law are generally good and the forces of Chaos are generally evil, but there's nothing stopping you playing against type. Evil people don't think they're evil. Having spells that actually say, "Yep, you're unquestionably Evil," is so dumb, even though you might have a Chaotic outlook/personality.

>>46697029
You could just confine good and evil to extraplanar beings I guess. Something with positive energy or "Good" and the opposite of that can exist on the planes but anything truly native to Prime Material / the world is unaffected.

The good/evil alignments are much better than the law/chaos alignments. Having good and evil means that sometimes the PCs actually try to be the good guys, instead of all edgelord all the time.

>>46696922
are you implying thatguys would change anything about their behavoir if they didn't have one of their many paper thin excuses?

>>46696859
they are fine as roleplaying support for rookie players and DMs , but turning them into a mechanic despite subjective morality makes them extremely hard to actually define , thus need to be redefined for every context. It would work with a homogenity in morals and ideals amongst the participants tho.
This comes from someone who also plays with people with different cultural and ideological background , so we cant simply agree what thing or action is "good/neutral/evil".


alignment as a mechanic is retarded, so we only kept it as roleplaying support

I ignore alignment, strictly speaking.

I stay in-character when directing my PC to do things, but both as DM and PC I ignore the implications of some random, inapplicable "alignment"

So ... maybe? Sounds like alignments didn't hurt me though.

>>46697304
On the contrary putting it out there that evil is technically an option is encouragement to act two dimensionally. I'm basically saying alignments created murderhobos in the first place.

Lawful, Neutral and Chaotic would've been the best system because any of them can be the villain.
>Chaos is the villain: You're a band of noble, honourable heroes fighting against a horde of savage monsters who seek to destroy civilisation
>Law is the villain: You're a ragtag band of misfits and outcasts fighting for freedom and rebelling against an oppressive and likely corrupt regime
>Neutrality is the villain: A natural disaster or apocalypse of some sort has struck the world, there is no major BBEG and the lawful and chaotic races have to put aside their differences and unite to survive
>Law and Chaos are both the villains: The world is trapped in a constant cycle of oppression and destruction, only through moderation can balance be recovered

>>46697411

I disagree. Murderhobo was the natual impulse of the D&Der, even before there was an explicit Evil. Good, on the other hand, takes effort.

>>46696787
>If alignments were never a part of D&D would the greater RPG community be better?
If they continued with od&d and never made ad&d rpg comunity would be better

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>>46697439
>>46697411
If anything, alignments prevent murderhoboing by allowing the group to establish that they'd be a good-aligned party. Otherwise there's nothing stopping the resident edgelord from playing a serial killer in a party full of classic do-gooders (besides, y'know, telling him not to or kicking him out, but why the hell would anyone do that?)

Speaking as someone who doesn't really care for D&D, it baffles me just how much mental gymnastics people go through to blame it for LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE PROBLEM in RPGs.

the only thing worse than alignments is arguing about them

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Here's a handy reference for the history of alignment in D&D: http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=8417.20

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Alignments were never as difficult as people make them out to be. They're kind of like colours in Magic: the Gathering. The alignments gather certain kinds of creatures, spells, items, and personalities into a group. They're like factions. Picture White as Good, Black as Evil, Blue as Lawful, Red as Chaotic, and Green as Neutral. The parallel isn't exact, but its a decent simile to convey the concept.

Just like colours do not ruin magic but give different decks a distinct style and flavour, alignments do not ruin D&D but give different characters their own style and flavour. It works fine as long as people know that you don't need to be Good to be the hero, just like there were Black-aligned heroes in Magic: the Gathering.

>>46696787
Yes. Alignment is horseshit.

>>46698590
this

If you don't like alignments don't use 'em

>>46698590
I think what makes colors work is that they've got more of a theme encompassing a few other things and therefore more going on than alignments which are just morality. There's also more of them than there are colors with lots of overlap that makes people argue.

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>>46698648
But that's the thing, alignments aren't about morality. There are Good spells that are morally horrific. Cast Holy Word in a maternity hospital and see what happens, and consider the implications of the spell Sanctify the Wicked. Alignments, in D&D, are very much "a theme encompassing a few other things". Monsters can have alignments based on what they are instead of what they do: see the alignment subtypes. Spells can be Good or Evil or Lawful or Chaotc regardless of what they are used for, whether it is the Holy Word example above or creating skeletons to rescue children from a burning orphanage.

Good isn't about morality, it is about altruism, self-sacrifice, light and life. Evil isn't about immorality, it is about selfishness, the end justifying the means, darkness and death. Both Good and Evil characters can be moral, but their moralities are different. Evil characters can be loving family men (Asmodeus cared for his daughter Glasya and his late consort Bensozia), and can work for the betterment of all (if they see something in it for them). Good characters can be thieves and murderers, as long as they do so following the Good-aligned themes.

In fact, I think the biggest problem with alignment is simply the names.

>>46696787
I do alignment differently than most DMs. What the player writes on his sheet is not necessarily his alignment. I keep track of how a PC acts and drift his alignment accordingly. I had one player that went full "Chaotic Good" Murderhobo and then was totally flabbergasted that he pinged as strongly evil to an NPC paladin that saw him shitting up a market.

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>>46698990

Funny thing - that's actually how alignments were intended to work. Alignments aren't a straightjacket to force you into taking one of a limited subset of future actions, they were a descriptor representing your current attitude and morals based on your PAST actions. You start the game with an alignment based on the actino you've taken before the game, and your alignment shifts based on the actions you take during the game. But you're still free to actually TAKE those actions; somebody who says "a lawful neutral character wouldn't do that" is entirely missing the point.

With the specific exception of the Paladin, you can take whatever goddamn actions you feel are appropriate for the character/situation...and if you take enough of them (or a smaller number of really critical decisons) that are lined up with an alignment different than the one you currently have, your alignment will shift to reflect the actions of your recent past. But - Paladin aside - you are NEVER straightjacketed into taking only X or Y actions because of your alignment.

>>46698990
so you use alignments as they are written in the rulebook?

>>46696843
This was the original alignment system, wasn't it? Good and evil weren't initially tracked so myopically.

>>46699151
Pre-WotC Rangers, Monks, and Psionicists were also the same way to lesser degrees. Rangers could lose Ranger status for evil acts. Monks and Psionicists would lose their powers if they went Chaotic.

>>46699202

But they COULD take the actions, though. That's his point: a lot of people treat alignment as a "straight jacket". You're not allowed to take actions outside of your alignment, and you have to act precisely in line with your alignment at all times.

>>46699151 is saying that's not the case. Alignment doesn't affect your decisions, it changes as a reaction *to* your decisions. There's an important semantic difference there compared to "Your decisions must be affected by your alignment."

>>46699262
Paladins weren't ever stopped from taking actions that weren't Lawful Good. They just fell if they did.

>>46696787
>Wouldn't it be great if we could play RPG's like they were video games?
Fixed that for you.

>>46699494
>using video game as derogatory statement
>locking the vast array of human action, motivation, and desire into 9 boxes isn't somehow video gamey.

>>46699538
>In the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy role-playing game, alignment is a categorization of the ethical and moral perspective of player characters, non-player characters, and creatures.

where does it say a lawful good paladin can't do things that aren't lawful good?

>>46699618
>where does it say a lawful good paladin can't do things that aren't lawful good?
The part where it says he falls if he doesn't
>alignment is a categorization of the ethical and moral perspective of player characters, non-player characters, and creatures.
Are you telling me every single fucking outlook on life, behavior, and set of morals can be ticked off into 9 little boxes?

>>46699644
But that does not stop him from taking said actions.

It's not an issue if your group is good at role-playing.

>>46699644
>Are you telling me every single fucking outlook on life, behavior, and set of morals can be ticked off into 9 little boxes?

Not him, but they absolutely can, just like all life can be classified into three domains (Archaea, Bacteria, and Eukarya).

The thing about the nine alignments is that they are very broad, and you are classified only by a small subset of your behaviours. A Lawful Good character and a Chaotic Evil character could both be nerds who like anime, for example, because those behaviours have no bearing on your alignment.

>>46699723
>It's not an issue if your group is good

FTFY

>>46699723

Which is why it's an issue for all of our groups.

>>46699783
> A Lawful Good character and a Chaotic Evil character could both be nerds who like anime, for example, because those behaviours have no bearing on your alignment.
It is when there are classes restricted to those alignments.

>>46699809

...and? A Paladin and a Barbarian can both be nerds who like anime, anon. However, one of them won't break a promise and is loyal to his or order while the other hates being restricted by rules or society. Not all behaviours are relevant to alignment, and for those that are, yes, there are classes, just like there are burn spells in Red and counters in Blue.

>>46699809
Calm down faggot. I could play a paladin and choose to burn down an orphanage.

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>>46698613
>Yes. Alignment is horseshit.

Yeah, it's not like you can actually describe anything useful with that two-axis system.

http://rolesrules.blogspot.com/2010/09/e-gary-gygax-social-psychologist.html

>>46699868
> the other hates being restricted by rules or society.
Aside from all those "Barbarian" societies with their own traditions, rituals, practices, and tribal laws?

>>46696787
Hey guys , remember earlier when we were talking about what false equivalency is? Perfect example.

>>46699887

As noted earlier in the thread, Chaotic characters can still have laws (e.g. Grazz't's decrees in his demon realm), they merely function differently from Lawful laws.

The problem isn't with alignments, anon. The problem is that you are distracted by the name and do not care that it is a broader idea.

>>46699901
Nothing's being compared in an attempt to make an equivalence.

>>46699873
I'm not even upset about that. Paladins are the only alignment restriction that actually makes any sense imo. And that's solely because it's not called "Templar".

Why do Monks need to be lawful. I could train hard and value personal strength solely because I believe strength is the only real means of doing anything in this world so I train my body. kinda like the Barbarian or any other class in the fucking game.

Why can't a Bard be Lawful, knowing a shit ton of Oral traditions and perfecting musical skill takes a shit ton of discipline and practice to perfect the art.

>>46699934
>1+1=2, except when 1+1=3; Alignments are a great system.

>. The problem is that you are distracted by the name and do not care that it is a broader idea.
And neither do the publishers of the game apparently.

>>46699958
Monks (or Shaolin - let's not muddy waters trying to pretend Shaolin with the serial numbers filed off are not Shaolin). require discipline, day after day of training, meditation, and ascetic denial. They don't need to be kind, or gentle, or cruel, or selfish. They need to be committed and disciplined.

A barbarian (Conan, Kull, Thongorr) is wild. He has a fighting spirit greater than that of any of the soft city dwellers because he is wild. A tamed barbarian is not a barbarian. (and not every barbarian is a barbarian either.)

A bard is wanderer, a traveler, a collector of lore. He is a man of many talents and trades. His strength is his wandering heart, which has taken him through all manner of adventures. Lots of people are musicians: most of those cannot sing a song to make nature weep and give you pity, or catch the ear of a god.

We have become exceedingly good at it dot p n g

>>46699958
>Why do Monks need to be lawful.
They don't, there are Chaotic monks (Dragon magazine #335) and if you change alignments from either Monk class you keep all your Monk abilities, so there are Neutral monks as well. Furthermore, such a character as you describe could easily be a Swordsage, which could be of any alignment. The Monk class in the PHB is not just "guy who trains good". He is a person pursuing a particular philosophy of self-discipline and control, and gets supernatural power from it.

As for why can't a Bard be Lawful: bardic magic follows a fey theme. A musician and person knowing a shit ton of oral traditions is not a Bard: a Bard in D&D is a person drawing on a particular style of magic, which incidentally is part of the Chaotic theme.

