Honestly I have always ignored alignment rules for monsters, and let players play whatever creature they wanted within reason. Wife was a Kuo Toa in one game with a magical wig made up of stolen clips of hair, buddy was once a Gnoll, etc etc. The only creatures that I ever kept following hard alignment rules were ones from the aligned planes like demons devils angels etc. Good and Evil are not so simple.
Same! Although I've even had a campaign run about morally complex demons, so ... lol. One of the PCs was a grandchild of a demon and was being groomed to fulfil a prophecy. But a separate demon had been tasked with watching over her, and while that didn't suddenly turn him good, his love for the demon grandchild ended up putting him at odds with the other demons who only viewed her as a pawn. It was a great campaign!
I haven't used alignment as a mechanic in an RPG until adopting Shadowdark, and only because some items and spells as written are limited by alignment. But that's all it's there for. It's not a clubhouse where everyone has to follow the by-laws or get kicked out.
I once played a LE Assassin in a high powered game, and he had a few simple rules: no killing kids, and no killing friends. Anyone else? Totally fair game. That was a fun time.
Alignment always feels like a soft workout to express complex ideas in RPGs that never only serves to push the narrative of "we're good, they're evil, so now we have an excuse for guilt-free murder."
Always find it funny when people react so strongly about something in a role play game (which is basically playing made up story with friends). One illustration of a playable species created a lot of drama (at least on Reddit), when you can basically do whatever you want and in my opinion are incentivize to do whatever you want.
I like the depiction of the Orc in the new PHB and I also like the Orcs in Warcraft.
But for every playable species I like not having them “just as is” in the MM. I want a bandit or Sorcerer that is a Orc or Goliath. I just had their “species” trait to the stat block.
Maybe not on the topic, but I also like the decision to remove the half species from the default option, rather have a cool Goliath or Aasimar than another half-elf. And the default of “half” always being human was annoying. Where are my half gnome-Goliath lmao?
Great article. I also very much dislike the alignment system but I think it’s the “good” “evil” axis being added that specifically ruins it.
Law vs Chaos, like the Elric novels that inspired alignment to begin with, makes a lot more sense and is more useful to categorize things.
The orcs in my campaigns are always bloodthirsty raiders, at a society level. But so are most human societies lol! It’s a cultural, belief system based difference, not genetic/racial rules. There’s no moralistic difference between orcs raiding a human town and taking their gold vs humans raiding an orc lair and stealing their gold.
If my players want to believe orcs are evil then I won’t stop them, but it’s not something I proscribed, nor is it something baked into the literal metaphysics of the world
Honestly I have always ignored alignment rules for monsters, and let players play whatever creature they wanted within reason. Wife was a Kuo Toa in one game with a magical wig made up of stolen clips of hair, buddy was once a Gnoll, etc etc. The only creatures that I ever kept following hard alignment rules were ones from the aligned planes like demons devils angels etc. Good and Evil are not so simple.
Same! Although I've even had a campaign run about morally complex demons, so ... lol. One of the PCs was a grandchild of a demon and was being groomed to fulfil a prophecy. But a separate demon had been tasked with watching over her, and while that didn't suddenly turn him good, his love for the demon grandchild ended up putting him at odds with the other demons who only viewed her as a pawn. It was a great campaign!
I haven't used alignment as a mechanic in an RPG until adopting Shadowdark, and only because some items and spells as written are limited by alignment. But that's all it's there for. It's not a clubhouse where everyone has to follow the by-laws or get kicked out.
I once played a LE Assassin in a high powered game, and he had a few simple rules: no killing kids, and no killing friends. Anyone else? Totally fair game. That was a fun time.
Alignment always feels like a soft workout to express complex ideas in RPGs that never only serves to push the narrative of "we're good, they're evil, so now we have an excuse for guilt-free murder."
I reserve my guilt-free murder for real life.
Always find it funny when people react so strongly about something in a role play game (which is basically playing made up story with friends). One illustration of a playable species created a lot of drama (at least on Reddit), when you can basically do whatever you want and in my opinion are incentivize to do whatever you want.
I like the depiction of the Orc in the new PHB and I also like the Orcs in Warcraft.
But for every playable species I like not having them “just as is” in the MM. I want a bandit or Sorcerer that is a Orc or Goliath. I just had their “species” trait to the stat block.
Maybe not on the topic, but I also like the decision to remove the half species from the default option, rather have a cool Goliath or Aasimar than another half-elf. And the default of “half” always being human was annoying. Where are my half gnome-Goliath lmao?
Love the article, subscribed immediately
Great article. I also very much dislike the alignment system but I think it’s the “good” “evil” axis being added that specifically ruins it.
Law vs Chaos, like the Elric novels that inspired alignment to begin with, makes a lot more sense and is more useful to categorize things.
The orcs in my campaigns are always bloodthirsty raiders, at a society level. But so are most human societies lol! It’s a cultural, belief system based difference, not genetic/racial rules. There’s no moralistic difference between orcs raiding a human town and taking their gold vs humans raiding an orc lair and stealing their gold.
If my players want to believe orcs are evil then I won’t stop them, but it’s not something I proscribed, nor is it something baked into the literal metaphysics of the world
Great article!