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Pen & Paper Roleplaying Central => Pen and Paper Roleplaying Games (RPGs) Discussion => Topic started by: RPGPundit on May 25, 2021, 11:00:30 AM

Title: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: RPGPundit on May 25, 2021, 11:00:30 AM
Ravenloft has removed alignment from #dnd5e and Drow are now Good. This is all a Postmodernist plan to move #dnd away from myth and moral absolutes of heroic fantasy into "OMG So Random" soulless play.
#ttrpg #osr

Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Renegade_Productions on May 25, 2021, 11:05:46 AM
So it's becoming, bit by bit, worse than 4th Edition. Yikes.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Shrieking Banshee on May 25, 2021, 11:20:58 AM
So it's becoming, bit by bit, worse than 4th Edition. Yikes.

4th Edition was misguided. 5th edition is just lazy and lucky.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Renegade_Productions on May 25, 2021, 11:27:21 AM
So it's becoming, bit by bit, worse than 4th Edition. Yikes.

4th Edition was misguided. 5th edition is just lazy and lucky.
Coasting on reputation as well, but fair enough for now. A few more pegs knocked out though...
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: thedungeondelver on May 25, 2021, 11:47:25 AM
Gary decried D&D games that became "Dungeons & Beavers" by degrees of being changed.

This isn't even that.  This is...I don't know, Feelings & Asspats.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Shrieking Banshee on May 25, 2021, 11:51:22 AM
Like alignment has received a ton of flack over the years. I find it fits fine in D&D but there have been endless paladin debates because of this.

But Ravenloft? The place created by bonafide evil? Thats like the one place where you DON'T remove alignment.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: This Guy on May 25, 2021, 12:01:08 PM
"from myth and moral absolutes of heroic fantasy"

i take it back, pundit has no hate for didactic rpgs, he just wants the right didactics.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Reckall on May 25, 2021, 12:36:09 PM
So, no more Planescape? The Planes are a hippie meeting where everybody is welcome?
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Jam The MF on May 25, 2021, 12:49:33 PM
Gary decried D&D games that became "Dungeons & Beavers" by degrees of being changed.

This isn't even that.  This is...I don't know, Feelings & Asspats.


Dungeons & Beavers.  That's quite funny.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Renegade_Productions on May 25, 2021, 12:53:43 PM
So, no more Planescape? The Planes are a hippie meeting where everybody is welcome?

Most likely. After all, that setting birthed one of the best CRPGs ever made and also depends on the existence of the nine alignments by way of the nine planes around Sigil, and current year D&D can't have that now can it?
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Armchair Gamer on May 25, 2021, 01:06:43 PM
So, no more Planescape? The Planes are a hippie meeting where everybody is welcome?

Most likely. After all, that setting birthed one of the best CRPGs ever made and also depends on the existence of the nine alignments by way of the nine planes around Sigil, and current year D&D can't have that now can it?

  They could just lean heavily on the " 'Good' and 'Evil' are just labels and don't necessarily correspond to the actual morality of the positions--demons can be nice, on occasion, and angels are often tyrannical and judgmental." That would fit in with the 'Balance' ideology that goes back to Dragonlance at least, as well as the general zeitgeist that WotC worships and proclaims.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: jhkim on May 25, 2021, 01:12:01 PM
Regarding Planescape - my impression is that ever since the collapse of 2E, D&D has been much more limited in how many different official settings it will support. The business logic is that different settings fragment the customer base and make it harder to have network effects, which is D&D's strength. From what I read, Planescape hasn't been officially supported in any of 3E, 3.5E, or 4E.

On the other hand, there is an excellent Masque of Red Death official release in DM's Guild. So they are supporting some settings with minor releases. I did find a 61-page 5th edition Guide to Planescape that looked semi-official, but it seems like it is not being published - possibly an aborted attempt to get it published under the third-party license.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: HappyDaze on May 25, 2021, 01:37:51 PM
It's amusing to me that all the negative publicity directed towards WotC's newest D&D products by Pundit and the like is still publicity. These products keep on selling (supposedly better than ever) even if they aren't selling to the same old hands.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on May 25, 2021, 02:03:21 PM
It's amusing to me that all the negative publicity directed towards WotC's newest D&D products by Pundit and the like is still publicity. These products keep on selling (supposedly better than ever) even if they aren't selling to the same old hands.
Most customers are mindless consumers who don't care about politics or being told how to play. They buy new stuff, play with it until it breaks, then move on to the next product.

All that stuff about "vistani/drow/orcs/w/e are racist, we need to change them!" is ignored by the overwhelming majority of groups. They'll play however they want to play, writer intent be damned.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: This Guy on May 25, 2021, 02:13:30 PM
It's amusing to me that all the negative publicity directed towards WotC's newest D&D products by Pundit and the like is still publicity. These products keep on selling (supposedly better than ever) even if they aren't selling to the same old hands.
Most customers are mindless consumers who don't care about politics or being told how to play. They buy new stuff, play with it until it breaks, then move on to the next product.

All that stuff about "vistani/drow/orcs/w/e are racist, we need to change them!" is ignored by the overwhelming majority of groups. They'll play however they want to play, writer intent be damned.

that doesn't sound that mindless if they're not adopting the book's viewpoint wholesale
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Reckall on May 25, 2021, 02:37:25 PM
Regarding Planescape - my impression is that ever since the collapse of 2E, D&D has been much more limited in how many different official settings it will support. The business logic is that different settings fragment the customer base and make it harder to have network effects, which is D&D's strength. From what I read, Planescape hasn't been officially supported in any of 3E, 3.5E, or 4E.

With "The Manual of the Planes", "The Planar Handbook", the "Fiend Folio" and - I would add, "The Fiendish Codex I & II" you could silently adapt 2E Planescape to 3/3.5E. I did it easily. I always considered these books to be "crypto-Planescape" after Hasbro ditched the original for being "too mature".

BTW, adapting Planescape, crunch-wise, is not difficult. The beauty of the setting comes from the fluff.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on May 25, 2021, 02:39:54 PM
And if you want gothic horror, D&D isn't exactly the best system to represent it. You might be better off with Cryptworld.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Renegade_Productions on May 25, 2021, 02:49:56 PM
So, no more Planescape? The Planes are a hippie meeting where everybody is welcome?

Most likely. After all, that setting birthed one of the best CRPGs ever made and also depends on the existence of the nine alignments by way of the nine planes around Sigil, and current year D&D can't have that now can it?

  They could just lean heavily on the " 'Good' and 'Evil' are just labels and don't necessarily correspond to the actual morality of the positions--demons can be nice, on occasion, and angels are often tyrannical and judgmental." That would fit in with the 'Balance' ideology that goes back to Dragonlance at least, as well as the general zeitgeist that WotC worships and proclaims.

Can't agree with that, and I can point to a cultural cornerstone from Japan to help explain why it's a bad idea to accept this loss in any way: Shin Megami Tensei

The series has had a good-vs-evil narrative since its earliest days by way of the classic D&D scale of Law, Neutrality, and Chaos. Without that aspect to the games, the creatures you choose to work with, the people you choose to help, and the decisions you make, are insignificant in all things.

That and there is objective good and evil in the world, the latter exemplified by the Year Zero process and its end results throughout history.

Most customers are mindless consumers who don't care about politics or being told how to play. They buy new stuff, play with it until it breaks, then move on to the next product.

All that stuff about "vistani/drow/orcs/w/e are racist, we need to change them!" is ignored by the overwhelming majority of groups. They'll play however they want to play, writer intent be damned.

They're still giving them money, which to WOTC endorses their mindsets and gets them to do more in the same vein, if not worse. That's the biggest danger with going mainstream, because once the clueless masses start buying swill en-masse, guess what's going to come in greater quantities?
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: This Guy on May 25, 2021, 02:56:08 PM
They're still giving them money, which to WOTC endorses their mindsets and gets them to do more in the same vein, if not worse. That's the biggest danger with going mainstream, because once the clueless masses start buying swill en-masse, guess what's going to come in greater quantities?

delicious seethe?
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Armchair Gamer on May 25, 2021, 03:20:06 PM
So, no more Planescape? The Planes are a hippie meeting where everybody is welcome?

Most likely. After all, that setting birthed one of the best CRPGs ever made and also depends on the existence of the nine alignments by way of the nine planes around Sigil, and current year D&D can't have that now can it?

  They could just lean heavily on the " 'Good' and 'Evil' are just labels and don't necessarily correspond to the actual morality of the positions--demons can be nice, on occasion, and angels are often tyrannical and judgmental." That would fit in with the 'Balance' ideology that goes back to Dragonlance at least, as well as the general zeitgeist that WotC worships and proclaims.

Can't agree with that, and I can point to a cultural cornerstone from Japan to help explain why it's a bad idea to accept this loss in any way: Shin Megami Tensei

   I didn't say it was a good idea, just a way for the Dragon of Many Colors and of None to have both Planescape nostalgia dollars and commitment to the doctrines of its infernal masters.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Renegade_Productions on May 25, 2021, 03:24:36 PM
So, no more Planescape? The Planes are a hippie meeting where everybody is welcome?

Most likely. After all, that setting birthed one of the best CRPGs ever made and also depends on the existence of the nine alignments by way of the nine planes around Sigil, and current year D&D can't have that now can it?

  They could just lean heavily on the " 'Good' and 'Evil' are just labels and don't necessarily correspond to the actual morality of the positions--demons can be nice, on occasion, and angels are often tyrannical and judgmental." That would fit in with the 'Balance' ideology that goes back to Dragonlance at least, as well as the general zeitgeist that WotC worships and proclaims.