>>46700153
>(Dragon magazine #335
>canon
>He is a person pursuing a particular philosophy of self-discipline and control, and gets supernatural power from it.
No he isn't because that's not what the fucking book says. You're injecting your own lore where there is none. There isn't any lore there, just a bunch of trope there for the sake of them.

>>46699958
I assume the theory behind it is that being a monk and perfecting your training to the point where you can literally become ageless requirements some amount of dedication to following a code/rules IE lawful. The same could probably be said for Bards where creativity and exploration are so inherent in the class that being lawful would hamper their effectiveness.

But then again there are totally "chaotic" monk archetypes like drunk kung-fu or Sun-Wukong just like there are "lawful" bards such as classical composers and most aristocratic composers. But honestly you should just unbunch your panties and suck it up since we can only assume the developers' reasoning and realize they rarely make decisions based on any sort of math or game balance.

>>46700014
the names Law and Chaos are from Moorcock and later riffs on the idea by Anderson. In those stories, the really strong poles would be what we call Lawful Good and Chaotic Evil. Evil is Chaos, Law is Good.

Gygax saw that fucking nobody got that, so he expanded it to two more independent axes. This leads to some weird breaks with what came before, like the chaotic evil parody of civilization practiced by the Drow becoming seen as Lawful Evil.

The easiest way to explain the four poles would be something like:
Good - I care about others (and I can suffer for them)
Evil - I care about me (let those other people suffer for me)
Lawful - I care about external order (I subsume my will to a superior, external force)
Chaotic - I care about internal passions (I have no use for external wills trying to usurp my own)

>>46696787
SMT, which took inspiration for its alignment system has humorously always done it better than DnD ever has

only L-N-C; no G-N-E axis

law - order, stoicism, restriction, and fundamentalist theocratic society
chaos - freedom, capitalism, darwinism and mass death
neutral - the path of denial; the path of humanity; and the path fated for a slow, steady decline

no alignment is 'good' and anyone in any alignment can be any sort of person, alignment is just that, with what their views align

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>>46700198

Dragon Magazine is 100% official content. It even says so on the cover.

And yes, the developers do not explain in detail why each class has the alignment it has, because most people can infer from those tropes you noticed and don't need every single thing spelled out for them.

>>46700287
>because most people can infer from those tropes you noticed
Except all the fucking tropes that discount your examples see:>>46700201


And that still doesn't show how these arbitrary restrictions do nothing but hinder the amount/type of characters that can be played.

>>46700201
D&D is a vehicle for mashing up, re-enacting, and getting into dick measuring contests with characters from 60s pulp novels, 70s B movies, and the odd creature from myth. At no point does it try to fairly and accurately represent anything. In fact it's amazing how consistent the shit we retroactively bolt on to something like D&D can be.

>>46700317
Let's go over this slowly so you can keep up

Alignments are not restrictions. they are fucking labels you get based on your actions. Certain classes need specific alignments because they are expected to follow certain archetypes. Archetypes can be broad and have unique twists which are usually added as prestige classes. How fucking hard is this to understand?

>>46700283
>no alignment is 'good' and anyone in any alignment can be any sort of person
Light-Dark-Neutral, thought that has more to do with how the cultures that the demons came from viewed them than straight up morality

>>46700344
>How fucking hard is this to understand?
Very, because you're contradicting yourself.

>>46700344
>Alignments are not restrictions.
>Certain classes need specific alignments because they are expected to follow certain archetypes
So they are restrictions
>Archetypes can be broad
So why do they require alignments
> have unique twists which are usually added as prestige classes.
That are non existent/unnecessary.

>>46700317

They do not hinder anything. Drunk kung-fu is not a Monk, as presented in the PHB, it s a Drunken Master, a separate prestige class. Classical composers are not Bards, they are Virtuoso, which is also a separate prestige class.

Far from hindering the amount of characters that can be played, having separate classes for different tropes actually means that different characters are different in play as well as in concept. The problem isn't that the Monk class doesn't fit your concepts, the problem is that you expect the monk class to fit every martial artist ever, and the bard class to fit every musician ever, when both are magical classes related to specific themes and are not, nor ever were, designed as a catch-all generic class. There are other classes for that.

>>46696787
Alignment as a character descriptor wasn't the problem. It became a problem when it was tied to more and more mechanics. What wouldn't made RPGs infinitely better would be the realization that you don't need numerical bonuses for every single thing about twenty years ago.

>>46700481
>wouldn't
would've*

>>46696787
Eh.

I think that World of Darkness's virtue/vice system was based off D&D morality, or at least it was prompted by it. The virtue/vice system is fairly good, and I'm sure it inspired other good systems as well. Overall, I'd say that D&D alignment had a positive effect on the RPG community, even if it's positive effect was "Don't make systems like D&D's alignment system."

For D&D itself, it's probably a detriment. Or at least, the way it has been implemented is a detriment - it could've been put to use in other ways which weren't so poor. Although if we are honest, D&D has a large number of problems, and alignment (despite the number of online arguments over it) is probably one of the smallest factors in the problems D&D has overall.

>>46700407
> Drunk kung-fu is not a Monk, as presented in the PHB, it s a Drunken Master, a separate prestige class
Which sucks, and yes. It is a fucking Monk. They would be called a fucking monk in every other peice of media ever, and the only reason D&D separates them is because "muh half baked legacy" bullshit
>magical classes related to specific themes and are not, themes and are not, nor ever were, designed as a catch-all generic class. There are other classes for that.

No there really aren't. The fucking Virtuoso explicitly mentions using Bardic music. There is no meaningful fucking distinction between the two besides one being created to fill up pages.

>>46700407
>Far from hindering the amount of characters that can be played, having separate classes for different tropes actually means that different characters are different in play as well as in concept.

Except that's not how it works at all.

What you end up with are some options that BASICALLY DO THE SAME FUCKING THING BUT BETTER, at the expense of "fluff".

>>46700519

Yes, there are meaningful distinctions. Bards cast spells, focusing on illusions and enchantments. Monks speak every language, turn ethereal, and don't age. What made you think that such a thing covers all things called "bards" or "monks" in every piece of media ever?

Here's some miracle work. I take some martial class (lets say Fighter) and say he learned kung-fu in a monastery. Are you upset because this character's class happens to not be named Monk? Some classes are more generic than others, designed to stand in for many concepts, while some are more narrow, and hence have alignments attached to them.

>>46700519
>They would be called a fucking monk in every other peice of media ever
Look, D&D as written doesn't aspire to be an accurate, or complete model of the conceivable space of fantasy worlds. The Barbarian is Conan, the Cleric is a vampire hunter, the monk is a Shaolin from "Kung Fu" (not a practioner of the art of Kung Fu: a character from the movie "Kung Fu"), and a Samurai is a ridiculous razor whirlwind. That is the sum total of what the authors inspired them to be.

>>46700639
>Some classes are more generic than others, designed to stand in for many concepts
It's important to remember that, while it sounds very generic, "fighting man" is actually a very well-established historical term for any soldier. For example, John Carter, Confederate officer-turned-Martian warlord, was a fighting man.

>>46700643
>The Barbarian is Conan,
Actually, Conan is Fighter 13/Thief 7.

>>46700643

Barbarian is less Conan and more Berserker. Conan would perhaps be a fighter or a warblade. I don't recall Conan ever going into an insane rampage, which is what the Barbarian is about.

>>46700639
>. Are you upset because this character's class happens to not be named Monk?
No actually, again you're fucking contradicting yourself. If your "Fighter" can be raised in a monastery and raised by Shaolin fuckers, than my "Monk" can be fucking vagrant who learned to fight on the streets.

>>46700689
Close, Neutral Ftr15/Thf9. But Barbarians didn't exist yet.

http://deltasdnd.blogspot.com/2010/06/gygax-on-conan.html

>>46700687

Yes, of course, though we must also remember that the names of the classes are for organization and reference purposes only, and the OD&D "fighting man" and modern "fighter" cover not only professional soldiers but also martial artists, gangster thugs, bodyguards, bouncers, or any number of similar concepts.

>>46700704
>>46700689
Conan has been statted as many fucking things. Including a goddamn Psionicist. Classes in D&D are grab bags of abilities, not actual stations in life.

>>46696787
I prefer nature & demeanor over alignment so yes imho.

>>46700704
Saying the barbarian's historically most important quality is his rage is like saying a Swiss Army Knife is a corkscrew with some questionable accessories. In a sense it's true, but that sense is very narrow and largely misses the point.

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>>46700739
Nah, 13/7. CB1 and CB2 will back me up on this one. Official modules trump Dragon.

>>46700728

No, I am not contradicting myself at all, you are merely selectively ignoring anything you feel like ignoring. As already stated: some classes (like the Fighter) are generic and cover many concepts, while others (like Monk) are designed for a specific theme, which is why it has an alignment. You cannot expect the latter to work exactly like the former.

For posterity, new anon.

>>46700728
>>46700687
The thing is that Fighting Man is way more of a catch-all and there's no real reason why angry man, punching man, or any of their derivatives shouldn't fall under his purview.

>>46700791
So does the official TSR Conan RPG trump the Official Conan write up, or just the official Dragon write up?

(The answer is that the notion of a single, "official" version of anything in D&D is retarded.)

>>46700824
Seeing as the TSR Conan RPG doesn't run on D&D, it's irrelevant to the discussion.

>>46700803
>while others (like Monk) are designed for a specific theme,
Except there not because there were plenty of Drunken Master type stuff during Gygaxes dtime as well, not to mention "slacker guy picks up Kung-fu with quirky teacher and gets hot Asian GF" type shit

And you also seem to imply that class inspiration is set in stone, and doesn't change. What your saying may have applied to older editions, but not the latest ones.

Waitwaitwait

So the problem anon is having with the alignment system

is that he cannot play a Monk?

But... the monk class is a piece of shit.

So alignment is actually a GOOD thing, for sending him away from the most poorly-thought-out classes at the experimental era of the edition.

Meanwhile, the unarmed Swordsage has no alignment restriction. How convenient.

>>46700944
>every discussion only pertains to 3.PF
>everyone forgets that 1e monk violently raped everything if it survived past the first few levels

>>46700944
He's not OP, speaking as OP. Anyway, that's not really a good sign. Why not get it right the first time? That's what we call a silver lining. Imagine if Warblade, Swordsage, and Crusader replaced Fighter, Paladin, and Monk in core from the get go.

>>46700944
Monk is just an example, everyone knows the monk is horseshit. I could also play a Psychic Warrior. The issue isn't the monk is trash, it's that the design decisions behind keeping it lawful only are fucking poisoness.

>>46700944
Nigtron, monk has been around since 1975.

>>46700862
Unlike some other RPGs TSR put out Conan actually is just D&D with classes replaced by character names, and with "hp" replaced by "luck points"

>>46700998

That is less a problem with alignment and more a problem with the Monk class. Because truly, there are no design decisions for the core Monk class that make a lick of sense.

>>46701017
No, it really isn't. That's the CB1 and CB2 modules, which use AD&D 1e. TSR7014 - Conan uses a resolution table similar to that of Gamma World 3e.

>>46700995
>Why not get it right the first time?
Because the game changes as sub systems are released, and it turns out that 3.5's extra subsystems were more balanced than the default. I mean shit, 3.5 is pretty fun if you Replace Wizards, Sorcs, etc with Psions, Dread Necromancers, and War Mages.
>>46701040
Yeah, but it still extends to several other classes Barbarian, Bards, etc.

>>46700995
>Why not get it right the first time?

People naturally improve with practice and experimentation.

>>46700998
>The issue isn't the monk is trash, it's that the design decisions behind keeping it lawful only are fucking poisoness.

Poisonous? How? The rules basically say "if you want to play a monk, act like a monk. If you act like something else, why don't you take a class that fits that concept?"

