Why You Need Alignment And Evil Races

[@danielcox7629]

I perfer primary motivation (curiosity, power) and goals.

[@kentuckyrex]

Curiosity works, but this is applied no matter the moral conviction of the character. The Will To Power is a self-centered motivation, and not everyone (fictional or IRL) believes in the chase for such a concept.

[@danielcox7629]

@kentuckyrex yeah, i chase curiosity and couldn't give less of a shit about power. Some might chase hunger, or joy, or contentment. You don't have to be chasing power.

[@hanszurcher]

@@kentuckyrex If I can put on my Professor Pendantic hat for a second. The Will to Power is a more complicated philosophical subject than most people understand. It also includes the drive for self-actualization and self-overcoming. Really, much to heady a subject for my beer and pretzel D&D games. I think @danielcox7629 is referring more to power as a trope in storytelling. The struggles and consequences of seeking and wielding power (whether political, social, magical, or personal). Perfect motivations in Domain level play.

[@darlalathan6143]

Tolkien based his Orcs on the Huns (Asians). The movie versions were played by Pacific Islanders/black people. I use a similar alignment system to Dungeons & Dragons, except I define neutrality and chaos differently, and use real-world examples. D&D neutrals act like double agents. My neutrals act like rock stars in the Playboy Mansion, lol! D&D chaotics behave like psychotic people. My chaotic people act like entrepreneurs, activists, rebellious teens, criminals, or mischievous children. My chaotic monsters behave like wildlife.

[@dicebringer]

Law and Chaos in the Poul Anderson sense is all you need. Simple good and evil. Gygax deserves respect, but muddied things and opened the hobby up to "its what my character would dos" with Chaotic Good, Pure Neutral, etc.

[@hanszurcher]

I think Gary learned and applied that lesson in the succeeding RPGs he wrote. Neither Dangerous Journeys nor Lejendary Adventures used an Alignment system. The Repute/Dark Repute/Disrepute system was more interesting imho.

[@Archaeo_Matt]

This is a topic I've been thinking about myself lately. It's been in my half-done pile for a while, and was going to be my next topical video; but, I've been sidetracked by offline stuff for most of the last month. I definitely do think most of the people who are against using alignment in D&D approach it as concrete and binding. I do think Gary was unambiguously biased...in that he was definitely pro human. As for unrepentant and entirely evil species, there certainly was an intent to let players have some hacking-and-slashing, corpse-looting, homeland invading fun, without getting too caught up in how those kinds of decisions would be viewed in the physical world. It was meant, in part, to spare the players from the very kinds of anguishing over moral turpitude that we see in the contemporary reaction against alignment. Additionally, the contemporary players vehemently reject pretty much everything that they think might place some sort of constraint on how they player their characters in the moment. Aside from the convenience factor of shoehorning entire species of monsters into a fairly restrictive socio-moral model, I think there's an element of necessity to it. We simply have no baseline for how a planet with hundreds of sapient specie (maybe even more than a thousand) would actually function in terms of social structure and inter-specific morality. Cheers, for the shoutout! I hope to get back to more actively doing stuff on KZbin soon.

[@retrodmray]

Great video, Bro! You're 💯 spot-on! 👊🤓Thanks for the shout-out!

[@hanszurcher]

I stopped using Alignment in our D&D games in the 80's when we started dabbling with RuneQuest and GURPS. Have not missed it and our games have been richer for it.

[@malfarian]

Same here! Started playing in 85, biological evil was stupid. Human bandits can attack you on the way to town and the you can be served beer from a human bartender. I love good and evil, but it’s a choice.

[@kyshale]

Orcs and goblins being "racist" depictions is pretty historically based, and it seems pretty uninformed to me to take the position that they aren't based in stereotype. It seems to me that your usage of the word "racist" isn't really a modern usage. I don't think anyone who is actually thinking about this at any serious level is necessarily calling Tolkein or Gygax, or you specifically a racist -- they're saying that historical concepts of barbarism, evil, and morality are a fundamental aspect of tribalism. In that sense, I think I agree with you -- good and evil, and alignment in general, are not just good for narrative reasons -- they are good because they are *realistic.* But I would also argue that the realism of these moral systems does not lie in their accuracy to any true, objective underlying ethical system, but to the sociological ways in which oppositional cultures interact. It seems...shallow to me, to suggest that we should take good and evil at face value in our games. The drama of a narrative comes not from the tension between success and failure (as a purely alignment-focused moral system might suggest) but from the tension between mystery and discovery. Even in a good-versus-evil game, the tension comes from *not knowing whether success is assured,* and **not** the inherent tension of good versus evil. The good and evil here are mere narrative devices -- merely an indirect source of narrative tension. If that's how narratives function, then there is faaaaaar more narrative material to be mined than just that which exists within the framework of the alignment chart. I am not saying the alignment chart is bad -- I personally love it. But I am saying that it is only one flavor of story. It's only one system. There are others out there, and those stories are not just valid, but may be more in touch with the broader state of culture and desire for nuanced, postmodern media.