Can't agree with that, and I can point to a cultural cornerstone from Japan to help explain why it's a bad idea to accept this loss in any way: Shin Megami Tensei

   I didn't say it was a good idea, just a way for the Dragon of Many Colors and of None to have both Planescape nostalgia dollars and commitment to the doctrines of its infernal masters.

I know, but in all honesty, the fewer ideas they get about settings to butcher, the better. Planescape can survive on its own as an old setting translatable to modern times/systems by the actual fans.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: estar on May 25, 2021, 06:56:44 PM
Hello this is 1984 calling "Alignments are simplistic and dumb". I long found out that D&D works with or without alignment since I ditched it in my AD&D campaigns* back in the day. So take your pick and enjoy. So if the current iteration of D&D want to ditch alignment then (shrug).

*Why? Because my campaign focused mostly on allowing playing to trash my settings. When that the focus the life of the setting become more important and it more of a challenge if it nuanced. The philosophy of Set's religion can be anathema to a follower of Mitra however when there are demons involved then there is common cause. Other types of campaign have other priorities so a three fold or nine fold alignment system is the ticket.

Keep in mind that the whole idea of alignment about because in Dave Arneson's Blackmoor there were player who were part of the forces of Law i..e the good guys and players who were part of the forces of Chaos (the baddies). With the neutrals there to be recruited by one side or the other. Gygax brought that over but made more Law = those who help the players, Chaos the enemies inhabiting the dungeon, and neutral those who were indifferent or could be recruited.

The whole thing in my opinion got blown way out of proportion and taken way too literally. And like much problem that beset early D&D was a result of a lack of a detailed or coherent explanation of how and why Arneson, Gygax, and other actually use the stuff in their campaigns.


Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Palleon on May 25, 2021, 07:01:19 PM
It's amusing to me that all the negative publicity directed towards WotC's newest D&D products by Pundit and the like is still publicity. These products keep on selling (supposedly better than ever) even if they aren't selling to the same old hands.

As long as they publish five or six player facing classes or races, the 5E product will sell.  It doesn’t matter what the fluff is doing with woke nonsense.  Whoever came up with the idea is a marketing genius.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Omega on May 25, 2021, 07:17:06 PM
So, no more Planescape? The Planes are a hippie meeting where everybody is welcome?

That was Planescape to begin with. Except as a Dickensian meeting place where everyone is welcome.  8)

Planescape itself played loosey-goosey with alignment as well way back and you could not be sure anymore if a devil was evil or a deva good as they very well might not be.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: HappyDaze on May 25, 2021, 07:18:32 PM
It's amusing to me that all the negative publicity directed towards WotC's newest D&D products by Pundit and the like is still publicity. These products keep on selling (supposedly better than ever) even if they aren't selling to the same old hands.

As long as they publish five or six player facing classes or races, the 5E product will sell.  It doesn’t matter what the fluff is doing with woke nonsense.  Whoever came up with the idea is a marketing genius.
FFG did something similar with its Star Wars line. Almost every book had a sprinkling of species, gear, and vehicles/starships for players even if the book was primarily aimed at GMs. Yes, even several of the adventures.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: UndyingDM on May 26, 2021, 01:00:22 AM
It's amusing to me that all the negative publicity directed towards WotC's newest D&D products by Pundit and the like is still publicity. These products keep on selling (supposedly better than ever) even if they aren't selling to the same old hands.

Maybe the positive publicity is more common than the negative publicity, then. Maybe the concerns about the book's changes from previous editions' versions of the setting are in fact a minority opinion and that most people don't care about it. Keep in mind, the vast majority of D&D 5e players are young, and thus much less likely to care about what Viktra Mordenheim was like as Victor Mordenheim, or what the "Core" was, or whatnot.

Source 1: https://www.enworld.org/threads/2020-was-the-best-year-ever-for-dungeons-dragons.680165/
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Reckall on May 26, 2021, 01:25:34 AM
So, no more Planescape? The Planes are a hippie meeting where everybody is welcome?

That was Planescape to begin with. Except as a Dickensian meeting place where everyone is welcome.  8)

Planescape itself played loosey-goosey with alignment as well way back and you could not be sure anymore if a devil was evil or a deva good as they very well might not be.

That was the beauty of the setting, but it still maintained the basic "What?" (Good, Evil) and "How?" (Law, Chaos) moral compass. If anything it was prescient of some real-life issues (ex. "What's the alignment of Guantanamo after 9/11?" "Is torturing demons to extract info that could potentially save millions still a "good" act in a war against them?")

The central point of my 13 years campaign (which started in 1999, so well before these issues hit the RL) was some Gods of Good doing evil things "For the Greater Good" - and the mess that followed. Without Planescape I doubt that I would ever had got that idea.

I do like alignment, BTW. I know that I'm in minority, but I imported AD&D's one into D&D way before we switched to AD&D. I consider it as the first broad stroke to how to portray/understand a PC/NPC.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: jhkim on May 26, 2021, 01:47:14 AM
I do like alignment, BTW. I know that I'm in minority, but I imported AD&D's one into D&D way before we switched to AD&D. I consider it as the first broad stroke to how to portray/understand a PC/NPC.

It's fine to like alignment as a matter of personal taste.

Echoing what estar said above though -- it's not like dropping alignment is an SJW thing from the 2000s. The vast majority of RPGs from 1980 onwards don't have alignment. And good drow have also been around since the 1980s.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Reckall on May 26, 2021, 01:53:59 AM
And good drow have also been around since the 1980s.

And good orcs, BTW. This is why, when I discover stunning "issues" like this one:

https://www.thegamer.com/years-fix-race-dnd-wizards-coast-controversy/

...I always feel half amazed and half depressed. It isn't that the real World, today, has no problems...
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Torque2100 on May 26, 2021, 08:22:01 AM
I really think Pundit is off base here.  Removing Alignment is easily the most common rule adjustment and not indicative of some kind of SJW conspiracy.  Nor is it incompatible with Fantasy roleplaying.  Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay functions just fine with no alignment, as does Dragon Warriors, and The Witcher and Fantasy AGE and basically every other Fantasy Heartbreaker ever published.

Blaming players for the failures of the Alignment system is an absolute non-starter.  If you have had numerous test cases with a system, and numerous different sets of players have reported the exact same problems while using it, the problem is probably with the system.  DnD's Alignment System, especially the AD&D and onwards dual axis Good-Evil, Law-Chaos system has had 50 years of test cases.  It's just Ockham's razor.

D20 Modern gets a lot of hate, but it has some very good points.  I still love the way D20 Modern's Allegiance system demonstrated how pointless Alignment is and how a better designed system can allow you to have those magical effects in the world and the universal struggle between Good and Evil, Law and Chao without hamstringing roleplay and starting pointless arguments.   It's the same with the OD&D Law vs Chaos Alignment.

If anything, removing Alignment would be a point in 5e's favor.

The fixation on "De-Vilifying" Drow has been around basically since they were introduced.  As I pointed out in another thread, Drow being lead by exotic, hot women tends to trigger the White Knight effect in the Anglosphere mind.

New Ravenloft is pretty horrible, but I think he's reading too much into it.  This is Ravenloft as designed by adult children who have been taught to believe that seeing an image that makes them uncomfortable is literally violence on the same level as being punched in the face.  It would be pathetic if they didn't form angry piranha swarms to destroy people.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: HappyDaze on May 26, 2021, 08:51:27 AM
It's amusing to me that all the negative publicity directed towards WotC's newest D&D products by Pundit and the like is still publicity. These products keep on selling (supposedly better than ever) even if they aren't selling to the same old hands.

Maybe the positive publicity is more common than the negative publicity, then. Maybe the concerns about the book's changes from previous editions' versions of the setting are in fact a minority opinion and that most people don't care about it. Keep in mind, the vast majority of D&D 5e players are young, and thus much less likely to care about what Viktra Mordenheim was like as Victor Mordenheim, or what the "Core" was, or whatnot.

Source 1: https://www.enworld.org/threads/2020-was-the-best-year-ever-for-dungeons-dragons.680165/
I'm curious to know what their sampling method was, as none of the many D&D players I know (several dozen ranging from late 20s to mid 50s) participated or were even aware of the survey(s). If you decide what you want to show and are selective in choosing your respondents, it's pretty easy to produce results that support whatever you're shooting for.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: oggsmash on May 26, 2021, 09:55:20 AM
  I prefer RPGs with no alignment, and take advantages/disadvantages to simulate a more or less "good" or "evil" or more selfish character.  I always prefer the soldier of fortune/sword and sorcery point of view in RPGs.   BUT I also play games where these things are baked into the rules (GURPS and Savage Worlds, even Conan D20).   I do think alignment is VERY MUCH baked into Dungeons and Dragons however.   The planes, Paladins (who IMO should have remained Human and LG), clerics, etc all hinge around an alignment system.  It can be played without it, but it is baked into the game mechanics in may ways. 