Use the d20 modern martial artist. There. Done. Now when the master asks you to left the red hot cauldron with your forearms and receive the marks of mastery, instead you can say, "nah, I can't even sit through a Zach Snyder film" and whiz of in your Porsche.

There is not or will be nothing wrong with alignment, as long as it is not on your character sheet.

Alignment if used for creatures and things you can encounter make perfect sense, it shows their moral and spiritual aliegence, how likely those creatures are to have honor or use deception, etc.

Especially when you consider weird creatures like Flumphs, that without OOC or Bardic knowledge, you'd have no idea what alignment they'd be. I'd look at it more as a GM tool then anything.

>>46701095
>"if you want to play a monk, act like a monk. If you act like something else, why don't you take a class that fits that concept?"
Because there is more than one way of being a fucking monk, and I dispute that every Monk is lawful, every Bard is non-Lawful, and every Barbarian is chaotic because there are shit ton of counter examples that fit the mold of these things.

Lawful is not an integral part of the monk.

>>46701178
>Because there is more than one way of being a fucking monk
Again, not every martial artist is a monk. Not every _monk_ is a "monk:". Feel free to write you own damn class. If you don't want to play along with the gag that's a matter for you and your DM to sort through.

>>46701058

With the Barbarian I can understand it, since the no-lawful restriction only applies to the Rage class feature, and an orderly and rational INSANE BERSERK WARRIOR doesn't sound right at all. There are acfs that trade out the Rage class feature, but I doubt the designers knew they would make those later when they wrote the original Barbarian class.

With the Bard, its magic. I ain't got to explain shit. Bardic magic is Chaos magic just like M:tG red magic is Chaos magic.

>>46701217
> Feel free to write you own damn class
Why should I when getting rid of one cancerous mechanic solves the issue?

>>46701224
Rename Rage, refluff it as channeling the spirit of a great warrior ancestor, and where are you now?

>>46701275
For that matter, rename rage, call it power armor. Now you're Iron Man. Where are you now?

>>46698101
Lets face it by this point tg is basically a collective hipster, it's mainstream so it's bad.

>>46701238
Again, that's the mechanic that you think is holding back monks? (And not -- since this thread seems to orbit close 3.x -- that multiclassing away from monk means that you can't come back to monk?)

>>46701224
>Bardic magic is Chaos magic
Where does it say that? At all? In 3.5 Bardic magic comes from their "soul" like Jazz. This somehow justifies them being non-Lawful, despite sorcerer's pulling the same shit. There' no shit about nature or fey or chaos.
>and an orderly and rational INSANE BERSERK WARRIOR
Righteous Fury.

>>46701299
It seems to me as though being iron man would require some alterations to the numbers and features. My point was that you can totally alter Barbarian into a very order-centric, or at least not chaos-centric, being without changing any of what it can do or how well it does what it does.

>>46701332
>Again, that's the mechanic that you think is holding back monks?
No, you fuck ass. For the umpteenth time. MONKS ARE NOT THE ISSUE. THE RATIONAL BEHIND THE MONK BARBARIAN AND BARD ALIGNMENT RESTRICTION IS THE GODDAMN ISSUE.

>>46701368
So play 5e where classes are no longer alignment locked.

>>46701275
>Rename Rage, refluff it as channeling the spirit of a great warrior ancestor, and where are you now?
House-ruling, at which point you can do the same with the alignment restriction. "My barbarian is different, so the rage is a different thing" works, as does "my barbarian is different, so its alignment is also a different thing"

>>46701393
>House-ruling
But you haven't altered a single number, or mechanic, or rule. Would you also call it a house rule if your wizard claimed his fireball is blue fire rather than red fire even if it functioned identically?

>>46701392
But that game is shitty and restrictive and in an entirely different set of ways. I could play a Swordsage or Psychic Warrior in 3.5 and not fucking TOUCH the monk(and that would be preferable to playing 5e) among numerous other mechanical benefits not being alignment restricted. Going back to the entire point of the thread, which suggests that alignment does nothing but take away what little enjoyment to be had in D&D and adds nothing meaningful to the game.

>>46701435

Changing rage to possession does change numbers, mechanics, or rules. Because rage is rage, it is countered by the Calm Emotions spell. If it is posession by an ancestor spirit, it would not be, and instead be affected by exorcism abilities.

Not all mechanics are about numbers, and you can't just change something and expect it to not affect how the game works. Yes, changing rage to not be rage is a house rule, and changes how the game works, even if it grants the same bonuses. You can likewise change alignment restrictions, as a house rule to fit your snowflake character which you insist must use this class.

>>46701467
Alignment is a combination of two buzzwords that give a general idea of outlook and behavior. There's nothing wrong with alignment. The only problems come when alignment is integral to mechanics, which is a problem with people thinking every single thing should result in pluses and minuses.

>>46701368

The rationale behind the alignment restrictions is not the issue. Hell, it isn't even important to the alignment system. Most classes do not have it, and we do not even know the full rationale behind the alignment restrictions (as the explanation is short). However, they make perfect sense to me, because I can see that those classes we're referring to are not meant to be used as broadly as some persons in this thread desire. Despite making sense, generally I do not use most alignment restrictions in my games.

If the only thing against alignment is that some classes have alignment restrictions that you feel don't make sense, know that what does not make sense to you makes sense to others, and the alignment system can still stand if you simply ignore the alignment rule for barbarian, bard, and monk.

>>46701356
>It seems to me as though being iron man would require some alterations to the numbers and features.
Not really. Scan for traps, jet boot speed, holdout shields.

My point is you have a handful of numbers, and you can make those numbers represent damn near anything you want. You can take any pile of mechanics that used to be a D&D class, and give them flavor that is jarringly out of place in D&D. You're treating the pile of numbers as the barbarian, and the flavor as something holding you back. It's not. The flavor is the thing you're trying to play. The pile of numbers is just supposed to help you get there. You could make a barbarian who doesn't act like the literary barbarian the class is based off of, with abilities re-fluffed to jibe with that concept. But then, you're not actually playing the literary barbarian, which for most people is the point. No one's ever read a Howard story and thought, "wow! That was great! I want to read more of those! Except without the weird guy in a loincloth."

>>46701600
Haven't we already established that Conan isn't a D&D barbarian like a trillion times?

>>46701680
No, because that's not at all true.

>>46701081
Yeah, iteration; but that's what editions are for. D&D thinks that means you have to try to make a new game every time.

>>46701695
Except it's absolutely true. Both Gary Gygax's and Dave Cook's stats for him have already been posted.

>>46701712
But 3rd ed is WotC's 1st ed. There was no way they were going to get it right the first time, especially coming off Lorraine Williams' failures.

>>46701712
You know, you can just keep what you like... It's not any D&D is well-balanced, or like we're Germans. D&D is, if anything, a gaming lingua franca to start a group with.

>>46701712
>WotC thinks that means you have to try to make a new game every time.
FTFY.

>>46701795
Yes, that; thank you.

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>>46696975
>>46697108
Wrong.

In 4E Good is more good that Lawful Good. LG is all about achieveing societal good through proper systems and practices. Good is just about being good for whatever reason you find best

Same goes for Evil: Evil is more evil, Chaotic Evil is just crazy and desructive.

>>46701724
You do realize there have been 5 write ups for Conan, most preceding a formal "barbarian" class, right? And that the resulting AD&D barbarian class has more in common than not with Gygax's version? Or the fact that he is the major barbarian type in Appendix N?

>>46701858
Barbarian class that was in 1E was all about desroying magical items and leading barbarian hordes

Raging asshole that later became 3E Barbarian was Fighter's Berserker kit

I see alignments as how people persieve your actions?
Steal from the rich to give to the starving? most would stay that's illegal, but good.
Use the Law to exploit a loophole that benefits yourself? Completely lawful, but evil/selfish
Just following orders? Lawful Neutral
Apathetic? True Neutral

>>46701938
And the Ravager kit for the Barbarian Fighter from the Complete Book of Barbarians.

>>46701739
Most of the WotC versions of D&D suffer from innovation.
* 3.0 is a great codification of AD&D, with cleaner text and easier calculations. And then someone said "what if we made multiclassing easier?" and accidentally changed the whole game.
* 4e is an excellent codification of the optimal way to play 3.5, with all the false choices removed.: don't let players have a choice in skills, because the right answer is to max out your class' list. Make spells that you never want to spend a slot on rituals, because players are going to wait for them wen they need them either way. Then they got the great idea to give all classes powers to make them fundamentally easier to balance against wizards, and give wizards weapons, er "implements" to make them easier for DMs to balance with treasure rewards. And thus they accidentally created fantasy battle chess. Which is a really fun game, but feels nothing like D&D.
* Jury's still out on 5e. The big innovation is advantage/disadvantage dice pools, but I'm not sure if that's what'll end up shaping the edition.

These days, I just find myself wondering why I shouldn't use Moldvay Basic D&D.

>>46702004
>These days, I just find myself wondering why I shouldn't use Moldvay Basic D&D.
No reason not to. It's probably the second tightest designed D&D ever

>>46702046
In your opinion, what's the first?

>>46702075
4E is watertight even if you don't like how it plays

>>46702004
>why I shouldn't use Moldvay Basic D&D.
Because Race-as-Class is worse than FATAL.

>>46701324
The hell are you saying? They hate it because of nostalgia, thinking things were better back then, not because they want to stand out or whatever it is hipsters try to do.

>>46702004
>feels nothing like D&D.
Well, the tactical grid combat system of 4e is really just a stripped-down version of 2e's Combat and Tactics supplement.

>>46702091
The play can be fun, it just doesn't feel like D&D. I can't imagine productively exploring with it. I can imagine skipping straight from one fight to another with brief bouts of book-keeping.

>>46702106
Race-as-Class doesn't tell you that all elves are Elf class. It says that elves that want to pursue their path of integrated melee and magic are

>>46702143
It does say that all elven PCs are fighter-mages.

>>46702164
Name one reason why you would want your character to be an Elf that doesn't involve stats that also doesn't involve reason that you could just as well apply to a human character.

Anti race-as-class shitters are just minmaxers.

>>46702136
Worked well for me. Think of it as an engine for playing in a fantasy TV show.
You have a cast of recurring characters and some threats. They're defined by their roles and gimmicks. They all have a variety of moves they can only use once per fight or per episode.
And so on

>>46702119
No, sadly, people compare everything to D&D because ti was first. The first decade of RPGs was either D&D, or a "fixed" D&D like Warlock, Tunnels & Trolls, Runequest, or even AD&D, beause the D&D rules were so shitty. Then every second wave RPG defined itself as somehow breaking out of that fantasy mold. And now every RPG still defines itself by how it's different. And in fairness, you can have worse strategies because D&D is far and away the most commonly played RPG. Most people who've played any RPG have played it, so it's still a reasonable place to start a discussion, even if you didn't like it.

>>46702164
What stops me from saying my Fighter has pointy ears?

>>46702200
Playing something that isn't D&D makes you a hipster now?

>>46702127
grid based combat is one thing that's been pretty much the same for 30 years.

But 4e relies less on trying to model combat with a grid and moves and other mechanical tools, and instead takes the tools to be granted and interesting themselves. 4e is basically about the grid combat. It's not a mode or a mini-game or an aid or an extension. It's pretty much the entire game. If anything, the exploration and >>46702127
skill challenges are a clunky system of minigames meant to transition you between grid combat events.

>>46702216
The fact that he then can't see in the dark. Why does my elf lose his infravision when he becomes a thief?

>>46702275
He doesn't lose it, he never gained it

>>46702164
That means that elves are both fighters and magical. This is a carry over directly from Chainmail's fantasy appendix, where units were more board-game like. Some units were heroes, some were wizards, and elves were a hybrid wizard/hero. While OD&D is less Tolkien-centric than Chainmail, this is still something that comes through loud and clear, along with cloak of elvenkind and boots of elvenkind.

