Alignments

Give a single good reason for alignments to continue existing in D&D, then. Give me ONE THING they add to the fucking game. Give me one reason why I should continue to put up with the chucklefuck autistics who go "well he is LAWFUL evil so he would never attack directly, you are cheating Mr DM, if you aren't roleplaying the fucking NPCs the way you are supposed to then you are a bad DM, you need to follow these alignment rules that don't even represent real people."

I am so sick of alignment discussions, alignment arguments, alignment charts, alignment anything. It adds nothing to the game. You are discussing a pile of literal shit from twenty years ago. You notice that no other RPG these days uses alignments in any way, shape, or form? You notice that alignments have caused more annoyance than good? You notice that alignments serve as a cheap-ass justification for players to do stupid shit "bceause I'm chaotic good hur hur" which doesn't even represent how an actual person would act, and completely destroys their potential to be a compelling or interesting character?

Yeah. Think about that for a bit. I wonder what it means.

>playing with autistic people

Apathetic.

Mostly to go with your A theme. Kind of like a DMV employee. They aren't evil or good, they're just there to hurry you through the process and if you don't have what's needed, they push you back.

> playing with alignment.

Sorry user, you're one of the autists.

Thanks it fits really well!

you're a fag

But that's not how it works.

Law and Chaos is not authoritarianism vs anarchism. You seem to have fundamentally misunderstood it.

Law only means that the character adheres to a code, individual or societal, rather than imposing that authorities must be followed.

Chaos only means that the character is more prone to acting on whim than trying to adhere that no authorities should exist.

A chaotic character might adhere to laws just fine as long as they seem reasonable to them, where lawful character might break the law because it goes against their own moral code, for example.

If you want one-word explanations, go with methodical and spontaneous / instinctive.

Not an argument.

But you didn't deny

Shift-i mate, you'll be amazed what happens.

Because it didn't matter?

Good posts but you really shouldn't respond to trolls

>No I'm having a legitimate discussion with the guy who literally said nothing against your points but 'u butthurt, autist, and gay'

no u ain't

That's not true at all. Neutral is the rarest alignment and consists pretty much only of people who go out of their way to maintain a balance.

I like a lot of stuff about 2e, but Balance Neutral can eat a dick.

Neutral being a balance is the only take on it that makes sense.

A character that's mostly, but not constantly, evil is still evil, not neutral. A neutral character would either be one that makes sure to never do an actually good or evil act, or who makes sure to do an equal act on the opposite side of the spectrum whenever he does.

>A neutral character would either be one that makes sure to never do an actually good or evil act, or who makes sure to do an equal act on the opposite side of the spectrum whenever he does.
Or just a regular dude living his ordinary everyday life without considering the cosmic powers of good, evil, order and chaos.

>without considering the cosmic powers of good, evil, order and chaos
Wether you ponder over the implications of your actions or not has no bearing on how neutral you are. An ordinary person who's kind and helpful would be good regardless of wether he tries to be or not, and an ordinary person who's kind of a dick and also a bit greedy would be evil.

another question for alignments

which alignment would you assign to a blood knight, someone who is constantly searching for better and stronger opponents who, not a murderer, will bend the law if it means having an honest duel with an opponent.

Lawful Evil.

No, because trying to boil down all of human action into a 3x3 grid is fucking stupid, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a moron.

And a guy who isn't particularly helpful or dickish and just kind of keeps too himself and farms, would be neutral.

But only true Southside try to do that, to everyone else alignment is just a general guide to the guys outlook on life. Well this NPC try to rob the PCs, no he's not evil. Will that NPC turn them over to the watch, yes he's lawful. Will the druid offer the party a bong hit, yes , she's true neutral.

>A character that's mostly, but not constantly, evil is still evil, not neutral

Yeah, but a character that's mostly, but not constantly, neutral is still neutral, not anything else.

Not every action is Good, Evil, Lawful, or Chaotic, and even the Book of Exalted Deeds and the Book of Vile Darkness both pointed out that not everything is about alignment.

What is his reaction if he kills an opponent?

Does he try to kill his opponents?

Yeah, "neutral."

Alignment as a general description of personality is bad because it puts the cart before the horse. You should be developing your character's personality through play and then maybe later looking at that and trying to put a label on it, not deciding your character's label during creation and constraining their personality based on it.

And alignment as cosmic alignment is just like HP as abstraction. You say that's what it is, but when we get to the fight we're still just hitting each other with swords until one of us falls down.