   I understand that people do like to play with a more gray in a setting.   It makes more sense in a murder hobo centric world.  But, it does seem as if some of the institution push to remove alignment comes from a push towards general moral relativism versus a better fit for a world where your character loves to rescue innocent people....for LOOTZ.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on May 26, 2021, 10:00:14 AM
Did they get rid of evil or did they only get rid of the alignment system? Seems like Ravenloft wouldn't work if evil wasn't a thing there (the premise of the setting was the dark powers respond to evil by rewarding, cursing and imprisoning it: this is what makes dark lords, but it operates at a smaller scale with other types of characters)
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: HappyDaze on May 26, 2021, 10:01:12 AM
I do think alignment is VERY MUCH baked into Dungeons and Dragons however.   The planes, Paladins (who IMO should have remained Human and LG), clerics, etc all hinge around an alignment system.  It can be played without it, but it is baked into the game mechanics in may ways. 
Baked into the past of D&D, perhaps, but not so much baked into current 5e, and it appears it will be even less so moving forward. The things you mention as hinging around an alignment system do not do so anymore...as you even acknowledge with 5e (and even 4e) paladins. There are still a few traces of alignment in the rules, but to claim that they are 'baked in' to the current incarnation of D&D seems more like what you want to see than what is really there.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: HappyDaze on May 26, 2021, 10:02:12 AM
Did they get rid of evil or did they only get rid of the alignment system? Seems like Ravenloft wouldn't work if evil wasn't a thing there (the premise of the setting was the dark powers respond to evil by rewarding, cursing and imprisoning it: this is what makes dark lords, but it operates at a smaller scale with other types of characters)
I think they replaced "evil" with "tragic" and the dark lords are victims now.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: oggsmash on May 26, 2021, 10:17:08 AM
I do think alignment is VERY MUCH baked into Dungeons and Dragons however.   The planes, Paladins (who IMO should have remained Human and LG), clerics, etc all hinge around an alignment system.  It can be played without it, but it is baked into the game mechanics in may ways. 
Baked into the past of D&D, perhaps, but not so much baked into current 5e, and it appears it will be even less so moving forward. The things you mention as hinging around an alignment system do not do so anymore...as you even acknowledge with 5e (and even 4e) paladins. There are still a few traces of alignment in the rules, but to claim that they are 'baked in' to the current incarnation of D&D seems more like what you want to see than what is really there.

   The Planes are gone now?  Its not what I want to see, it is not relevant to me.  I play D&D when other people run the game, and it does seem Paladins and Clerics do have to operate within the alignment constraints of their gods, or is that not a thing anymore? 
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: HappyDaze on May 26, 2021, 10:59:56 AM
I do think alignment is VERY MUCH baked into Dungeons and Dragons however.   The planes, Paladins (who IMO should have remained Human and LG), clerics, etc all hinge around an alignment system.  It can be played without it, but it is baked into the game mechanics in may ways. 
Baked into the past of D&D, perhaps, but not so much baked into current 5e, and it appears it will be even less so moving forward. The things you mention as hinging around an alignment system do not do so anymore...as you even acknowledge with 5e (and even 4e) paladins. There are still a few traces of alignment in the rules, but to claim that they are 'baked in' to the current incarnation of D&D seems more like what you want to see than what is really there.

   The Planes are gone now?  Its not what I want to see, it is not relevant to me.  I play D&D when other people run the game, and it does seem Paladins and Clerics do have to operate within the alignment constraints of their gods, or is that not a thing anymore?
Read cleric in 5e PHB. There is no restriction on matching alignment to that of the god. You can be an apostate with a wildly different alignment from your god and the power still flows.

Read paladin in 5e PHB. There are no alignment restrictions nor even a requirement to follow a god. You have to follow an Oath, but so long as your alignment fits the requirements of that Oath, you're set.

Whether paladins and clerics have to follow the alignment constraints of their gods or not also depends upon setting. In Eberron, for example, they absolutely do not have to follow such constraints.

Planes vary by setting.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: oggsmash on May 26, 2021, 11:16:30 AM
I do think alignment is VERY MUCH baked into Dungeons and Dragons however.   The planes, Paladins (who IMO should have remained Human and LG), clerics, etc all hinge around an alignment system.  It can be played without it, but it is baked into the game mechanics in may ways. 
Baked into the past of D&D, perhaps, but not so much baked into current 5e, and it appears it will be even less so moving forward. The things you mention as hinging around an alignment system do not do so anymore...as you even acknowledge with 5e (and even 4e) paladins. There are still a few traces of alignment in the rules, but to claim that they are 'baked in' to the current incarnation of D&D seems more like what you want to see than what is really there.

   The Planes are gone now?  Its not what I want to see, it is not relevant to me.  I play D&D when other people run the game, and it does seem Paladins and Clerics do have to operate within the alignment constraints of their gods, or is that not a thing anymore?
Read cleric in 5e PHB. There is no restriction on matching alignment to that of the god. You can be an apostate with a wildly different alignment from your god and the power still flows.

Read paladin in 5e PHB. There are no alignment restrictions nor even a requirement to follow a god. You have to follow an Oath, but so long as your alignment fits the requirements of that Oath, you're set.

Whether paladins and clerics have to follow the alignment constraints of their gods or not also depends upon setting. In Eberron, for example, they absolutely do not have to follow such constraints.

Planes vary by setting.

    No idea about any settings.  Like I said, I play it, do not read it past knowing what a LN fighter needs to know, do not lawyer it, but the planes seemed pretty cut and dried along with some alignment restrictions relative to a god's position and oath guidelines.  If you say they are not a thing, I believe you.  I just still wonder why the word alignment is all over the core rulebooks then.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: HappyDaze on May 26, 2021, 11:23:31 AM
I just still wonder why the word alignment is all over the core rulebooks then.
That's the same doubt that has led so many to call for removing alignment from D&D going forward. It's largely irrelevant in 5e. I don't think it should be, but I can see that it is certainly not as important as it once was.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Armchair Gamer on May 26, 2021, 11:27:31 AM
I just still wonder why the word alignment is all over the core rulebooks then.

  Brand identity.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Ghostmaker on May 26, 2021, 11:37:40 AM
Sigh. Here we go again.

One more time: the reason alignment is considered such an integral part of D&D is because in most of the settings, concepts like good, evil, law, and chaos aren't just philosophical ideas, but tangible forces which for better or worse have an effect on the world, as much as gravity or magic.

Now, the Darklords of the various Ravenloft domains do often have an element of tragedy to them, but not in the sense of 'this bad thing happened to them and they didn't deserve it', but rather 'they made one bad decision after another and are now the villain in their narrative, and half the time they don't even see it'. Which doesn't mean your wandering murderhobos shouldn't knock them over and take their stuff, just that their descent into evil had (or it SHOULD have had) a starting point where they went off the moral rails.

The problem, in my opinion, is that wokeists are distinctly uncomfortable with the idea of objective moral codes, even in fictional settings. The idea of such makes them uneasy (guilty consciences, perhaps?) and thus they try to scrub such references.

Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: This Guy on May 26, 2021, 11:40:59 AM
Did they get rid of evil or did they only get rid of the alignment system? Seems like Ravenloft wouldn't work if evil wasn't a thing there (the premise of the setting was the dark powers respond to evil by rewarding, cursing and imprisoning it: this is what makes dark lords, but it operates at a smaller scale with other types of characters)
I think they replaced "evil" with "tragic" and the dark lords are victims now.

nothin wrong with a byronic role of villain of their own making + cruel fate. gets the shipping community damp
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: HappyDaze on May 26, 2021, 11:50:17 AM
One more time: the reason alignment is considered such an integral part of D&D is because in most of the settings, concepts like good, evil, law, and chaos aren't just philosophical ideas, but tangible forces which for better or worse have an effect on the world, as much as gravity or magic.
You are speaking in present tone, which WotC says is not accurate regarding D&D (their product). In their current product, such things are not important in most of their settings.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: jhkim on May 26, 2021, 01:06:12 PM
One more time: the reason alignment is considered such an integral part of D&D is because in most of the settings, concepts like good, evil, law, and chaos aren't just philosophical ideas, but tangible forces which for better or worse have an effect on the world, as much as gravity or magic.

Now, the Darklords of the various Ravenloft domains do often have an element of tragedy to them, but not in the sense of 'this bad thing happened to them and they didn't deserve it', but rather 'they made one bad decision after another and are now the villain in their narrative, and half the time they don't even see it'. Which doesn't mean your wandering murderhobos shouldn't knock them over and take their stuff, just that their descent into evil had (or it SHOULD have had) a starting point where they went off the moral rails.

The problem, in my opinion, is that wokeists are distinctly uncomfortable with the idea of objective moral codes, even in fictional settings. The idea of such makes them uneasy (guilty consciences, perhaps?) and thus they try to scrub such references.

You're implying lack of alignment is somehow a "wokist" thing, but I still say that it's not. Lacking alignment isn't necessarily lacking objective moral codes, as is shown by the hundreds of RPGs since the 1970s that lack alignment. Again, virtually all RPGs other than D&D and its direct imitators lack alignment, including explicitly gothic RPGs like Chill, for example.

When I ran a gothic horror campaign in the late 1980s, I didn't use alignment - not because there weren't objective morals, but because they weren't put in boxes. When we played, what we discussed was things like "There is a darkness in his soul, but he may yet cling to hope through his love for his daughter" and not "Is he Lawful Neutral or Lawful Evil?" Even when I used D&D to run the Ravenloft modules, I ignored alignment as I usually do in D&D, and instead talked in non-alignment terms.

One of the big deals is whether to label an entire person into a box, rather than individual acts. In my gothic horror game, characters would act "out of alignment" all the time - in that they might commit both good acts and evil acts side by side. For example, Doctor Nelson was obsessed with his father's ghost and would disregard ethics in pursuit of his obsession, but when not caught up in that, he was a voice of compassion for the family. I have no idea what I would set his alignment as.