>>46702298
Why not? It's a natural ability of his species.

>>46702341
Nothing screams "natural" about a human having snake-vision

>>46702369
He's not a human you stupid fuck.

>>46702369
>human
humanoid rather

>>46697316
I'd say that they would. If you have a roleplayer who isn't some sort of method actor, he'll have an alignment, and in any situation of morals, the first thing he'll think of (whether it's intentional or not) is "what is my alignment?".

>"Do you rescue the princess?"
Nah, I'm evil. I ransom her to the king.
>"Do you save the village?"
Well I'm good so yeah.
>"Do you drop your weapons after being ordered to by the sheriff?"
Well I'm lawful, and he's the law so yeah.

This lends itself to really shallow characters. Instead of actually having some sort of depth, they're just defined by 2 dimensions.

Not having alignment would take away the crutch that so many players lean on.

>>46702249
>the exploration and skill challenges are a clunky system of minigames
3E has even less

>>46702547
But then I can't shitpost about 4E being WoW.

>>46702575
Ah, yes. A problem indeed

>>46702533
What if alignment was a two-word description of character's personality?

"Atoning sinner"
"Egotistical dickhead"
"Unhinged hermit"
"Lusty maid"

>>46696787
Alignments aren't as bad as a "class" system

shit crippled fantasy games for far too long.

>>46702760
But muh archetypes!

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>>46702533
I think alignments are a good reference tool, but there should be some wiggle room. Different situations, fluctuating moods, and most importantly where you start with your character isn't necessarily where you want to end with said character.

>>46702760
Classes are bad when they're overly restrictive and when there are significant mechanical differences between narratively close archetypes
When it's something simple, like the Fighter-Mage-Rogue triad, they're not bad and serve to distinguish characters on a very basic level

>>46696787
If only people simply understood the alignment system...

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>>46696787
Alignment is the worst part about D&D, and that's saying something.

So what alignment would someone be that guts a large amount of bodies out of desperation to make a long intestine rope just so that he can save his desperate and dying party at the bottom of a pit?

Would chaotic good fit this?

>>46703791
So say this intestine rope got zombie animated... Could our wizard with the spell animate rope control it?

>>46696787
Yes, because there wohld've been less rules-lawyering inherent to the gaming culture.
If DnD was a classless system too, there would be even less rules-lawyering.

Also, on the topic of Law-Chaos shit and how it correlates with Good-Evil.
Law = Superego, Neutral = Ego, Chaos = Id.
Thanks to the western culture, indulging your inner animal's instinctive desires (i.e. vices) is seen as Evil, what's with the while "flesh is weak" we've been taught for centuries, while following the unwritten rules of the society and cooperating is seen as Good.
Do your math in your own time, kids.

>>46701857
I'm pretty sure that anon was saying that by listing alignments in what resembled a zig-zagging line it implied alignments were a sliding scale where LG was better than G was better than N and so on.

I haven't bothered reading the descriptions in the PHB so I don't know how accurate that is, and he clearly didn't think 4e alignments were actually that way, he was just saying the way they were presented made them look that way.

>>46703791
Assuming none of those bodies were actually killed specifically for this, that literally says nothing about alignment.

Alignment talks about your values as being good (caring for others, doing no harm, self-sacrificing) or evil (caring about yourself above others, not caring about doing harm) and lawful (organized, regimented, ethical, deferential to an outside authority) or chaotic (independent, resistant to organization, arbitrary, ruled by personal opinion and feelings above any outside power).

Your (ridiculous, no offense meant) example doesn't comment on any of that. His party was endangered, he helps them out (that could be because he's good, or because he's just self-serving and doesn't want to hike out of the underdark alone). Resources were available to make that happen (he didn't have to respect or violate anyone's rights to get there).

>>46696787
It wouldn't barely matter at all, since few other games have them.

I usually meet three types of people who don't like alignment:

1) people who find the notion of absolute morality philosophically repugnant. This leads to a philosophical discussion on relativism, in which they find that the opinions they built in college are not especially self-consistent.

2) People who thing absolute morality is just stupid (note: unlike people above, they generally can't articulate what they believe in instead), and try to prove it with insane scenarios where some secluded culture has grown up to consider child rape okay, or where you have to commit patricide to prevent the coming of Cthulhu or some such "no win" scenario. This either ends in them being pissed off when the party does win, or with the party pissed off because they can't convince they're DM that he's retarded.

3) Evil people. Not Evil characters: Evil people. They generally can't recognize that their character did something evil, because they wouldn't recognize it if they did it under similar circumstances. These are the people that end up scaring the crap out of me, because after getting into discussions with them, I realize that if it weren't for modern investigative techniques, they probably would be killing neighbors for gp to cover rent each month. And until D&D they_seemed_ like reasonable people.

>>46696787
>If alignments were never a part of D&D would the greater RPG community be better?

No, because for the overwhelming majority of people alignments are not and never have been a problem. For the most part they're pretty intuitive.

>>46697374
>but turning them into a mechanic despite subjective morality makes them extremely hard to actually define

Hence why D&D has historically helpfully defined them for you. It basically boils down to:

Good: You care about everyone.
Neutral: You care about friends and family.
Evil: You care about yourself.

Lawful: You are rigid in your methods.
Neutral: You are flexible in your methods.
Chaotic: You are spontaneous in your methods.

>>46697412
The issue is that the player of a Chaotic Robin Hood-type person doesn't like being lumped in to the same category as a Chaotic orc looting, raping, and pillaging everything in sight. Ditto Law.

>>46699958
>Why do Monks need to be lawful.

We're two Editions distant from when they needed to be.

>>46707891

Yet the issue comes when one is confronted by an action and everyone has their own spin of what that action represents in regards to the alignment system.

Like, would firebombing a village be considered an evil action by default or would it shift between good and evil depending on whether you're firebombing humans or orcs?

Would sacrificing a virgin be an evil act does it become good if the sacrifice was made to prevent an even greater evil from appearing (such as the crucifixion of Christ).

The issue isn't necessarily that the spectrum isn't defined, it's that any particular action can become anything along the spectrum depending on the context and the persuasion of the one making the argument.

>>46698101

Alignments prevent murderhoboing like laws prevent murder and rape.

That is to say, not at all.

In truth, alignments just give the murderhobo more license to act like a fucking shit due to being able to say "welp, hurr, my character is CE/NE/CN and raping babies is just what he'd do, hyup."

If a group is going to go full on murderhobo then they would most likely do it whether alignments were a thing or not. I say this as someone who has played in various campaigns over the years that didn't even have alignment systems in their RAW.

>>46708737
>it's that any particular action can become anything along the spectrum depending on the context and the persuasion of the one making the argument.

I find that this isn't the case when you remember that the lesser of two evils is still, by definition, evil.

Killing Christ to save mankind, for example, may have saved mankind, but it still involved killing a guy to do it. So Longinus has some splainin' to do in that setting.

(In Catholic canon he repented his act and is even an official Saint).

>>46698938

>In fact, I think the biggest problem with alignment is simply the names.

Exactly.

People fuck up because they believe "my version of good>your version of good" and people get into arguments once they become conflicted on what it actually means.

Where would you place a man who agrees to adventure just because it gives him something to do?

He has fought in multiple wars for whomever, but never fights because he believes in the cause, only because he hopes to experience something. He's like that guy that's always there when something momentous occurs, but is more witness than anything else.

I feel as if I want this character to be pulled either way on the spectrum as long as the character believed it would be worth experiencing.

Guess I need to flesh that out more to truly narrow it down.

>>46699719

It does when the GM decides to make him play catch 22 and now has to go the rest of the game as a fallen paladin.

Honestly, who though it was a good idea to bind character class mechanics into an alignment system that allows a GM to fuck you over if you don't have the same moral compass?

>>46708830
>I find that this isn't the case when you remember that the lesser of two evils is still, by definition, evil.
When people are concocting their no-win thought experiments, usually this gets hidden in the form of "you have to do an evil thing to survive". For example, "either surrender the child to certain death at the hands of the marauders, or face certain death". Most people are uncomfortable saying, "well, I guess the moral thing to do here is die trying," even when that's right.

This leads me to a belief I think that most gamers agree with: it's possible to construct situations where alignment could be (incorrectly) argued to break down, but those are all shitty game situations. At the very least we should be able to agree that if you're actually playing a game to have fun, none of the things that supposedly break alignment are going to come up.

Anyone ever actually have something come up with alignment that wasn't just a DM experiment?

>>46709277
>He has fought in multiple wars for whomever, but never fights because he believes in the cause, only because he hopes to experience something.
Well, he's not (as described) following any external code or authority, so not lawful. He's not fighting for good/against evil (he may even fight for evil as this is worded). He's just fighting "the enemy" and the enemy apparently changes with his job. So there's no strong moral component. He's morally neutral. He's ethically non-lawful. Depending on what you mean by "experience something" (like thrill of adventure? Satisfaction at witnessing history?) he could be Choatic.

So I would say either true neutral (just another dude trying to get by, like most folks) or true chaotic (there to chase the sensations that make him feel alive).

>>46699644
>Are you telling me every single fucking outlook on life, behavior, and set of morals can be ticked off into 9 little boxes?
Well, you can lump every outlook in life into one big box called "outlooks", so I think subdividing that box into more specific boxes isn't impossible.

But if you refer to >>46699880 (and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_Basic_Human_Values), then social scientists have done a pretty good job taking numerous cross-cultural data points and clustering them with confidence into < 10.

In other words: yeah, nine boxes (each of which
weighs some values much more highly than others, but not all necessarily in the same proportion) works pretty well.

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Alignment is fine within the scope of D&D.

The issue that arises, like with many other D&D centric things, is that there's tons of kiddies that grew up thinking that D&D is the only "real" way to roleplay and that alignments are some kind of universal necessity for your game to a proper one.

>>46709284
>allows a GM to fuck you over i
Literally everything about D&D let's the DM fuck you over. The DM is a cruel and capricious god. If anything, the success of D&D proves that not everyone is capable of playing D&D (which for those of us who "get it" is pretty fucking sad).

>>46709410
Yeah I certainly need to flesh it out more, I was going to include wife and child dead a decade ago, no one to gain revenge against, just plain illness, and he finds himself numb. So now he takes any job hoping to do/witness something that will make him care again.

Kind of comes off boring but he's just a frame that needs more fleshing out.

>>46701498

>not all mechanics are about numbers
>Rage: +2 STR/CON

If we were going off of how a truly violent rage works, the barbarian wouldn't even be able to target specific people, they would just attack the closest person in view and either keep swinging or move on to the next one.

Hell, barbarians who are using rage wouldn't even be members of a party since all they'd have just as much chance of killing their allies as they have of killing the enemy.

3.PF has always been about numbers, how many ft. you have in range, how much damage you deal, how much attack bonus you have, how much AC/DR/CMD for defense, third edition is a game where the numbers trump everything except magic, which is powerful because it works off of mechanics that ignore the numbers game.

Getting back on track, Barbarians do not use rage as it actually functions so I don't really see why changing "rage" to "totem" and changing a mild bonus to STR/CON caused by anger to one caused by spiritual/shamanistic power is really breaking anything besides your own autistic ideal for what Barbarian is supposed to be.

>>46709539

> If we were going off of how a truly violent rage works, the barbarian wouldn't even be able to target specific people, they would just attack the closest person in view and either keep swinging or move on to the next one.

> Hell, barbarians who are using rage wouldn't even be members of a party since all they'd have just as much chance of killing their allies as they have of killing the enemy.

What setting are you basing this statement off where Rage™ is some standardized term that has the very specific effect of disregarding friendly fire? In all D&D/Pathfinder editions to date the effect is just a catchall all term for the ability for barbarians to get really angry and hurt their enemies harder.