I shill Lamentations of the Flame Princess in every thread like this because it has a better way to use alignment. No good or evil, just lawful and chaotic. Alignment is your position in a cosmic balance that has nothing to do with your own morality or ethics. Lawful characters have a destiny, some grand purpose they can't deny. An anarchist terrorist would be lawful if toppling the government was his cosmic destiny. Chaotic characters are defined by the opposite, terrifying vertiginous freedom in the complete absence of destiny.

Lawful characters, no matter their moral or ethical standpoint, know what they're doing is meant to be. Chaotic characters are finding their way through a pitch black universe with just a match to see.

I like that a lot better than D&D. Michael Moorcock also does a good job of alignment in a similar way, the forces of Law and Chaos really only care about mortals as long as it benefits their side in the cosmic war, and both their influences tend to be undesirable. At the end of the Corum series Corum recruits two ancient gods to defeat Chaos and the gods, seeing the state of the world, decide to exterminate both pantheons, killing the gods of law /and/ chaos and leaving the mortals to run the world the way they see fit.

No. A character that's sometimes evil and almost never good would still be evil, not neutral.

Not how it works. A character who adheres to a code to be chaotic isn't lawful.

Good thing that's not what it's there do. Moron.

That kind of apathy isn't common, and it's intellectually dishonest to try and use it as an argument against neutral being the least common alignment.

Alignments are stupid

D&D is stupid

^facts

I'll be saving these pastas.
Also, you convinced me alignments are bullshit by the way. Good post.

What is his alignment?

Alignments are descriptive, not prescriptive.

Your character's actions affect their alignment, not the other way around.

Amazing how many people don't understand this.

There really is no one-word description for any of them. It's all subjective, just like morality in real life.

It also depends on your own preconceived prejudices, preferences, etc.

For example, someone who is a communist might label a communist character chaotic good because they think their ideology, while going against the grain of contemporary society, is generally looking out for the betterment of all people. A capitalist, on the other hand, might label them lawful evil, because he sees them as a subverter only out for their own gain.

But it doesnt matter how anyone "sees" it. He is a communist because he wants the common good for all humankind? Is he a communist just because in a communist world he would get more share that he actually has, and wouldnt be a communist if he was rich?

chaotic neutral all the way

except they effect game mechanics, so your paladin is incentivised to be good, or barbarian unlawful or you're penalised.

>good=altruist
Altruism is a trait of the neutral and of the foolish.

Fuckwit, you're the DM, you can get different players or have the fucking balls to give realistic consequences to retarded actions.

if you're playing a barbarian it wouldn't make sense to act lawful. same with paladin with being evil.

The alignment is irrelevant; it's the character concept which is restrictive in this way.

If a barbarian suddenly sits down and becomes civilized, or a paladin starts to burn down innocent orphanages, then they wouldn't really be paladins or barbarians anymore.

That has to be hands down the shittiest alignment chart ive ever seen.

In Dungeons & Dragons, morality and ethics are mostly defined by the gods. Divine and spells and classes are the only things that alignments really matter for. Even then, it's only to provide power and targeting information for those classes/spells.

Basically. You're literally letting others dictate your needs to you, and basically use you as a tool - only you make it out to be your own idea.

>Rarest alignment
>Most sentient beings come off as "neutral" unless they have 6 HD
Sure famalam, whatever you say.

You can't say that while having mechanical effects based off your alignment.

You can have civilized Barbarians and evil paladins, it's just that D&D, as with many things, punishes you for going outside a specific niche, even if the niche you're in is overshadowed by another thing that does your niche better.

For example, Kingpin could be described as a Barbarian since he's smart enough to run a crime syndicate within Hell's Kitchen while also being strong enough to crush a man's skull with a car door while an evil Paladin could be described as Kore from that shitty Goblins comic book, killing "evil" races and taking the "orc baby, what do" scenario to its logical conclusion.

One thing that 5e did well was make it so that alignments didn't matter anymore, so that you could play a lawful Barbarian or an evil paladin without having to worry about someone jumping down your throat for not being a stereotype.

Not him but because of how people tend to think of alignment, you're going to find fuckwits more often than not simply because it's such a prevalent thing in modern D&D's community.

LG is always a knight's templar or a no-fun allowed faggot who doesn't let you do anything, CE means that you're the Joker, but with less restraint and even poorer planning, Neutral means that you can rape babies if you have a good enough excuse, so on and so forth.

It's why games improve when you remove alignment or focus as little attention on it as possible, it's just lowkey religious or political discussion that will end up getting ugly when two people disagree, especially when it's the GM.

The only good use of alignment is the one-axis alignment that answers a single question:

>Are you aligned with the cosmic forces of order, with those of chaos, or neither?