While it's possible to deal with such ambiguity even when using an alignment system, I think the alignment system doesn't *help* to do this. In practice, I don't see the functional benefit compared to just not having alignment.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Mistwell on May 26, 2021, 02:07:27 PM
Ravenloft has removed alignment from #dnd5e and Drow are now Good. This is all a Postmodernist plan to move #dnd away from myth and moral absolutes of heroic fantasy into "OMG So Random" soulless play.
#ttrpg #osr


So, in case anyone was still thinking RPGPundit was posting accurate information about D&D:

1) Ravenloft doesn't ban alignment.
2) Ravenloft doesn't make Drow good.
3) The RPGPundit hasn't even read the book he's talking about.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: This Guy on May 26, 2021, 02:55:33 PM
Ravenloft has removed alignment from #dnd5e and Drow are now Good. This is all a Postmodernist plan to move #dnd away from myth and moral absolutes of heroic fantasy into "OMG So Random" soulless play.
#ttrpg #osr


So, in case anyone was still thinking RPGPundit was posting accurate information about D&D:

1) Ravenloft doesn't ban alignment.
2) Ravenloft doesn't make Drow good.
3) The RPGPundit hasn't even read the book he's talking about.

of course not, this is about truth not facts, he's foretelling how bad things are going to get and how the last bastion of, uh, classical epic morals is falling before dread modernity
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Renegade_Productions on May 26, 2021, 03:05:18 PM
Sigh. Here we go again.

One more time: the reason alignment is considered such an integral part of D&D is because in most of the settings, concepts like good, evil, law, and chaos aren't just philosophical ideas, but tangible forces which for better or worse have an effect on the world, as much as gravity or magic.

Now, the Darklords of the various Ravenloft domains do often have an element of tragedy to them, but not in the sense of 'this bad thing happened to them and they didn't deserve it', but rather 'they made one bad decision after another and are now the villain in their narrative, and half the time they don't even see it'. Which doesn't mean your wandering murderhobos shouldn't knock them over and take their stuff, just that their descent into evil had (or it SHOULD have had) a starting point where they went off the moral rails.

The problem, in my opinion, is that wokeists are distinctly uncomfortable with the idea of objective moral codes, even in fictional settings. The idea of such makes them uneasy (guilty consciences, perhaps?) and thus they try to scrub such references.

Plus like the barbarians they are, they like taking scalps. And damage to D&D is one of the biggest scalps one can claim.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Ghostmaker on May 26, 2021, 07:25:02 PM
One more time: the reason alignment is considered such an integral part of D&D is because in most of the settings, concepts like good, evil, law, and chaos aren't just philosophical ideas, but tangible forces which for better or worse have an effect on the world, as much as gravity or magic.

Now, the Darklords of the various Ravenloft domains do often have an element of tragedy to them, but not in the sense of 'this bad thing happened to them and they didn't deserve it', but rather 'they made one bad decision after another and are now the villain in their narrative, and half the time they don't even see it'. Which doesn't mean your wandering murderhobos shouldn't knock them over and take their stuff, just that their descent into evil had (or it SHOULD have had) a starting point where they went off the moral rails.

The problem, in my opinion, is that wokeists are distinctly uncomfortable with the idea of objective moral codes, even in fictional settings. The idea of such makes them uneasy (guilty consciences, perhaps?) and thus they try to scrub such references.

You're implying lack of alignment is somehow a "wokist" thing, but I still say that it's not. Lacking alignment isn't necessarily lacking objective moral codes, as is shown by the hundreds of RPGs since the 1970s that lack alignment. Again, virtually all RPGs other than D&D and its direct imitators lack alignment, including explicitly gothic RPGs like Chill, for example.

When I ran a gothic horror campaign in the late 1980s, I didn't use alignment - not because there weren't objective morals, but because they weren't put in boxes. When we played, what we discussed was things like "There is a darkness in his soul, but he may yet cling to hope through his love for his daughter" and not "Is he Lawful Neutral or Lawful Evil?" Even when I used D&D to run the Ravenloft modules, I ignored alignment as I usually do in D&D, and instead talked in non-alignment terms.

One of the big deals is whether to label an entire person into a box, rather than individual acts. In my gothic horror game, characters would act "out of alignment" all the time - in that they might commit both good acts and evil acts side by side. For example, Doctor Nelson was obsessed with his father's ghost and would disregard ethics in pursuit of his obsession, but when not caught up in that, he was a voice of compassion for the family. I have no idea what I would set his alignment as.

While it's possible to deal with such ambiguity even when using an alignment system, I think the alignment system doesn't *help* to do this. In practice, I don't see the functional benefit compared to just not having alignment.
Not necessarily. I don't think of games lacking alignment as 'wokeist'. However, I do view the relentless need to retcon away the concepts of good and evil as very wokeist, especially in a game system where, again, such concepts are tangible forces in the universe. And I think it's going to have a lot of collateral damage.

For example: where do bodaks come from? They are hapless mortals exposed to levels of evil such that it destroys and remakes them into undead abominations.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Shasarak on May 26, 2021, 08:17:30 PM
Ravenloft has removed alignment from #dnd5e and Drow are now Good.

If there is no Alignment then how can Drow be Good?

If Drow are Good then how can there be no Alignment?
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: This Guy on May 26, 2021, 08:20:13 PM
One more time: the reason alignment is considered such an integral part of D&D is because in most of the settings, concepts like good, evil, law, and chaos aren't just philosophical ideas, but tangible forces which for better or worse have an effect on the world, as much as gravity or magic.

Now, the Darklords of the various Ravenloft domains do often have an element of tragedy to them, but not in the sense of 'this bad thing happened to them and they didn't deserve it', but rather 'they made one bad decision after another and are now the villain in their narrative, and half the time they don't even see it'. Which doesn't mean your wandering murderhobos shouldn't knock them over and take their stuff, just that their descent into evil had (or it SHOULD have had) a starting point where they went off the moral rails.

The problem, in my opinion, is that wokeists are distinctly uncomfortable with the idea of objective moral codes, even in fictional settings. The idea of such makes them uneasy (guilty consciences, perhaps?) and thus they try to scrub such references.

You're implying lack of alignment is somehow a "wokist" thing, but I still say that it's not. Lacking alignment isn't necessarily lacking objective moral codes, as is shown by the hundreds of RPGs since the 1970s that lack alignment. Again, virtually all RPGs other than D&D and its direct imitators lack alignment, including explicitly gothic RPGs like Chill, for example.

When I ran a gothic horror campaign in the late 1980s, I didn't use alignment - not because there weren't objective morals, but because they weren't put in boxes. When we played, what we discussed was things like "There is a darkness in his soul, but he may yet cling to hope through his love for his daughter" and not "Is he Lawful Neutral or Lawful Evil?" Even when I used D&D to run the Ravenloft modules, I ignored alignment as I usually do in D&D, and instead talked in non-alignment terms.

One of the big deals is whether to label an entire person into a box, rather than individual acts. In my gothic horror game, characters would act "out of alignment" all the time - in that they might commit both good acts and evil acts side by side. For example, Doctor Nelson was obsessed with his father's ghost and would disregard ethics in pursuit of his obsession, but when not caught up in that, he was a voice of compassion for the family. I have no idea what I would set his alignment as.

While it's possible to deal with such ambiguity even when using an alignment system, I think the alignment system doesn't *help* to do this. In practice, I don't see the functional benefit compared to just not having alignment.
Not necessarily. I don't think of games lacking alignment as 'wokeist'. However, I do view the relentless need to retcon away the concepts of good and evil as very wokeist, especially in a game system where, again, such concepts are tangible forces in the universe. And I think it's going to have a lot of collateral damage.

For example: where do bodaks come from? They are hapless mortals exposed to levels of evil such that it destroys and remakes them into undead abominations.

radiation now, which is what it sounds like you're describing, so maybe the problem is giving evil weird quasi-scientific qualities.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Shasarak on May 26, 2021, 08:20:54 PM
Speaking of Alignment, a recent Jordan Peterson quote struck me:

"Life is a battle of Good against Evil played out on the battlefield of Law against Chaos."
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: This Guy on May 26, 2021, 08:21:50 PM
Speaking of Alignment, a recent Jordan Peterson quote struck me:

"Life is a battle of Good against Evil played out on the battlefield of Law against Chaos."

knew he was a fuckin dork with insufficient bullying in his youth
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Shasarak on May 26, 2021, 08:34:44 PM
Speaking of Alignment, a recent Jordan Peterson quote struck me:

"Life is a battle of Good against Evil played out on the battlefield of Law against Chaos."

knew he was a fuckin dork with insufficient bullying in his youth

Who would have thought, a Harvard Professor turns out to be a fucking dork.   :o

Tonight at 11 This Guy gives us his opinion on Water: Wet or not?
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: UndyingDM on May 26, 2021, 09:03:24 PM
Speaking of Alignment, a recent Jordan Peterson quote struck me:

"Life is a battle of Good against Evil played out on the battlefield of Law against Chaos."
Yeah, I would take anything that guy says with a grain of salt. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/feb/07/how-dangerous-is-jordan-b-peterson-the-rightwing-professor-who-hit-a-hornets-nest

Good and evil are not real concepts in the real world, they're subjective, just like they are in a few D&D settings, like Eberron, Ravnica, and Theros.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Shasarak on May 26, 2021, 09:08:52 PM
Good and evil are not real concepts in the real world, they're subjective, just like they are in a few D&D settings, like Eberron, Ravnica, and Theros.