>>46709483

At least for shit like traps and monsters and shit, you can roll dice and overcome them with a good roll and a good description.

For bullshit like fallen paladins, you're effectively at the mercy of the GM who can decided on a whim to put you in a situation where you're no longer playing your character because you made the wrong call during character creation.

>>46699467
>They just fell if they did.
>>46699644
>The part where it says he falls if he doesn't
Except not. A paladin would not fall if he took a chaotic or neutral action. He only falls if either
(a) he takes an explicitly evil action or
(b) his chaotic or neutral actions are part of a pattern of behaviour strong enough for him to shift alignment
Morons who didn't read the books everywhere.

>>46709680
>At least for shit like traps and monsters and shit, you can roll dice and overcome them with a good roll and a good description.
Not as originally envisioned. In most versions of D&D, rolling the dice meant "you fucked up. Let's see if that means you died, or if you're lucky". Traps have to be thought through. Monsters need to be thought through. Stupidity is lethal. At no point is "roll dice until you succeed" a valid option.

>>46709539
>If we were going off of how a truly violent rage works, the barbarian wouldn't even be able to target specific people, they would just attack the closest person in view and either keep swinging or move on to the next one.

When the barbarian kit first premiered, that's exactly how it worked. However, D&D is first and foremost a game, and thereby people are trying to have fun with it. Most people found that they weren't having fun when they were attacking their own allies. Thus in 3rd Edition Rage was adapted into more-or-less its current incarnation.

>>46699644
>The part where it says he falls if he doesn't

Well, thank Pelor that part doesn't exist anywhere, then. Because it doesn't. SEE >>46709721

>>46696787
>If alignments were never a part of D&D would the greater RPG community be better? Throughout the years and today?

Oh god yes.

At the very least, OTHER GAMES besides D&D wouldn't be infected with this bullshit of creating character personalities based around 9 convenient categories.

>>46709623

>What setting are you basing this statement off where Rage™ is some standardized term that has the very specific effect of disregarding friendly fire?

The psychological term that explains why someone might blackout from anger and be standing in front of a wall with a busted fist?

Rage isn't just being really, really angry. It's seeing red and waking up, standing over a dude with a busted face and a black eye and being confused because the last thing you remembered was him insulting you in some way.

Calling a mild bonus caused by anger "rage" is honestly a disservice to the actual term when you read up on all the scary bullshit that people have done when their adrenaline is pumping and their minds are focused on causing as much damage as humanly possible.

>In all D&D/Pathfinder editions to date the effect is just a catchall all term for the ability for barbarians to get really angry and hurt their enemies harder.

D&D/Pathfinder is also not realistic in any way, shape, or form and even within the context of its own rules, it can't even maintain consistency enough to know what the fuck its trying to say.

Most of the established classes weren't even a thing until years after Gygax sat down and penned it down so I don't really understand why Barbarian not getting its powers from rage makes it less of a barbarian somehow when the basic end result would otherwise be the same.

>>46709909
> D&D wouldn't be infected with this bullshit of creating character personalities based around 9 convenient categories.

Since the dawn of RPGs, making your character in this way has been wrong.

You create the character's personality, THEN determine Alignment as a best fit for that personality.

This meme needs to die.

>>46709941

Or. Ya know.

You make your character concept/personality but gotta attach an arbitrary Alignment to him because your Class demands he be that alignment.

Ya know that's an issue right?

>>46709941

If alignments weren't a mechanical thing and were purely roleplay, then it wouldn't be an issue.

However, because certain characters can be gimped if you stray too far out of your established alignment (or you have the misfortune of dealing with an anal-retentive GM) then you lose the abilities that the class provides.

>>46697014
Because tyrants aren't evil and freedom fighters are bad guys?

>>46710118

There are tyrants that performed good services to their countries and there are some rebels that have caused immeasurable damage in the name of their cause.

Good/Evil pretty much comes down to perspective because nobody ever believes that they're the bad guy in a given situation.

>>46710118

OK here's the common misconception you're making:

A tyrant is often willing to ignore rules, traditions and cultural values so long as it suits him and his agenda. It's common for Tyrants to make laws with an "everyone but me" claus or to place himself on a pedestal where laws simply do not apply to him. He values laws to about the same extent a fighter values an unintelligent sword with no sentimental value. It's a means to an end. That end being a consolidation of absolute power he can use against others.

A Freedom fighter, meanwhile, does not want society to END unless he's an equal or worse asshole. He just wants the current corrupt governing bodies to be brought to justice (you know: have the laws and regulations they ignore apply to them) and to be replaced with a more fair and honest governing body that will accept the laws and rules of the land as principles they must also follow.

A truly evil tyrant doesn't believe in the laws he espouses and a truly good freedom fighter doesn't want all signs of social order to disappear and for people to claw and scrap and fight each other like animals.

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>>46710009
>Ya know that's an issue right?

Not really. If you're not Lawful Good, then you're not a paladin. If your character concept is for a non-Lawful Good Paladin, then you have a fundamentally flawed character concept - like trying to roll up an INT 6 Wizard or a Fighter with physical stats of 7 or lower.

>>46710030
Playing a Paladin is different from other classes because there's some inherent assumptions that go along with the class - but it's not functionally different from playing a Star Wars game and getting pissed off with the DM when your murderhobo Jedi character falls to the Dark Side.

By playing a Paladin, you are stating "I am gonna be a good guy." If the DM is being an asshole, that's a problem with the DM, not the Paladin. All playing a Paladin did was paint a target on your back - had you not been a Paladin then the DM would have revealed his dickishness elsewhere.

>>46710209
>There are tyrants that performed good services to their countries and there are some rebels that have caused immeasurable damage in the name of their cause.

Which is why your actions add up to your alignment rather than the other way around. Hitler's wasn't Evil and therefore he killed Jews; he killed Jews, and therefore was Evil.

>Good/Evil pretty much comes down to perspective because nobody ever believes that they're the bad guy in a given situation.

The issue with that is that D&D is not a Real Life simulator, it's a High Fantasy adventure thing. In High Fantasy you *frequently* have people being evil, admitting it, and loving it.

Pic related.

>>46710352

>Not really. If you're not Lawful Good, then you're not a paladin. If your character concept is for a non-Lawful Good Paladin, then you have a fundamentally flawed character concept - like trying to roll up an INT 6 Wizard or a Fighter with physical stats of 7 or lower.

Those are non-comparable though and you're using the most extreme example. Alignment dictates the nebulous concept of personality and emotional attitude while Intelligence and Strength dictate the more visceral application of talent.

And ok sure: starting out with the concept "murderhobo paladin" is stupid but what about the other classes with such restrictions? Why CAN'T I be a lawful barbarian? Is the ability to be really angry something people with guiding principles simply can't tap into?

Why can't I be a lawful bard? I could inspire people to follow and obey the king's orders.

>>46709941
It's just as inconvenient coming from someone who does it last. Oftentimes I just pick TN or LG when I can.

>>46710352

>Which is why your actions add up to your alignment rather than the other way around. Hitler's wasn't Evil and therefore he killed Jews; he killed Jews, and therefore was Evil.

Hitler also helped to claw Germany out of an economic depression and Mengele's experiments have helped advanced modern medicine.

He killed shitloads of people sure but the NAZI regime also added some major advancements to the world, even if they came at a major cost.

>The issue with that is that D&D is not a Real Life simulator, it's a High Fantasy adventure thing. In High Fantasy you *frequently* have people being evil, admitting it, and loving it.

Then D&D shouldn't be trying to shunt the entirety of human psychology into a 3x3 grid and punishing players if they stray outside of their box.

Also, your picture doesn't really explain much since at least half those characters are meant to be Satan (Him, Chernobog, Satan), one is less evil and more pure destruction for destruction's sake (kid buu), another is a man who only went off the deep end after a member of his family conspired to get his wife killed because she was actually redeeming him (darkseid), and one who is a one-dimensional character who ismeant to be evil just to give the main characters someone to fight against (Devimon).

Never watched He-man so I don't know skeletor's backstory so I won't comment on him.

Any character that a player makes is going to be based off of either themselves, someone they know, or another character from a series they enjoy. Most characters nowadays are more dynamic than the villains we saw in 80s cartoons and because of it, it becomes harder to really categorize any one character as any one instance on the alignment spectrum.

I mean, depending on the writer, Superman can either be a boy scout or a corrupt dictator yet he's still the same character who operates off of the same general ideals, even if the way he expresses them teeters him between good and evil.

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>>46710636
>Hitler also helped to claw Germany out of an economic depression

The most basic understanding of economics shows that no, he really didn't, any more than your dad really did pull a quarter out of your ear when you were a kid. Pic related.

>He killed shitloads of people sure but the NAZI regime also added some major advancements to the world, even if they came at a major cost.

See, but, *that doesn't make them good*, and it's really kind of disturbing that you honesty need to have that fact stated.

>Then D&D shouldn't be trying to shunt the entirety of human psychology into a 3x3 grid and punishing players if they stray outside of their box.

Hence why for two editions and nine years now, you can play as your damn lawful barbarian if you want to without penalty.

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>>46710952

>The most basic understanding of economics shows that no, he really didn't, any more than your dad really did pull a quarter out of your ear when you were a kid. Pic related.
>Actually citing 4chan posts as fact

Hoo boy, I don't even know where to begin with this /pol/ock.

Pic related.

>See, but, *that doesn't make them good*, and it's really kind of disturbing that you honesty need to have that fact stated.

It doesn't make them good but in regards to their contributions to modern medicine it doesn't make them wholly bad either.

Keep in mind, I'm not defending what they did or trying to convince you that what they did wasn't horrible, I'm just saying that the NAZI regime was responsible for more besides the holocaust, even if the costs were too high to excuse the barbaric ways in which they achieved it.

I mean, every culture that has existed since the dawn of time was responsible for just as much bad contributions as good contributions. I mean, it'd be easier to list societies that reached their apex without causing suffering and bloodshed.

>Hence why for two editions and nine years now, you can play as your damn lawful barbarian if you want to without penalty.

Thank fucking christ for that.

>>46707891
Chaotic neutral is not someone that is spontaneous and cares about their family. I mean, what?

>>46711180
Morally "neutral" means that you care about your friends and family. If your brother is starving, you're gonna loan them money to help him out, because he's family, and that's what family does.

If you hear about poor starving kids in Africa, you'll maybe donate some spare change or something. Maybe. If you have time.

>I mean, every culture that has existed since the dawn of time was responsible for just as much bad contributions as good contributions.

Which is why, in the balance, cultures are rarely Good in real life.

>It doesn't make them good but in regards to their contributions to modern medicine it doesn't make them wholly bad either.

Which returns us to: the lesser of two evils is still evil. It's good that people can benefit from it, but as you said it's not an excuse. We can't change the past and it would be irresponsible to not save lives with the knowledge we got from Mengele, but that has no impact on Mengele's alignment as a person: Evil.

>>46708830
Pilate, too.

Godwin's law

>>46711306
Chaotic neutral is a self serving, egocentric asshole that doesn't care about helping or hurting anyone else if he doesn't see the benefit of it for himself. CN is unrestricted by law and tradition but not malevolent purely for the sake of being malevolent, and also isn't good for goodness' sake. Even when "family" is involved, unless he personally gets some thrill from loaning his brother money or something.

>>46711103
>It doesn't make them good but in regards to their contributions to modern medicine it doesn't make them wholly bad either.
First, let's pretend they gave us something....
No, in fact, let's dumb it down: I shoot you, then I give you a lollipop. The lollipop didn't make the shooting less harmful, or even offset it. You don't get to balance out evil acts with good ones. Just not how it works. You're not paying off a debt. So with that in mind...