If a lawful good paladin starts acting evil then yes, he should lose his paladin powers. Alignment is just a measure of how your character has been acting. It doesn't dictate your character's actions. But if you want to keep your paladin powers you should probably not slaughter innocents or steal things. That's not the behaviour of a paragon of virtue.

If you're constantly going through your D&D games wanting to do something with a character but being unable to because of how it might affect your alignment, your character concept is probably flawed. Alternatively, it makes for an interesting character arc.

The mechanical consequences of changing alignment sort of act like a continuation of your character's actions and an enforcement of character depth and growth in that respect.

>Kingpin
None of those qualities you described are unique to barbarians.
I'd say you can't really have civilized barbarians. That's something of an oxymoron. If it is possible you've used a really poor example.
I don't know who Kore is but I think the main problem with Paladins is that the class is restrictive on its own - you should be able to have a paladin-like class that stands for a number of vices or virtues, like a cleric's domain. 5e allowed paladins to have different motivations and alignments whilst prior editions restricted it to the standard do-gooder; the core of the paladin isn't necessarily being lawful good, it's following a deity's code. Even in that case, if you stop following that deity's code (and by your actions, drastically change alignment) you should still lose your paladin powers bestowed by that deity.

Everyone always mentions paladins and barbarians but no one ever questions monks.

There's multiple Neutrals.

There's Selfish Neutral, but also Balanced Neutral, and also Pragmatic Neutral, and also Apathetic Neutral, and also Bardic Neutral, and also Neutral Stupid, and also Newtally Neutral.

>Newtally Neural
What the hell is that?

Just really like Newts to the exclusion of everything else. It'd honestly be Apathetic Neutral, were it not for the Newts.

It's a common trait amongst PG Wodehouse characters.

>If a lawful good paladin starts acting evil then yes, he should lose his paladin powers.
You can commit genocide so long as it's against "evil" races like goblins, drow, or orcs. Also, you can fall because the GM made you do a catch 22 where every answer is the wrong one.
>None of those qualities you described are unique to barbarians.
Barbarians are all about rage and dealing extra damage. How does the Kingpin not fit into that criteria?
>I don't know who Kore is
Long story short: Kore is a Paladin who murders innocent people and gets away with it because a) they're mostly "evil" races and b) he believes that anyone defending evil creatures is evil because they're "tainted"
>Everyone always mentions paladins and barbarians but no one ever questions monks.
That's because nobody plays Monk unless they're new or weebs.

...

Egotism I'd imagine.

Either that or radical centrist.

Everyone knows alignments are fucked, everyone, even Wizards and Paizo are aware enough that 5e has significantly basically neutered them down to flavor, and Pathfinder's begun offering alternatives to it or trying to redefine it in their material.

But alignments are not fucked for the reason you think they are. Alignments never fall into one word philosophies cleanly. They have never been fucking retarded because they've been too specific or pigeon holed. Alignments have always been fucking stupid because they're broad as all fuck, making themselves useless for description or prescription in most cases.

Get yourself some nice one-axis alignment.
LAW doesn't care about actions.
CHAOS doesn't care about consequences.
At the end of the day, they're just teams for picking fights.

Clerics can walk up to Mindflayers in the dungeon, say "hey, want to bash the Evil High Priest and his Bugbears one floor up?" and expect a favorable response.
That said, the vast majority of player characters aren't aligned with the Forces of LAW or of CHAOS.

That chart is from Gygax's edition. It's right after bards in on of the Appendices.

Once upon a time, but no longer. In 3.5 onwards (possibly 3.0, never played) most people are in fact neutral.

Someone neutral isn't comfortable killing and maiming for personal gain, but isn't about to put themselves in danger to help strangers. They tend to obey the law of the land (be it authoritarian or anarchic) because it's the path of least resistance and/or out of habit, but don't have any strong feelings about the value of law either way.

In a word? Normal. Regular. Average.

You can commit genocide so long as it's against "evil" races like goblins, drow, or orcs. Also, you can fall because the GM made you do a catch 22 where every answer is the wrong one.
Disagree on all counts. Genocide is evil, and a paladin will never fall by making the best of a bad situation.

The only sensible way to play it, really

Neutral = mediator

>Disagree on all counts. Genocide is evil, and a paladin will never fall by making the best of a bad situation.
But it's against an "evil" race that threatens to destroy civilization and cannot be rehabilitated. If the GM follows the "always chaotic evil" schtick then you can freely decimate goblins and drow and orcs to your heart's content. Same with catch 22, dealing with orc babies has no right answer as far as what to do, which means that any answer you choose will taint you due to either killing an innocent baby or allowing an evil creature to grow up to harm innocents later.
>The only sensible way to play it, really
If neckbeards were sensible then we wouldn't have this situation in the first place.