Thats not true.  How do you start to imagine that is the case?  You would have to be living a pretty protected life.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Shrieking Banshee on May 26, 2021, 09:24:39 PM
Good and evil are not real concepts in the real world, they're subjective
True, but the idea of them being subjective is dropped for the purpose of social functionality.
Nobody walks an old lady across the street and says
'It was my socially pressured, collective conscious instinct mam.'
Good and Evil are subjective, and society completely falls apart if it actually internalizes those facts (instead of lying to ourselves that we do).
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Zelen on May 26, 2021, 09:31:59 PM
So, in case anyone was still thinking RPGPundit was posting accurate information about D&D:

1) Ravenloft doesn't ban alignment.
2) Ravenloft doesn't make Drow good.
3) The RPGPundit hasn't even read the book he's talking about.

Wasn't this obviously tongue in cheek?
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Ghostmaker on May 26, 2021, 09:52:31 PM
Speaking of Alignment, a recent Jordan Peterson quote struck me:

"Life is a battle of Good against Evil played out on the battlefield of Law against Chaos."
Yeah, I would take anything that guy says with a grain of salt. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/feb/07/how-dangerous-is-jordan-b-peterson-the-rightwing-professor-who-hit-a-hornets-nest

Good and evil are not real concepts in the real world, they're subjective, just like they are in a few D&D settings, like Eberron, Ravnica, and Theros.
Perhaps, but without some form of ethical and moral foundation, you get moral relativism, which is absolute shit and should be opposed.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: UndyingDM on May 26, 2021, 09:56:00 PM
Good and evil are not real concepts in the real world, they're subjective, just like they are in a few D&D settings, like Eberron, Ravnica, and Theros.

Thats not true.  How do you start to imagine that is the case?  You would have to be living a pretty protected life.
It is true. There are some objectively evil/bad things in the real world, but almost everything in the real world is a shade of gray, not truly good or truly bad.

For example, in the Amazon rain forest, there was/is a tribe that practiced cannibalism as a religious practice on their deceased tribe members. Cannibalism is typically considered evil and taboo in the real world, but it wasn't by this tribe, and was seen as a good thing to them. How can there be objective good and evil if what one person sees as evil can be what someone else sees as good, especially when the act seen as evil is not affecting or harming the other person in any way?

I do know bad people in the real world. I know completely selfish and narcissistic people who harm everyone around them and leech happiness from their friends and family members, including their children. I fully consider these people that I know to be evil, and their abuse of another person to be evil, however, the acts that they are doing are not evil, their intent is. If someone was unknowingly doing the same thing to someone else, that wouldn't be evil, that would just be innocent ignorance. If the act isn't evil, but the intent is, how can evil be a thing? If it's just a societal construct that depends on your viewpoint, your intent, and your environment, how can your action be evil?

That's my point. Objective good and evil don't exist in the real world, because objectively evil and good actions are dependent on the person and environment, and is thus subjective. The same thing applies to multiple D&D worlds (like the Blood of Vol in Eberron, which is seen as taboo, but aren't evil).

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wari%CA%BC#Cannibalism
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: RPGPundit on May 26, 2021, 09:56:40 PM
"from myth and moral absolutes of heroic fantasy"

i take it back, pundit has no hate for didactic rpgs, he just wants the right didactics.

No, I just don't want every RPG product to be Brave-new-World style propaganda for leftist agendas and ruining the settings in order to force every D&D campaign to have 2021 Seattle Values in both the play level AND the setting level.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: RPGPundit on May 26, 2021, 10:01:00 PM
And if you want gothic horror, D&D isn't exactly the best system to represent it. You might be better off with Cryptworld.

Cryptworld has the enormous almost insurmountable flaw of not being D&D.

You're much better off taking D&D and modding it to fit gothic horror better than to play some weird game that isn't OSR and therefore isn't as easily acceptable.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: This Guy on May 26, 2021, 10:02:21 PM
Speaking of Alignment, a recent Jordan Peterson quote struck me:

"Life is a battle of Good against Evil played out on the battlefield of Law against Chaos."

knew he was a fuckin dork with insufficient bullying in his youth

Who would have thought, a Harvard Professor turns out to be a fucking dork.   :o

Tonight at 11 This Guy gives us his opinion on Water: Wet or not?

dry as my cats asshole last night
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: This Guy on May 26, 2021, 10:04:40 PM
"from myth and moral absolutes of heroic fantasy"

i take it back, pundit has no hate for didactic rpgs, he just wants the right didactics.

No, I just don't want every RPG product to be Brave-new-World style propaganda for leftist agendas and ruining the settings in order to force every D&D campaign to have 2021 Seattle Values in both the play level AND the setting level.

sounds like they arent, unless your games have turned into that when you weren't looking. are you that weak to DnD's peer pressure? are the rest of the OSR?

Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: RPGPundit on May 26, 2021, 10:07:45 PM
I really think Pundit is off base here.  Removing Alignment is easily the most common rule adjustment and not indicative of some kind of SJW conspiracy.  Nor is it incompatible with Fantasy roleplaying.  Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay functions just fine with no alignment, as does Dragon Warriors, and The Witcher and Fantasy AGE and basically every other Fantasy Heartbreaker ever published.

Most of those do have alignment. Warhammer certainly does: Law vs Chaos. They just don't have alignment stats.
Wizards' Woke Mafia are removing the stat to remove the concept itself. To remove, more importantly, the suggestion that there is definable good and evil in the world and we should fight against the evil. We all know this is a fact, these fuckers don't believe in anything and want to see civilization burn to the ground.

Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: RPGPundit on May 26, 2021, 10:10:53 PM
Did they get rid of evil or did they only get rid of the alignment system? Seems like Ravenloft wouldn't work if evil wasn't a thing there (the premise of the setting was the dark powers respond to evil by rewarding, cursing and imprisoning it: this is what makes dark lords, but it operates at a smaller scale with other types of characters)

They're schizophrenic about it. They still describe dark lords (mostly) as 'evil' on occasion. but of course no race is allowed to be evil. Characters in the game can be the children of vampires, hags, or the undead, and not suffer any social stigma. The Vistani are cheered and celebrated by welcoming natives wherever they travel, because in the Nu-Ravenloft villagers believe that Diveristy is Our Strength.

You can apparently choose to start with a Dark Gift, and it has no consequences whatsoever. It's just a cool superpower now. 
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: This Guy on May 26, 2021, 10:11:32 PM
I really think Pundit is off base here.  Removing Alignment is easily the most common rule adjustment and not indicative of some kind of SJW conspiracy.  Nor is it incompatible with Fantasy roleplaying.  Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay functions just fine with no alignment, as does Dragon Warriors, and The Witcher and Fantasy AGE and basically every other Fantasy Heartbreaker ever published.

Most of those do have alignment. Warhammer certainly does: Law vs Chaos. They just don't have alignment stats.
Wizards' Woke Mafia are removing the stat to remove the concept itself. To remove, more importantly, the suggestion that there is definable good and evil in the world and we should fight against the evil. We all know this is a fact, these fuckers don't believe in anything and want to see civilization burn to the ground.

ths is what I Ching does to people. not even once
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: RPGPundit on May 26, 2021, 10:17:18 PM
Ravenloft has removed alignment from #dnd5e and Drow are now Good. This is all a Postmodernist plan to move #dnd away from myth and moral absolutes of heroic fantasy into "OMG So Random" soulless play.
#ttrpg #osr


So, in case anyone was still thinking RPGPundit was posting accurate information about D&D:

1) Ravenloft doesn't ban alignment.
2) Ravenloft doesn't make Drow good.
3) The RPGPundit hasn't even read the book he's talking about.

1. Are there Alignment stats for any of the creatures in the new Ravenloft book? And that this is in fact a continuation of a change that actually started with Candlekeep?
Go ahead, look it up if you like, I'll wait.

2. Good Drow, motherfucker: https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/dungeons-dragons-drow-changes-lolth/ (https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/dungeons-dragons-drow-changes-lolth/)

3. I don't need to read something to get reliable information about what is or isn't in it. Now, are alignment stats in it, you fucking liar??
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: This Guy on May 26, 2021, 10:19:43 PM
Ravenloft has removed alignment from #dnd5e and Drow are now Good. This is all a Postmodernist plan to move #dnd away from myth and moral absolutes of heroic fantasy into "OMG So Random" soulless play.
#ttrpg #osr


So, in case anyone was still thinking RPGPundit was posting accurate information about D&D:

1) Ravenloft doesn't ban alignment.
2) Ravenloft doesn't make Drow good.
3) The RPGPundit hasn't even read the book he's talking about.

1. Are there Alignment stats for any of the creatures in the new Ravenloft book? And that this is in fact a continuation of a change that actually started with Candlekeep?
Go ahead, look it up if you like, I'll wait.

2. Good Drow, motherfucker: https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/dungeons-dragons-drow-changes-lolth/ (https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/dungeons-dragons-drow-changes-lolth/)

3. I don't need to read something to get reliable information about what is or isn't in it. Now, are alignment stats in it, you fucking liar??

shifting goalposts like the best of Zak S, nice. fuck off with this "banned by omission" shit and come back when you have a real complaint. maybe cum on your unsold Lion & Dragon hardcopies some.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: RPGPundit on May 26, 2021, 10:21:49 PM
Ravenloft has removed alignment from #dnd5e and Drow are now Good.

If there is no Alignment then how can Drow be Good?