Second, society advances. It was going to advance no matter who was in power. The most evil regime in history does not get brownie points for what their country was going to do anyway.

Which brings up the fact that most Germans were not Nazis. Most weren't political, some were too law-abiding to realize when they had passed the point of no return, and some realized they had passed the point of no return and didn't want to be shot, so even if we are talking about "German advancements in medicine circa 1939~1945", I'm not automatically awarding brownie points for those to the Nazis.

Now if you mean the German advancements of just the advancements that would not have happened w/o the Nazis, that's easy: there are exactly zero. Not just in medicine, either. No, I do not consider VolksWagon a public good. It was a regimented program of gangsterism hiding behind the most ridiculous "Let's make Germany great again" sloganeering ever. It produced nothing like a workable society, much less scientific progress, much less good of any kind.

Man, it's ridiculous how the worst posts inspire the most text in response.

>>46711493
Everyone helps out their own. No one wants their friends and family to suffer, and wants them to be happy. So what we're getting at here is that "but he helps his family/clan/friends!" is not a moral defense. Everyone does that. It's neither contemptible nor laudable. It is neither evil, nor good. It's merely functional.

In general, a neutral character either 1) leads a life without moral compass and introspection (it never occurs to him or it just doesn't care, 2) is introspective about his morals, but is mostly untested and uncommitted (he likes to think he's good, but when push comes to shove, who knows?) or rarely 3) has deliberately chosen a path of impartiality between extremes.

Neither good nor evil are usually about good/evil for it's own sake. People can be good for society's sake, or evil for personal gain. Everyone has motives, but that's not where morality ends.

Think of it this way: pick a character's top priority out of these three -- what they fall back to when there are hard choices -- then take a guess what his alignment is:
G) I care about the well-being of others, even random people I don't know
N) I care about doing what I need to to get along and keep my loved ones secure
E) I care about my needs, but also my wants.

>>46702136
>it just doesn't feel like D&D.
Felt like D&D to me and everyone else I've played it with. More D&D than 3.PF was anyways.

Sounds like a personal problem.

>>46702195
D&D is supposed to simulate a fantasy TV show it's supposed to simulate a fantasy reality.
>>46712055
gr8 b8 m8

>>46710209
In D&D it's not subjective. There are even planes of existence that are pure concentrated evil.
>>46710258
When I said tyrant/freedom fighter meant LE/CG. You just described NE/NG.

>>46711530

Am I wrong because you refuse to acknowledge that one of the most vile regimes ever concocted in human history still caused some good in the world in spite their reckless disregard for human life?

The fact that an argument can be made at all proves my point, that morality comes down to perspective. You honestly seem like a very ignorant person if you cannot accept that the world is not a binary choice between black and white.

>>46712572
Not that anon, but the argument can't be made. At least not made well.

>ITT: Men and women who have a basic understanding of ethics try to convince some edgy autistic kids that Hitler wasn't a nice guy.

>>46712433
>D&D is supposed
see, there's your problem.
you aren't the game designer. you don't know what it's "supposed" to be

>>46712725

Where did I say that Hitler was a nice guy though?

I just said that they've contributed some solid advancements to society, I still find their methods abhorrent and their actions ghastly but it doesn't mean that everything they did was evil just because they were NAZIs.

>>46712764
Good point. Who needs to be immersed in a fantasy reality when you can become immersed in watching a fantasy TV show? I'll just stop playing D&D and start watching game of thrones.

Someone should probably tell the developers though. It would be a shame for them to keep trying, and failing, to properly simulate a TV show when TV shows are already available.

>>46712864

>Immersion
>D&D

Pick one.

Because the immersion breaks as soon as the GM has to check the rules, which is often since there's hundreds of rules that the GM is supposed to learn that may only crop up once or twice a session.

>>46712810
No one is making the argument that everything Hitler did was evil. He probably kissed some babies, shook some hands, took some poops, and did all manner of things ranging from good to evil. The argument people are making isn't that he took evil poops, it's that he was an evil person.

His actions resulted in the pointless death of millions of innocent people, and that was his intention. That makes him evil.

>>46712923
That's a really nice straw man you have there.

>tl;dr: gr8 b8

So does alignment determine your actions or do your actions determine your alignment?

>>46713208
That's really up to the players and the GM.

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>>46711871
>Everyone helps out their own. No one wants their friends and family to suffer, and wants them to be happy ... Everyone does that.
That's quite an idealistic view. What if I told you I only value my friends and family in as much as I can use them for something. That I see my mother and father and even my children as a mutual investment. I take care of them so that they can take care of me, and once there is no benefit to be had (or the negatives outweigh the positives) I drop them.

I wonder, do you think that person doesn't exist?

Of course you do. Even the least cynical person on earth believes in the existence of selfish pricks.

Perhaps you simply believe this hypothetical individual is chaotic evil because he doesn't even have the base morality to genuinely care about his dear, sweet mama without selfish condition? If so, then my view of that alignment differs greatly from your own. To me, selfish is not necessarily the same as malicious or malevolent. One can lead to the other, but that does not make them the same.

As to your example:
CN) I care about doing what I need to to get along and keep ME secure, without regards to obligations societal, traditional OR familial. But I'm also not actively trying to tear down said institutions and enforce chaos upon my environment, so much as I'm looking to game the system wherever I can for my benefit alone, even if that stretches to -no one else.-

But all this only reinforces the idea that alignments are a shitty concept. Everyone has their own interpretation, informed by their own bias, and then acts like there isn't any room for nuance. Just as I am now.

>>46713208
Actions dictate your alignment. Even the most chaotic evil person in the multiverse can take a day to volunteer at a soup kitchen and donate to an orphanage "just because".

>>46713235
Nope. The alignment section of every single D&D book states otherwise.

>>46713287
>Nope. The alignment section of every single D&D book states otherwise.
What does it state?

>>46712947

Hitler himself was just a man who preyed upon the anger, fear, misery, and anxieties of a country that had lost their way due to the treaty of Versailles.

That's what makes it so horrifying to consider, he wasn't evil or good, he was just a man, like you or me, who convinced a country to put innocent people to death because they didn't fit in his ideal for "aryan perfection."

>>46713287
That's completely not true. If yout GM ants you to act like the two letters you put on your paper, then you should. If not then you can do as you please, but those two letters are probably going to be in flux.

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>>46713258
For the record, I'm not using Daniel Plainview as an example of Chaotic Neutral, but as an example of a person who would drop the only family they had the moment they became burdensome.

I know he's not chaotic.

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>Lawful Good

>>46713380
It states that alignments are not a straightjacket and do not have an influence on the character's actions.

>>46713452

While at the same time having classes with built in self-destruct buttons that go off if the GM believes that you aren't adherring to your alignment.

Which means that they'd be straightjackets within the context of the RAW for certain classes.

>>46713258
You kinda just described true neutral of neutral evil.

>>46713486
If I'm a LG God and a CE guy wants powers from me, I'll tell him to fuck off. If a LG cleric turns CE, I'll STILL tell him to fuck off and to stop whoring my power.

>>46713782

Alignments being a straight-jacket was the original argument here, if anything, you're only reinforcing my position.

So how does lawful work exactly? I understand paladins shouldn't be running around stealing pies and raping puppies, but how exactly does following judicial law work towards being good? What if the current powers that be are a pile of dicks and make shitty laws that take advantage of the common man?

Should it not be the paladins duty to fight against such corruption? Or does lawful not work v that way and paladins are basically judge dredd and don't have to follow local law

>>46713568
Yeah. Chaotic Neutral and Neutral Evil do have some overlap though in terms of motivation. Both are typically described as varying degrees of egocentric, where they differ usually comes down to WHY they do what they do. With CN it's usually personal freedom, with NE it's usually personal gain.

But both are typically described as "Will drop you like a bad habit the moment it suits them/their interests." At least, that's the way it's always been explained to me throughout various sources.

In that previous post I was going out of my way to describe someone that is selfish, though I did not do a very good job of separating the idea of being purely selfish from the idea of being pure evil.

Which is bad, because that means I failed at the one point I was trying to make.

Eh, c'est la vie.

>>46713984
There are multiple interpretations but most agree you shouldn't be Lawful Stupid (not opposing evil because it's the law).

One is that you are only obligated to go through with something that is both Lawful and Good but if Good is missing then you can ignore that law and its authorities.

The other is that your actions should lead to order and that you should strive for a lawful or orderly outcome and this should always be put into consideration with your characters action.

Another is that you follow the spirit of the law but aren't a silly by the book LN.

Then there's the idea that, you (and your god) are the law, and you are the hand of your god.

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Would you kindly tell me what Andrew Ryan's alignment is, /tg/?

"Atlas" too, while you're at it.

>>46714474
Lawful Evil and Neutral Evil respectively.
>Why?
Cause I said so. Happy?

I honestly love the alignment system, provided there isn't a THAT GM who attempts to use it as a straight jacket. If done correctly, the two letters at the top of your character sheet should define a solid majority of the ways your character would react to a certain situation.
Say your party ran into a guy who is losing blood really quickly, and you can use one of your spells to help the dude out. A Good character is obviously more likely to do so than an Evil character (no shit). If your character instead mugs the man on his deathbed, while not always an evil act, it certainly isn't a good act. Enough of these acts, and not enough good acts, and it would warrant a "Dude, you're probably not NG, maybe TN".

This is also why I hate GMs who deduct a level for changing alignment, since all it really is is a fast and easy way to determine how a character would act, and players who let their characters do as they please might misjudge a few times.

With divine classes, it's pretty simple. A demon lord isn't gonna grant his valuable power to some guy prancing around giving money to war vets (Unless it somehow suits his interests). Likewise, if a LG god of peace notices you're hunting down a janitor shouting promises of blood over a mere suspicion, you're probably not very deserving of his power.

>>46707891
>The issue is that the player of a Chaotic Robin Hood-type person doesn't like being lumped in to the same category as a Chaotic orc looting, raping, and pillaging everything in sight. Ditto Law.
And I'm sure if all the Arabs who aren't affiliated with ISIS and aren't immigrants could stop being Arabic they would as well.

>>46714775
Personally I'd think that deities would rather choose people that are determined at something rather than "He's goody two shoes, he's perfect for shaping the world in my vision" and try to STEER them towards themselves. After all, the main point of being a christian is "Realizing and accepting your ways of error and going back to true path.", the true path, conveniently, being christianity.

>>46715061
I see your point, and that's pretty understandable, but I see a pretty big difference between allowing someone into your clergy, and allowing them to wield divine power in your name. In a multitude of settings, the Not-Christian deity will often try to redeem sinners or those with a malicious heart. This doesn't mean that Not-Jesus will immediately grant them the power to cast Miracle.
As for
>After all, the main point of being a christian is "Realizing and accepting your ways of error and going back to true path.
That's what Clerics are for, you get a bunch of mortals with a similar mindset, and have them interact with others who don't share your mindset, and try to steer them onto "the righteous path", in that deity's eyes.

>>46715192
I see your call and raise you a question: How would you get the ball rolling?
Considering deities draw their power from their followers (hence why they can do grand things), how do they get the first few chucklefucks to believe that they're actually deities?

My issue with the alignment system has always been that I don't see what the point of it is. It's pretty mediocre even as a roleplaying crutch compared to Fate aspects or the bonds system in that one popular JP tabletop.

>>46702533
Alignments =/= shitty players. Just because people are too narrow minded to think outside the box doesn't mean that removing alignments will solve this issue.

There are plenty of rules in place for changing alignments over the course of the game, so the mentality you brought up is just shitty roleplaying, which isn't the fault of the alignments.

>>46715449
This is assuming they don't have a "base power" as legit deities and start off utterly powerless until someone has a "clap if you believe in fairies!" moment?