[@danielcox7629]

Orcs are from JRR Tolkien, and they are simply men who focus all their will on gaining power. Goblins were a racist depiction of jews. But that happened in the medieval ages or before. The level of separation is huge.

[@kyshale]

@danielcox7629 I think you missed my point lol. Also, as a side note, Tolkien himself explicitly stated that Orcs were, in appearance at least, based on Mongolians.

[@stunhbtaken]

In my games I need players, I need a plot, I need an adventure, but why do I need alignment? Me and my players can tell whatever story we want, so why should goblins be evil, or wood elves be good? Maybe if you're playing a Middle Earth game, sure. But that's just one flavor of fantasy. It's too prescriptive and gets very bland if you apply that to every game you play.

[@danielhadley2481]

Coding exists and isn't a stupid argument. Those races aren't "stand ins for", the real world races they are coded as tribal Africans. You understand coding. think of any male cartoon character, now put him in a pink dress acting efeminine and flapping his wrist. The character in that situation is Coded gay none of the actions were homosexual yet you get an abundantly clear picture of gayness because those things change the coding of the character

[@danielcox7629]

In the real world race doesn't exist. It's a social thing started by eugenics your keeping alive.

[@kentuckyrex]

Note to self: camera is a tater. Stop showing things and saying "this".

[@doodlesquatch277]

People used to play alignments from Lawful Neutral to Chaotic Evil and so on. Drizzit was a good character from a novelist's perspective. The old games were more simulationist (I guess) in which a "story" would emerge. If you favor campaign's centered around good characters, evil races are a must imo. It removes a lot of the frustration of having to detect alignment on every npc you run into.

[@kentuckyrex]

@@doodlesquatch277 typically, unless they are a clergyman or a law enforcer, most NPCs work fine as Neutral characters. One of the reasons I prefer the 3 Point system is because there is enough ambiguity involved for player and GM interpretation. Example, a Lawful Good Paladin would always choose to tell the truth, because it is right and honorable, no matter what. Let's take that Paladin and attach only Lawful. Let's say he's protecting someone and he needs to lie to save their life. It isn't honorable, but the salvation of a person's life is more pressing. So, like the Biblical narrative of Rahab when she concealed the Israelite spies from the soldiers of Jericho, this holy man could do the same and not incur disappointment or wrath from his deity. "Simulationist" is a little loaded, but I understand what your intent is. I highly favor emergent storytelling from proactive player/reactive GM gaming. My appeal to the narrative in this video is mostly because the modern face of the hobby typically favors more linear, story driven gameplay over sandbox gameplay. And it is because these faces prefer this newer approach with newer rules that lack the alignment distinctions that many of their adventures fall to cookie cutter mass produced homogenous materials. They need to stop the Necromancer, but they dare not call him evil, as it is only a "matter of perspective". If they would simply change this, these GMs could unlock the conflict these more narrative focused games are missing.

[@MrAlice613]

I really don't see why playing good characters necessitates a concept of obligatorily evil humanoid races. Like, yeah, it's nice to be able to throw demons and alien horrors at your players so that they know unambiguously that they can kill them, but if you are casting detect alignment on every person you meet instead of trying to figure out their motivations through roleplay, then why even bother doing a roleplay? At that point you might as well just play Diablo. Like, good aligned characters can still come into conflict with other good aligned creatures if they have conflicting goals or world views. Using detect alignment to determine if someone is trustworthy or not feels pretty lame imo

[@DucksAndCatnip]

nah, id rather have my people be actual people thanks

[@RollingCalf]

That's what the good guys are for

[@ChodySvien]

Nah I’d rather have inheritly evil races for players to vanquish and feel good about.

[@DucksAndCatnip]

@@ChodySvien why not have people who are evil because of their actions, not because of their race?

[@ChodySvien]

@ because the divine manifestation of evil made them?

[@RollingCalf]

@@DucksAndCatnip because it's a game. I can't stand this overly pretentious DnD where everyone is trying to tell some award winning story. It ain't a novel or a show. .