If Drow are Good then how can there be no Alignment?

To be strictly precise, they're "not evil" Drow.

But regardless, do not expect SJWs to be consistent. They will invoke words like "good" or "evil" when they need to, even though their fundamental dogma is that neither exist except when convenient to the narrative.

Boy, the Christian Conservatives got it all wrong. They were so worried about evil-worshipping satanists controlling D&D, they never imagined what harm people who deny the existence of evil would do with it.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: RPGPundit on May 26, 2021, 10:27:44 PM
Speaking of Alignment, a recent Jordan Peterson quote struck me:

"Life is a battle of Good against Evil played out on the battlefield of Law against Chaos."

Exactly.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: RPGPundit on May 26, 2021, 10:35:44 PM

This Guy has been banned for sockpuppeting. He done fucked up.


Like I have with other absolute fucktards that have come through this forum and managed to get themselves banned (quite a feat!) in the past, I tried to be patient; sometimes I strongly suspect someone is the sockpuppet of a banned user but don't bother to confirm it, in the hopes that maybe this time they'll learn a lesson and will behave themselves. But usually, they quickly prove me wrong.

I'll be much less patient now, so anyone who wants to fuck around will find out real fast.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on May 26, 2021, 10:45:33 PM
Speaking of Alignment, a recent Jordan Peterson quote struck me:

"Life is a battle of Good against Evil played out on the battlefield of Law against Chaos."

Exactly.
D&D invented the two axis alignment. In real mythology/religion, like Indo-European, Mesopotamian, Egyptian, etc you have order synonymous with good and chaos with bad. Ma’at vs Apep, Gods vs Titans/Giants, etc. They didn’t have good and evil as additional separate metaphysical concepts. Nor did Moorcock.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on May 26, 2021, 10:53:57 PM
Did they get rid of evil or did they only get rid of the alignment system? Seems like Ravenloft wouldn't work if evil wasn't a thing there (the premise of the setting was the dark powers respond to evil by rewarding, cursing and imprisoning it: this is what makes dark lords, but it operates at a smaller scale with other types of characters)

They're schizophrenic about it. They still describe dark lords (mostly) as 'evil' on occasion. but of course no race is allowed to be evil. Characters in the game can be the children of vampires, hags, or the undead, and not suffer any social stigma. The Vistani are cheered and celebrated by welcoming natives wherever they travel, because in the Nu-Ravenloft villagers believe that Diveristy is Our Strength.

You can apparently choose to start with a Dark Gift, and it has no consequences whatsoever. It's just a cool superpower now.
My God, that sounds ridiculous. Even the leftist YA fantasy fiction dominating shelves makes sure to shoehorn as much racism as possible.

Shadow & Bone has people mistreat the heroine for being half-fantasy!Russian/half-fantasy!Chinese. I found it somewhat grating because they don’t even pretend to have a reason for it besides “modern racial politics.”

But not mistrusting someone when they reveal their mom was a child-eating fairy tale witch? Who even shares that with other people in casual conversation?
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on May 26, 2021, 10:58:38 PM
Did they get rid of evil or did they only get rid of the alignment system? Seems like Ravenloft wouldn't work if evil wasn't a thing there (the premise of the setting was the dark powers respond to evil by rewarding, cursing and imprisoning it: this is what makes dark lords, but it operates at a smaller scale with other types of characters)

They're schizophrenic about it. They still describe dark lords (mostly) as 'evil' on occasion. but of course no race is allowed to be evil. Characters in the game can be the children of vampires, hags, or the undead, and not suffer any social stigma. The Vistani are cheered and celebrated by welcoming natives wherever they travel, because in the Nu-Ravenloft villagers believe that Diveristy is Our Strength.

You can apparently choose to start with a Dark Gift, and it has no consequences whatsoever. It's just a cool superpower now.

Humancentric Ravenloft always worked best in my opinion. A lot of the race options seem strange. They veered into stuff a bit like that in the past and it never work. It isn't a setting that lends itself to letting people be all kinds of monsters (Vampire was the game about being monsters and Ravenloft was quite the opposite). Even if it is just a blood line for coolness, it contributes to an atmosphere that feels more suited to urban fantasy than the demiplane

They really shouldn't be handing out dark gifts like that. Dark gifts were part of the seduction of the demiplane when you commit evil acts (in black box they were pretty explicit was evil was: pretty much all the deadly sins except sloth attract the dark powers attention). In red box and DoD they codified individual actions as evil. But basically you get a dark gift and a curse when you do something significantly evil and it attracts the dark powers curiosity. The more you go down that path, the more you are warped by evil (gaining powers but also becoming more of a monster). in the end, you literally become a monster, perhaps even a dark lord (at which point you become an NPC).
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: UndyingDM on May 26, 2021, 11:16:43 PM
Ravenloft has removed alignment from #dnd5e and Drow are now Good. This is all a Postmodernist plan to move #dnd away from myth and moral absolutes of heroic fantasy into "OMG So Random" soulless play.
#ttrpg #osr


So, in case anyone was still thinking RPGPundit was posting accurate information about D&D:

1) Ravenloft doesn't ban alignment.
2) Ravenloft doesn't make Drow good.
3) The RPGPundit hasn't even read the book he's talking about.

1. Are there Alignment stats for any of the creatures in the new Ravenloft book? And that this is in fact a continuation of a change that actually started with Candlekeep?
Go ahead, look it up if you like, I'll wait.

2. Good Drow, motherfucker: https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/dungeons-dragons-drow-changes-lolth/ (https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/dungeons-dragons-drow-changes-lolth/)

3. I don't need to read something to get reliable information about what is or isn't in it. Now, are alignment stats in it, you fucking liar??
Hey. I know I'm not the guy arguing with you in the first place, but I just wanted to respond point by point.

1. Nope. Just like Candlekeep Mysteries. However, they do contain explanations of how to run the monsters without the two-word descriptor of their alignment. The books don't use the previously established alignment system, but I wouldn't call that "banning alignment", as there have been no errata to the DMG/PHB/MM to get rid of alignment or any official text by WotC saying to not use alignment anymore. IMO, there's an important difference between "not including alignment" and "banning alignment".

2. They weren't wrong, though. Drow don't become good in Ravenloft, even if WotC may make a change to their lore in the future. It's not a part of the current book, and 5e has made it clear in the past that drow can be good, like when they included information about Eilistraee in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes.

3. I know that you can get good information about a book without reading it, but there is an important part of the book that is being left out by almost all of the reviewers of it and people complaining about it not including alignment in the stat blocks. This part that I'm speaking of is that the monster descriptions explain the monster's behavior in detail that is, IMHO, more useful than just a two-word label about their alignment. It's more specific about it, and IMO, this is a beneficial change. I have always preferred more in-depth descriptors of the monsters' behavior in the flavor-text instead of just having to go off of "Chaotic Evil? Okay, so like a demon", because that feels pretty two-dimensional to me. However, you're entitled to your opinion on it, I just recommend reading the book to understand what the change is a bit better.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: UndyingDM on May 26, 2021, 11:33:20 PM
Did they get rid of evil or did they only get rid of the alignment system? Seems like Ravenloft wouldn't work if evil wasn't a thing there (the premise of the setting was the dark powers respond to evil by rewarding, cursing and imprisoning it: this is what makes dark lords, but it operates at a smaller scale with other types of characters)

They're schizophrenic about it. They still describe dark lords (mostly) as 'evil' on occasion. but of course no race is allowed to be evil. Characters in the game can be the children of vampires, hags, or the undead, and not suffer any social stigma. The Vistani are cheered and celebrated by welcoming natives wherever they travel, because in the Nu-Ravenloft villagers believe that Diveristy is Our Strength.

You can apparently choose to start with a Dark Gift, and it has no consequences whatsoever. It's just a cool superpower now.
(Emphasis mine)
I do not think that word means what you think it means ;)

You might not want to make jokes about schizophrenia, too. I know people with schizophrenia, and jokes like this makes it harder for them to be taken seriously.

Also, the Dark Lords are specifically chosen by the Dark Powers because they're evil individuals. People don't want all races to be universally evil in the core of D&D (mainly) because that's not how it is in the real world and they've had fun playing good-aligned goblinoids, orcs, drow, and so on. Sure, the races are allowed to be evil at your table if you make it that way, no D&D Police are going to come busting down your door to make Orcs not "always evil", but they've mostly been advocating for a change to the core rules to allow individual DMs to change it to how they like.

You haven't read the book, right, because that's not what the book says about children of Vampires, Hags, and undead/golems. It doesn't include those penalties, because that's for the DM to choose. It does not say "your party's PCs cannot face racial discrimination because we say so", and it doesn't say "these races are hated by the citizens of Ravenloft". Not choosing a stance doesn't mean that they're catering towards either.

Why wouldn't Vistani be celebrated in (at least) some of Ravenloft? Why wouldn't the travelers that can bring supplies and letters from other Domains of Dread be seen as a valuable resource? I know that they've historically been connected to the "shifty gypsy" stereotype (which I never liked in the first place), but that never made any sense to me because they're some of the only people actually allowed to freely move through the Mists. It doesn't matter if they're racist, a person stranded in a Demiplane inside the shadowfell will take service from the only people they have to give them service.

Also, most types of diversity do have positive benefits (with a few exceptions, like political/religious diversity in certain circumstances, where it can often lead to fighting/arguing).
https://perspective.earth/diversity/
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/09/if-you-really-want-to-know-why-diversity-is-good

(I apologize if any of this breaks your politics rules. I figured because you brought up a political topic, that I would be allowed to respond to it.)
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: estar on May 26, 2021, 11:53:48 PM
And good drow have also been around since the 1980s.
And good orcs, BTW.