No idea. Maybe they convince a few people to associate them with something they don't fully understand, like the Sun or the local concept of justice or something. How do they do that? I dunno. Right place right time?

>>46715609
Anon, you're hilarious.
How would you kill deities?

>>46715449
This is likely where cults come into play. A deity isn't straight up like "If you're not exactly like me, screw off and stop asking me for spells." Otherwise they'd never get the ball rolling. Ra's church would start up with something like "Praise the Sun!", then people would start giving the sun another name, and "Ra" is born. Ra now has a small, devout following, and he now requests his followers increase his follower count to weave the world to his ideals, since he can't do it himself. It's my theory that deities are "concept+mortal affection", with larger deities encompassing large ideals, like Death or Peace, and smaller deities having more specific ideals, like Theft or Prostitution.

>>46715989
And I'm such a faggot that I forgot to explain why cults had anything to do with this. An example could be Pathfinder's Sarenrae. She is a goddess of peace. She has a cult called "The Dawnflower", who relentlessly kills any evildoer, and neglect her core doctrine of redemption, focusing more on another way of getting rid of evil. The fact that she hasn't sent them all a pink slip as followers tells me that deities aren't all that fickle in their choosing of mortal vassals. A good deity just wants someone with a righteous heart and a few similarities. A lawful deity's only real demand is that you keep society from collapsing. When mortals start focusing on one ideal of the deity, this is where their common tenants come from, and "cults" are just followers who don't fit the mainstream.

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>>46715681
Well, if it's that easy, I get as many people that pray to "Deity X" to pray to me, +1. Then, as the more powerful deity, I smite the shit out of Deity X's followers, thus further proving to MY followers that fucking with me is a bad idea. Then I kill Deity X and outlaw Deity X worship and move on to Deity Y, Deity 11, Deity π. Straight down the list.

And when someone chooses not to believe in me, thinking they're clever and that it will negate my power of them, I send my very real followers with their very real, very not-belief-powered guns to kill them.

After all, I imagine it must be kind of hard to deny the existence of something when your thoughts are running red across the kitchen table.

And in some ways, in some times, it has been that easy.

>>46698938

So why would holy word fuck up a maternity ward

>>46716630
Babies and animals are true neutral.

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>>46716630
Any nongood alignment is affected. Babies, animals, and most people are neutral, so that includes them. Babies and most animals are level 1, so any cleric high enough level to use Holy Word will absolutely #rek their shit by using it within 40 feet of them.

>>46716870
More specifically, they are the neutral hungry variant of TN.

>>46698938
What would you rename them as?

>>46716916
Poor Neutrals

>>46716916

>Use holy word
>Kill every living nongood creature in the area
>Birds fall out of trees
>Wildlife just drops dead
>Plants instantly wilt and grass yellows
>Any NPCs in the area just fall over dead
>No will save allowed

>Be good cleric
>Use holy word in a random tavern
>everyone dies
>The End

And this is a "good" spell?

>>46721357
presumably you are a LG person who would realize that suddenly revealing the Holy Word to a bunch of peasants would be too much to handle and reserve it for dire times like when you are literally neck deep in zombies at the bottom of crypt.

>>46721357
This guy claims it's more theme based than moral >>46698938

The way I see it, it's like those divine tests and trials that even good deities have guarding their artifacts or whatever. You have to be good and pure of heart or you're kill. This a spell that weaponizes that sort of thing but it's very much a with great power comes great responsibility spell. You will obviously get your teeth kicked in by your god if you use it in a maternity ward or a bar. Still, you'd think the game designers would have thought about what this implied.

>>46721484

>Still, you'd think the game designers would have thought about what this implied.

Welcome to D&D 3.5/Pathfinder.

Where the rules are made up and the points don't matter.

>>46702943
i'd rather have character distinguish themselves with their personality or visual design than their class title

>>46710952
>for two editions and nine years now, you can play as your damn lawful barbarian if you want to without penalty.
2e let you do it as well, so that's another 11.

>>46712572
>Am I wrong because you refuse to acknowledge that one of the most vile regimes ever concocted in human history still caused some good in the world in spite their reckless disregard for human life?

It's not that we're refusing to acknowledge that some small good came out of the Nazi regime. Rather, it's that we're saying that a few advances in medicine doesn't mean that they weren't Evil. As the previous anon said, if you shoot someone, and then give them a lollipop, you're not balancing anything out or paying off a debt.

>The fact that an argument can be made

But the thing is it *can't* be made. From a D&D perspective your argument is nonsensical. The Nazis were unquestionably Evil; just because they occasionally did some good doesn't change that.

>>46713208
Actions, and the reasons for those actions, determine alignment. Then the resulting alignment can have mechanical effects.

>>46713258
>What if I told you I only value my friends and family in as much as I can use them for something

That's Evil by D&D's definitions of the term: it's selfish and self-centered, concerned only for its own well-being.

I don't have enough information about the guy to know if he's Lawful, Neutral, or Chaotic, though.

>>46713411
>he wasn't evil or good, he was just a man

Yeah, not in D&D. He was Evil, unquestionably so.

>>46723175
>we're saying that a few advances in medicine doesn't mean that they weren't Evil.
For a D&D-relevant example of this, the Drow on Toril invented advanced prosthetic limbs.

>>46712565

OK.

Describe me a lawful evil tyrant then.

And a chaotic good freedom fighter.

Go on. Because if >>46710258 is right and those are just NE/NG then I seriously can't imagine how an actual LE tyrant or CG freedom fighter can exist.

bump?

>>46723814
>Describe me a lawful evil tyrant then.

Malcanthor the Malevolent methodically takes what he wants within the limits of his code of conduct without regard for whom it hurts. He cares about tradition, loyalty, and order but not about freedom, dignity, or life. He plays by the rules but without mercy or compassion. He is comfortable in a hierarchy and, though he now rules the land, he was willing to serve and climb the ranks to get to where he is today. He condemns others not according to their actions but according to race, religion, homeland, or social rank; elves are knife-eared faggots, the worship of Heironeous is heretical to him (a Hextor-follower), and the peasants of his kingdom by definition live to and exist at the pleasure of the nobility and royalty. He is loath to break laws or promises and thinks that this makes him "better" than a common horde-leader, but in truth when in a bargain that does not benefit him he will often seek to twist its intent.

This reluctance to breath laws or oaths comes partly from Malcanthor's nature, and partly because he depends on order to protect himself from those who oppose him on moral grounds.

Malcanthor's personal ethics will not allow him to kill in cold blood - though he frequently sends underlings to do it. He also will not let children come to harm unless it can't be helped.

Malcanthor does not consider himself to be evil, just ahead of the curve, having combined honor with a dedicated self-interest (which he believes is what everyone is motivated by).

>Using alignments as a rule

>>46723175
>by D&D's definitions of the term
Source.

>>46723814
Varisia the Rebel acts as her conscience directs her to with little regard for what others expect of her - it's not that she deliberately ignores it so much as it rarely even enters into her thought process at all. She makes her own way, but by nature is kind and benevolent, believing that Good is not something you *are* but rather is something you *do*. She has little use for the tyrannical laws of Malcanthor; while not personally believing in Heironeous she feels that everyone should be able to worship as they choose, and Malcanthor's racism towards elves is something she simply cannot understand, nevermind condone. A peasant by birth herself, she suffered under Malcanthor's rule as a child but, worse in her mind, saw others suffering worse. She is resolved to not allow it to continue but understands that she must ensure the safety of individuals over the fall of Malcanthor - there's no point in saving the kingdom if there's no one left in it afterwards.

>>46728284
The Player's fucking Handbook you brain-dead walrus.

>>46728284
>by D&D's definitions of the term

Hmm, I actually have a glut. Let's use the Pathfinder SRD, since it's easiest to access and site for your own perusal. You will find everything to be basically the same in every Alignment section of every book from AD&D on, though.

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/coreRulebook/additionalRules.html

>Good implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings

As that Anon posted the character, he is not any of these things: the character explicitly cares about his friends and family only so long as he himself benefits. That is the exact antithesis of altruism, so such a character cannot be Good.

>People who are neutral with respect to good and evil have compunctions against killing the innocent, but may lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others.

Closer, but the character described by Anon is described things only in terms of investment and risk-to-benefit.

>Evil implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master.

This seems closest. The character described by Anon thinks of things in terms of risk to reward. While I don't have quite as much information to go on as I like, by Anon's writing he sounds like a guy who'd be happy to kill someone for $1,000,000 and a guarantee that he wouldn't suffer consequences for it.

That's Evil.

(For the record Pathfinder is actually more strict than most D&D - to be Evil in Pathfinder you have to actually be willing to go out and kill folk, whereas in most D&D, particularly 3.5, simply being a selfish, self-centered prick was enough).

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See, alignments are fucking dumb. Morality is subjective, period. It's not up for debate, you can't define it away, it's just a necessary quality that stems from the nature of the subject in question. What is good is only good according to a particular conception of good and evil. There is no possible way that any particular conception of good and evil can be considered as "objectively superior" to another. Simply claiming that good and evil are physical qualities does not actually mean that you've established an objective superior framework for good and evil. There are certain schemes of morality that exist today which consider physical qualities very important for assigning moral categories, and at the end of the day there's nothing inherently more correct about claiming that "OHH I did a spell that I've been taught has moral significance and it says you are evil so that MEANS you're EVIL!" than claiming that "OHH I did a DNA test that I've been taught has moral significance and it says you are genetrash so that MEANS you're EVIL!"

"Detect Alignment" carries as much moral weight as waving a Geiger counter in someone's face does.

>>46728487
>>46728487
all humans strive for happiness, thus making morality objective as the ethical code that will give you and other people happiness will be the objectively best, see Aristotle for example, he advocates that highest form of good is the virtue of happiness and that to be happy you must program yourself to truly and with all your heart be happy from the execution of virtue as defined by your logic
>Hence also it is no easy task to be good. For in everything it is no easy task to find the middle, e.g. to find the middle of 25 a circle is not for everyone but for him who knows; so, too, anyone can get angry—that is easy—or give or spend money; but to do this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right motive, and in the right way, that is not for everyone, nor is it easy; wherefore goodness is both rare and laudable and noble.
we as humans have the capability to identify ourselves with other human beings' pain and happiness, we can work on constructing positive forms of thought and take tge utmost pleasure in doing our best to contributing as much happiness as we can to other people's being, as pleasure is the byproduct of good and it is both pleasant and serve as an incentive to do further good.

of course this is only the tip of the iceberg that I'm writing while I'm in the toilet, and ethics are complex and varied and very hard to master and even than nothing can truly tell you what is the best action objectively, but as we live in a reality where nothing os truly objective and have to be taken with varying degrees of faith, so is the nature of "objective good" the same that it can be mastered to such accuracy as to be irrelevant to the previously mentioned fact.

>>46728487
First of all, I agree that it's a stupid, non-argument to say, "it's evil because the game tells you there's an objective evil land with objective evil people and certain objective evil acts they do are objective evil, so there." That's a statement about design decisions (which, if the designers are shitty, will probably also be shitty), not morality. I will never invoke such an argument.

But morality itself, which D&D tries to reflect, can be objective. I know it's not a philosophically popular opinion today, but it's also the only one that makes sense. The entire western concepts of rights and inherent equality depend on it. It's actually impossible to hold any concept of morality if you believe it is subjective. So either morality exists and is something we can meaningfully discuss, or it does not, and all thinking peoples are basically lying to themselves to make them feel better about being at the mercy of stronger forces.

Some people will tell you the former is true, some the latter. Interestingly, a lot of people who believe that they are acting logically under the latterer premise -- disregarding taboos, recognizing that there's no such thing as an evil act, but only acts which are impractical, practical, or necessary to survival -- are exactly the sort of people that the former system will label as "evil".

And to some extent, that makes sense. If you believe in morality, then you either let that guide your actions (and are good), or you don't (and are at least open to evil). If you don't believe in morality, and thus certainly don't let it guide your decisions, then yeah, you have to admit that that's by the definition above "evil". You probably don't care that you're "evil", because to you "evil" is a meaningless term and "good" just means "deluded". But you're still going to recognize that you fall squarely into that one philosophical camp. You could rename the axis "self-concerned pragmatic" vs "socially concerned principled" without change

>>46702948
If only it were more understandable

>>46717473
>What would you rename them as?
Holy and Tainted instead of Good and Evil. Lawful and Chaotic can stay, or be replaced with long pseudolatin or BS made-up words. The key is to remove the emotion attached to it. Nobody wants to be called non-Good, though plenty are fine with being non-Holy. Likewise, being a Tainted hero just means being dark and misunderstood, rather than a seeming contradiction.

By D&D standards, Deadpool is easily Chaotic Evil, but you can still cheer him on as the "good guy" in his comics. With a bit of name-shuffling, he's now Tainted and Chaotic (two designations that make intuitive sense for him), but still kicks the asses of guys worse than he is.

Alignment is a fine system to use as long as it doesn't end up being the sole determinator of a character's personality.

Sometimes it feels like there's just too many alignments. Though I get the whole good/evil law/chaos axis and how everything inbetween need to exist in some form. Yet, how does a True Neutral organically stay True Neutral instead of falling into CN or LN over time?

>>46734614
> how does a True Neutral organically stay True Neutral instead of falling into CN or LN over time?

He just does. Lawful and Chaotic are a lot weaker than ̶g̶o̶o̶d̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶e̶v̶i̶l̶ Holy and Tainted. Not in that they're mechanically less powerful, but in that they're less different from each other, and there's less text describing them. There isn't a Book of Axiomatic Force or Book of Anarchic Madness to go with the Books of Exalted Deeds/Vile Darkness. Thus if you consider your character True Neutral nobody is likely to argue.

>>46734614
Honestly, it's best to think of TN covering extreme neutrality and being unaligned. A druid's take on what it means to be neutral is entirely different to that of a merchant.

>>46713415
If the GM wants to control my character I'll gladly switch places with him.

>>46731468
The only time I've ever seen it be a problem is when someone tries to twist it to suit their own ends.
In D&D, alignments and what falls into them are plainly stated and objective, and it falls to the DM, who is the supreme arbiter of all things in the game, to make a decision if the situation is fuzzy (and usually they are not, simply see what the act is, not what inspired it).

>>46723175

>But the thing is it *can't* be made. From a D&D perspective your argument is nonsensical. The Nazis were unquestionably Evil; just because they occasionally did some good doesn't change that.

They were unquestionably evil to jews, gypsies, blacks, LGBT, and handicapped.

To Germans and others of Aryan ancestry, they were the ones who "made Germany great again" and gave them a reason to have pride in their country after the treaty of Versailles made the lives of every German man, woman, and child hell.

They shot at "them filthy non-aryans" and gave lollipops to children and hope to adults. They were a superpower and they were going to make the ALLIES pay for the depression that they put the country through after WWI.

To put it in another way, a necromancer probably wouldn't look too kindly upon a Paladin who murdered his parents for practicing necromancer and from his perspective, a Pally is just a church ordered assassin sent to murder anyone who pings as evil on his radar and refuses to acknowledge the good that having a group of workers who can never tire could provide to poverty stricken areas where the labor is sparse.

Yes, necromancy uses evil energy to reanimate corpses but there's also a spell that a good aligned cleric can receive that allows them to effectively murder a bar full of non-good people provided he was high leveled enough so at that point, it's kind of a wash in general since a lot of "good" spells could be used for evil and a lot of "evil" spells could be used for good.

>>46737028
I love how necromancer apologists always act like reanimating the dead is the neutral part of necromancy and it's the using zombies to make more dead people that's the only evil part.

>>46737927

Ignore your personal bias for a moment and answer the following question.

Is it impossible for a [good] spell to be used for evil or an [evil] spell to be used for good?

Imagine you kill babies and puppies with the +5 legendary holy sword of goodness :^)

>>46738247
no, but using a good spell for evil is an evil act, using an evil spell for good is also an evil act.

>>46738312

So if a good spell can be used for evil act, why can't an evil spell be used for a good act?

If good can be corrupted into something evil, why can't something evil be redeemed into something good?

no more
>but that's what my character would do, he's CN!
no more
>the paladin falls
no more
>hurrdurrhurrwerefree.jpg LG BEST ALIGNMENT RIDER KIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICK

god i wish

>>46738538
Even without alignment, a character who has magic powers he got from making an oath should still lose them if he breaks his oath.

>>46738561

There's a distinct difference between, say, taking on a solemn oath to a diety and losing your powers because you renounce your faith and swearing fealty and losing your powers because the GM threw you into a catch 22 where every answer (even the third ones) leads to the GM making the paladin fall because that's what's good nowadays at the table.

Like, if I swore an oath to St. Cuthbert and my job as his champion was to go around teaching people how to be self-sufficient and freeing citizens from the bonds of unscrupulous leaders then fine, I can accept that.

If I lost my powers because the GM decided to throw a situation that came down to either sacrificing a child or sacrificing a town, then I'd be fucking angry, not because I lost my powers but because I got thrown into a situation that not only had no right answers but had nothing to do with the diety that I swore an oath towards aside from being forced into choosing between the lesser of two evils.

>>46738701
I'm not saying the le paladin falls meme has no legitimate roots, I'm just saying that alignment isn't the only thing standing between you and a strong independent paladin who don't need no deity/ideal/whatever.

>>46738785

I can honestly accept that, I just wish the oaths themselves had more significance between dieties or something.

I dunno.

File: TSR 2113 PHBR3 The Complete Priest's Handbook.pdf (1B, 486x500px)

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>>46739002
That sounds nice, but I think those sorts of options are best left for the player and GM to decide, or else you end up with serious option bloat. Consider the attatched .pdf It does its best to be setting neutral and give the tools to the group, but was there /really/ a need for seperate metalwork and crafts or trade and prosperity priesthoods?

>>46738459
Can you read?

An evil spell can be used for a good cause, but it's still and evil act.

>>46739318

Honestly, I think that if they did implement diety specific oaths for players to choose from, they should function similarly to the way mentor spirits work in Shadowrun.

You can choose one as a magically inclined character using a perk and each one has a short blurb detailing what they're about and boons that pertain to what they represent but each diety also gives you a penalty that applies from a rollplay and roleplay perspective, like how in SR, Wolf magicians couldn't run from a fight or how Dog magicians couldn't leave their allies behind.

Don't remember a whole lot about the dieties though so someone more qualified than me could probably come up with something better.

>>46739532

If a good character can fall because they used a good spell for evil, why can't an evil character rise for using an evil spell for good?

Why is the rules designed in such a way that good people can fall because of a bad mistake but a series of unselfish decisions using profane magic wouldn't allow one to find redemption?

I mean, shouldn't intent have precedence over the energy being used in the spell?

>inb4 evil energy erodes the fabric of reality

Then that raises another point.

Does good energy reverse the damage done by evil energy or does it simply slow it down?

If good energy has a positive effect on the universe whenever it's used, then does that mean that you can effectively do evil acts with good aligned spells and still be considered good since the energy is still being used to heal reality anyways?

Should the gods even care how people use their power since using that power by default would stave off the eventual death of the universe?

If so, then wouldn't they be evil since making a paladin fall would mean one less font of good aligned energy to stave off the destruction of reality?

Is good aligned energy like cold, in that, it's simply the absence of evil energy and that's why good can be evil and not vice-versa?

Honestly, when you stop and think about it, it really starts to make less and less sense but I can just chalk that up to D&D being poorly written in general.

>>46739952
maybe you should stop thinking so hard about it. You're clearly having trouble applying real world values to fiction. A lesser shitposter would tell you to calm your autism, but seriously dude it doesn't take a philosopher to realize that DnD morality is not internally consistent. If you play a paladin, you do what's best and strive to do the most good. If your going to do things that DnD considers evil, you should shut the fuck up and accept that in the context of the game your are evil.

>>46739952
I think you're both reaching too far to the edges of the argument, but if we look back to the nazi examples, we can look at their hypothermia experiments. Although, they were very cruel and inhumane, they were able to learn an awful lot that has since been used to save many, many people. Are they "net-evil?"

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>>46740061
>WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
This is why alignment should not exist.

>>46740061

If D&D morality is not internally consistent then why even bother using it in the first place?

I mean, if they're going to front-load so many mechanics and flavor text to it, the least that you'd expect is that it at least makes sense.

>>46740088

Honestly, is it any different than using rats, pigs, dogs, and monkeys in medical experiments?

It's cruel and inhumane but it did lead to a lot of breakthroughs that have saved thousands of lives each and every day.

Overall, I'd count it as Neutral.

>>46739952
>If good energy has a positive effect on the universe whenever it's used, then does that mean that you can effectively do evil acts with good aligned spells and still be considered good since the energy is still being used to heal reality anyways?

This is actually explained in the Book of Exalted Deeds. The answer is that ordinary Good spells aren't as Good as Evil spells are Evil, and do not give this benefit. Effectively, using Good spells for Evil will still bring you to an Evil alignment with time. However, Sanctified spells (which are basically super-good) do, in fact, bring your alignment towards Good.

Unlike what >>46740061 said, D&D alignment is internally consistent, but not consistent with any real-life morality.

Oh, and since this thread has gone full silly, I'd like to point out that the Nazis totally were Evil by the D&D definition of the word. They were also Evil by every other definition of the word.

>>46740483

>D&D alignment is internally consistent, but not consistent with any real-life morality.

I think a lot of these issues would be remedied if the designers had decided to name Good/Evil something else, as an anon earlier ITT explained.

Good and Evil is so damn easy to twist and turn into one another, it's almost impossible to really make anything like [good] or [evil] spells work without running into issues where they're used in a way that's not their intended purpose.

>>46740384
>is it any different than using rats, pigs, dogs, and monkeys in medical experiments?
Humans are generally considered a higher life form than other animals, and the use of non-human vertebrates in medical testing is still heavily regulated to protect against animal cruelty.

>Overall, I'd count it as Neutral.
I'm not sure the roughly 300 people who were frozen to death for the sake of science would agree with you, but I respect your answer.

>>46740768

Thank you sir, I think you're the only person ITT who has been willing to meet me halfway on this.

>>46740708
Selfless
|
|
Orderly--------------Disorderly
|
|
Selfish


We did it, reddit!

>>46740884

Something about about that doesn't seem right.

Like, selfishness isn't necessarily an inherently bad thing.

>>46741493

Nor is D&D Evil inherently a bad thing. For example, if you think about it the Baatezu basically saved the multiverse from being consumed by the Abyss.

However, I'm not him, and I agree that "selfish" isn't a good description. I'm sticking with "tainted" vs "holy".

>>46741493
It's intentionally less one-dimensional to encourage the idea that not every selfish individual or group behaves the same way, it's just for basic two-word generalizations.

>>46741532
>I'm sticking with "tainted" vs "holy".
>I killed millions of people, but since I sacrificed them to my deity, it's a holy act!
Sounds suspect to me.

>>46696843
I wonder if 4e would be better with independent Lawful and Chaotic alignments. So genies would be Chaotic and angels would be Lawful, but neither specifically good or evil.

>>46742376

You say that as if devils, demons, and eldritch abominations don't require human sacrifices either.

>>46742631

As in 4e alignment does exactly nothing, it would be better off with no alignments at all, or just "good" and "evil". Not even neutral, just some simple binary "this is okay to kill" vs "this isn't", and "you're this, not that"