Case on point
Judges Guild's Wilderlands of the Magic Realms 1979
(https://www.batintheattic.com/images/good_orcs.jpg)

My writeups for the Necromancer Games Boxed Set trying to make sense of this.

Red Bull
A hundred years ago Red Bull was typical community of orcs raiding north to Derkhalf Shire of the halflings and south toward Greenwax. A series of internal fights left the tribe destitute and starving. A ship of Skandik Vikings shipwrecked along the coast near Red Bull. The orcs found them and at first tried to enslave them. The Skandiks fought back and defeated the orcs. A priest of Odin with the Skandiks had a vision from the god commanding him to convert the orcs into worthy warriors for Valhalla. The remaining orcs converted at first because of the promise of food and shelter. True converts came later due to the victories the gods brought the over the renegades and monsters. The descendents of the Skandiks have thoroughly integrated into the tribe. Snagdur is the leader of the renegade orcs who follow the old ways. His followers are few in number and live a nomadic existence in the woods and swamps surrounding Red Bull. Galpartinyk is the current high priest of Odin and the leader of the orcs. Since the arrival of the Skandiks they have formed a council of all the Skandik and Orc chiefs. They debate and pass the laws of the tribe. Several of the Skandiks are woodcrafters of exceptional skill and have opened trade with the halflings and humans of the region.

Heir Helm
When the Skandik shipwrecked near Red Bull they were part of a fleet. Twenty years later on the first trading expedition from Red Bull it was learned that the ship carrying their old lord was lost as well. The leader the son of a powerful Jarl and was the holder of the Heir's Helm (helm of brilliance). Later it was heard that survivors were found in Orchia. In 4382 The Orc Chieftain Rufgruk and his compatriots built a longship and with the aid of the Skald Geirthjof sailed the shores of Orchia in order to find the helm. They found the shipwreck and built the Heir Helm as base to search the interior. Today Rufguk's grandson Halmakal continues the search and the base has grown into a village. Geirthjof's son Gunnar continues his father research into the helm and the fate of the lost ship. The village supports itself by herding and an extensive leatherworking industry. They trade most of their finished goods to Greenswax. Razlaki is the high priestess of the village and is often called upon to adjudicate disputes in Halmakal's frequent absence.

Staisiswells
The orc chief Azbat led an expedition to the eastern regions of Orchia from Heir Helm searching for the Heir's Helm. He made contact with the Temple of the Uttermost Flame and befriended them. During his adventures he saved a group of sea-elves from pirates. When a group of sages from Heir Helm desired to be closer to the Temple and the College of Orchia he agree to found a settlement next to the sea-elves. In the intervening years the sages dominated the town but Azbat and later his son Orm were content to enjoy the wealth brought by the pearls. Lordware is the leader of the sages and deals with all outsiders. He is often organizing expeditions with the College of Orchia and the Temple in search of clues to the whereabouts of the Heir's Helm. Ararodei is the leader of the pearl divers and is thankful for the protection of Orm and his men.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: estar on May 26, 2021, 11:55:05 PM
Deleted post
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: estar on May 27, 2021, 12:18:13 AM
You're implying lack of alignment is somehow a "wokist" thing, but I still say that it's not. Lacking alignment isn't necessarily lacking objective moral codes, as is shown by the hundreds of RPGs since the 1970s that lack alignment. Again, virtually all RPGs other than D&D and its direct imitators lack alignment, including explicitly gothic RPGs like Chill, for example.
Relating the details of my experience, my own Majestic Fantasy RPG doesn't use alignment. Why? Because outside of a few special cases folks are nuanced.

Which of these two codes is followed by the "bad guy?"

Fivefold Code
Show no fear to your enemies even when all is lost.
Let truth guide your life even unto death.
Let the light of goodness and bravery guide you into love.
Protect the helpless as you would protect the lady herself.
For what man is a man who does not make the world better?

Laws of Ma’at
Strength    Only through Strength will Order succeed.
Hardiness    A warrior overcomes all adversity.
Loyalty    Only by the trust of absolute loyalty can chaos be held at bay.
Obedience Those above must be obeyed, those below must obey.
Certainty    There is no doubt that the will of our god is the right and correct way.
Dedication A warrior never wavers in fulfilling the will of our god.
Integrity    A warrior must resist all worldly temptations.
Order    Without Order, Chaos will leave nothing behind.
Wholeness The Laws of Ma’at are whole and must be followed in its entirety.


The Five Fold Code is adhered too by the followers of Mitra, the goddess of honor and justice. Think Lawful Good
The Laws of Ma'at is adhered too by the followers of Set, the god of war and order. Think Lawful Evil.


Those gods are among the oldest notes I have on my campaign from the early 1980s

However I wanted true evil in my setting. So I created a representative of true evil, Demons.

Nature of Demons
The Demons are those who decided that they knew what was best for all of creation at the beginning of time. One-by-one, each demon decided that the order of the world was wrong, and that theirs was the better way. That way demanded dominion over others and their submission to the demon’s will.

When they revealed themselves, they swept away nearly all of those who opposed them, and for a time, became the masters of creation. During their reign they took the race of man and twisted him into new forms, seeking to create the prefect servitor race. From these experiments, all the other known sentient races of the Majestic Fantasy Realms were created; Dwarves, Halflings, Orcs, Centaurs, Reptile Men, etc.

Eventually, the surviving gods organized the surviving free people and took in escaped slaves the build an army that brought down the demons. With their victory, the Abyss was created, and the remaining demons were imprisoned.

Good versus Evil
In the Majestic Fantasy Realms, people do good and evil acts. Even the worst villains have a human side where kindness and generosity is shown. However, there are acts so vile that their execution maims the soul. Redemption is possible, but it is a long and difficult process, not unlike a recovering from a grievous injury. Demons are what they are because they have performed vile acts so often that their souls are a twisted remnant. As a consequence, the vast majority of demons can only view the world as something to dominate. That others are either slaves, threats, or too powerful to challenge at this time.

The Abyss is, in a sense, an insanity ward created by the Gods to protect the rest of reality from its inmates. The Gods designed it so that maimed souls are drawn inside. It is said that the Abyss contains the possibility of hope. That in its deepest and darkest reaches there is a way out. The path is harrowing and passes through regions horrifying, even to demons. But those who have managed to redeem themselves can escape into what lies beyond.

Some say that the final barrier is Pride. But acknowledging the decisions that led to the soul’s imprisonment within the Abyss were wrong is not enough. The soul has to humble himself and acknowledge that those action were nothing in light of the evil that was committed. Many souls find they are unable to acknowledge that their lives were a waste.





When we played, what we discussed was things like "There is a darkness in his soul, but he may yet cling to hope through his love for his daughter" and not "Is he Lawful Neutral or Lawful Evil?" Even when I used D&D to run the Ravenloft modules, I ignored alignment as I usually do in D&D, and instead talked in non-alignment terms.


One thing you gain by doing this that there are now more than one solution for detailing with antagonists. Alignments are fine when a moral choice of the campaign boils down here are the good guys who cheer you and here are the bad buy you kill them. But for me with letting my players trash my setting to do whatever like becoming king or building an inn that approach was well boring even to my high school self. Especially playing various historical wargames prior to ever knowing about D&D.  The best ones captured the nuances which made for an more interesting game to play. I am not talking excessive details but including just enough that it made you think about the different approaches one could use.

So I used that experience to setup stuff when the campaign shifted to the point where players could make a go of it. It was worth it because it made it a real challenge and the player felt they actually accomplished something in a way that made sense. And one thing that got jettisoned was alignment.

While it's possible to deal with such ambiguity even when using an alignment system, I think the alignment system doesn't *help* to do this. In practice, I don't see the functional benefit compared to just not having alignment.
I concur, at best I would use alignment in published material as a guide to personality but I would always go beyond and throw in stuff to paint a more complete character in question when it came up.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: RPGPundit on May 27, 2021, 01:47:51 AM
Did they get rid of evil or did they only get rid of the alignment system? Seems like Ravenloft wouldn't work if evil wasn't a thing there (the premise of the setting was the dark powers respond to evil by rewarding, cursing and imprisoning it: this is what makes dark lords, but it operates at a smaller scale with other types of characters)

They're schizophrenic about it. They still describe dark lords (mostly) as 'evil' on occasion. but of course no race is allowed to be evil. Characters in the game can be the children of vampires, hags, or the undead, and not suffer any social stigma. The Vistani are cheered and celebrated by welcoming natives wherever they travel, because in the Nu-Ravenloft villagers believe that Diveristy is Our Strength.

You can apparently choose to start with a Dark Gift, and it has no consequences whatsoever. It's just a cool superpower now.
(Emphasis mine)
I do not think that word means what you think it means ;)

You might not want to make jokes about schizophrenia, too. I know people with schizophrenia, and jokes like this makes it harder for them to be taken seriously.

Also, the Dark Lords are specifically chosen by the Dark Powers because they're evil individuals. People don't want all races to be universally evil in the core of D&D (mainly) because that's not how it is in the real world and they've had fun playing good-aligned goblinoids, orcs, drow, and so on. Sure, the races are allowed to be evil at your table if you make it that way, no D&D Police are going to come busting down your door to make Orcs not "always evil", but they've mostly been advocating for a change to the core rules to allow individual DMs to change it to how they like.

You haven't read the book, right, because that's not what the book says about children of Vampires, Hags, and undead/golems. It doesn't include those penalties, because that's for the DM to choose. It does not say "your party's PCs cannot face racial discrimination because we say so", and it doesn't say "these races are hated by the citizens of Ravenloft". Not choosing a stance doesn't mean that they're catering towards either.

Why wouldn't Vistani be celebrated in (at least) some of Ravenloft? Why wouldn't the travelers that can bring supplies and letters from other Domains of Dread be seen as a valuable resource? I know that they've historically been connected to the "shifty gypsy" stereotype (which I never liked in the first place), but that never made any sense to me because they're some of the only people actually allowed to freely move through the Mists. It doesn't matter if they're racist, a person stranded in a Demiplane inside the shadowfell will take service from the only people they have to give them service.

Also, most types of diversity do have positive benefits (with a few exceptions, like political/religious diversity in certain circumstances, where it can often lead to fighting/arguing).
https://perspective.earth/diversity/
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/09/if-you-really-want-to-know-why-diversity-is-good

(I apologize if any of this breaks your politics rules. I figured because you brought up a political topic, that I would be allowed to respond to it.)


This does not break the politics rules, because you are responding to something exclusively connected to the discussion of the setting. If you were, on the other hand, to diverge into a longer discussion of politics beyond how they apply in the Ravenloft setting, that would violate the rules.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Mistwell on May 27, 2021, 04:43:43 PM
Ravenloft has removed alignment from #dnd5e and Drow are now Good. This is all a Postmodernist plan to move #dnd away from myth and moral absolutes of heroic fantasy into "OMG So Random" soulless play.
#ttrpg #osr


So, in case anyone was still thinking RPGPundit was posting accurate information about D&D:

1) Ravenloft doesn't ban alignment.
2) Ravenloft doesn't make Drow good.
3) The RPGPundit hasn't even read the book he's talking about.

1. Are there Alignment stats for any of the creatures in the new Ravenloft book? And that this is in fact a continuation of a change that actually started with Candlekeep?
Go ahead, look it up if you like, I'll wait.

Not listed in two books /= banned from D&D. You have evidence to the contrary? Go ahead, I'll wait.

Quote
2. Good Drow, motherfucker: https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/dungeons-dragons-drow-changes-lolth/ (https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/dungeons-dragons-drow-changes-lolth/)

That good drow can exist along with evil drow existing does not make all drow good (and this whole claim of yours contradicts your claim #1 anyway). Just like it never did in any other edition of D&D, which also had some good drow. You have evidence to the contrary? Go ahead, I'll wait.

Quote
3. I don't need to read something to get reliable information about what is or isn't in it. Now, are alignment stats in it, you fucking liar??
  I never claimed alignment stats are in it, YOU claimed it banned alignment, you fucking liar.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: HappyDaze on May 27, 2021, 04:48:53 PM
Ravenloft has removed alignment from #dnd5e and Drow are now Good. This is all a Postmodernist plan to move #dnd away from myth and moral absolutes of heroic fantasy into "OMG So Random" soulless play.
#ttrpg #osr


So, in case anyone was still thinking RPGPundit was posting accurate information about D&D:

1) Ravenloft doesn't ban alignment.
2) Ravenloft doesn't make Drow good.
3) The RPGPundit hasn't even read the book he's talking about.

1. Are there Alignment stats for any of the creatures in the new Ravenloft book? And that this is in fact a continuation of a change that actually started with Candlekeep?
Go ahead, look it up if you like, I'll wait.

Not listed in two books /= banned from D&D. You have evidence to the contrary? Go ahead, I'll wait.

Quote
2. Good Drow, motherfucker: https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/dungeons-dragons-drow-changes-lolth/ (https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/dungeons-dragons-drow-changes-lolth/)

That good drow can exist along with evil drow existing does not make all drow good (and this whole claim of yours contradicts your claim #1 anyway). Just like it never did in any other edition of D&D, which also had some good drow. You have evidence to the contrary? Go ahead, I'll wait.

Quote
3. I don't need to read something to get reliable information about what is or isn't in it. Now, are alignment stats in it, you fucking liar??
  I never claimed alignment stats are in it, YOU claimed it banned alignment, you fucking liar.
This might go back to the arguments that keep showing up that go something like: "No reasonable person would believe what Pundit says is literally true." It's all being done for the clicks.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: UndyingDM on May 27, 2021, 05:06:39 PM
This might go back to the arguments that keep showing up that go something like: "No reasonable person would believe what Pundit says is literally true." It's all being done for the clicks.
I think it's mostly an outrage-fueled attempt to do a Reductio Ad Absurdum argument, but it ends up coming off as an insane strawman-salad peppered with "Woke", "Censorship/Cancel Culture", and "Libtards" to generate attention. If he is serious, someone has a few loose screws in the "Reality-o-meter".
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Shasarak on May 27, 2021, 05:08:47 PM
Good and evil are not real concepts in the real world, they're subjective, just like they are in a few D&D settings, like Eberron, Ravnica, and Theros.

Thats not true.  How do you start to imagine that is the case?  You would have to be living a pretty protected life.
It is true. There are some objectively evil/bad things in the real world.

Evil can not be both true and not true.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Shasarak on May 27, 2021, 05:19:21 PM
Speaking of Alignment, a recent Jordan Peterson quote struck me:

"Life is a battle of Good against Evil played out on the battlefield of Law against Chaos."

Exactly.
D&D invented the two axis alignment. In real mythology/religion, like Indo-European, Mesopotamian, Egyptian, etc you have order synonymous with good and chaos with bad. Ma’at vs Apep, Gods vs Titans/Giants, etc. They didn’t have good and evil as additional separate metaphysical concepts. Nor did Moorcock.

You may want to check out the ancient Chinese, they groked the multi axis alignment system.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on May 27, 2021, 05:23:09 PM
Speaking of Alignment, a recent Jordan Peterson quote struck me:

"Life is a battle of Good against Evil played out on the battlefield of Law against Chaos."

Exactly.
D&D invented the two axis alignment. In real mythology/religion, like Indo-European, Mesopotamian, Egyptian, etc you have order synonymous with good and chaos with bad. Ma’at vs Apep, Gods vs Titans/Giants, etc. They didn’t have good and evil as additional separate metaphysical concepts. Nor did Moorcock.

You may want to check out the ancient Chinese, they groked the multi axis alignment system.
How so? Without specific references I can't research what you're talking about.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Shasarak on May 27, 2021, 07:18:49 PM
Speaking of Alignment, a recent Jordan Peterson quote struck me:

"Life is a battle of Good against Evil played out on the battlefield of Law against Chaos."

Exactly.
D&D invented the two axis alignment. In real mythology/religion, like Indo-European, Mesopotamian, Egyptian, etc you have order synonymous with good and chaos with bad. Ma’at vs Apep, Gods vs Titans/Giants, etc. They didn’t have good and evil as additional separate metaphysical concepts. Nor did Moorcock.

You may want to check out the ancient Chinese, they groked the multi axis alignment system.
How so? Without specific references I can't research what you're talking about.

You can start with Taoism

The Bagua gives a pictorial example of the axis:

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4f/Pakua_with_frame.svg/250px-Pakua_with_frame.svg.png)
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Pat on May 27, 2021, 07:34:19 PM
You can start with Taoism

The Bagua gives a pictorial example of the axis:

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4f/Pakua_with_frame.svg/250px-Pakua_with_frame.svg.png)
I remember that from the Illithiad!

Which represents the Nourishers again? I always feel safe and secure when the monster that's about to eat my brain cuddles in close and tells me I'm a wonderful slave.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Shasarak on May 27, 2021, 07:43:20 PM
I always feel safe and secure when the monster that's about to eat my brain cuddles in close and tells me I'm a wonderful slave.

You reading White Fragility again?

Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Pat on May 27, 2021, 07:44:40 PM
I always feel safe and secure when the monster that's about to eat my brain cuddles in close and tells me I'm a wonderful slave.

You reading White Fragility again?
There are many types of mind flaying.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on May 27, 2021, 08:17:47 PM
Speaking of Alignment, a recent Jordan Peterson quote struck me:

"Life is a battle of Good against Evil played out on the battlefield of Law against Chaos."

Exactly.
D&D invented the two axis alignment. In real mythology/religion, like Indo-European, Mesopotamian, Egyptian, etc you have order synonymous with good and chaos with bad. Ma’at vs Apep, Gods vs Titans/Giants, etc. They didn’t have good and evil as additional separate metaphysical concepts. Nor did Moorcock.

You may want to check out the ancient Chinese, they groked the multi axis alignment system.
How so? Without specific references I can't research what you're talking about.

You can start with Taoism

The Bagua gives a pictorial example of the axis:

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4f/Pakua_with_frame.svg/250px-Pakua_with_frame.svg.png)
That has nothing to do with alignment.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Shasarak on May 27, 2021, 08:43:24 PM
That has nothing to do with alignment.

Sounds like you have too much Yin
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Mistwell on May 27, 2021, 11:55:44 PM

This might go back to the arguments that keep showing up that go something like: "No reasonable person would believe what Pundit says is literally true." It's all being done for the clicks.

But it's not getting him clicks in the quantity needed to monetize his channel in a meaningful way.

This video for example has about 2700 views. His MOST popular video has less than 11,000 views. That's not nearly enough to approach a justification for...well...ANY schtick. For reference, most channels get paid 0.5 USD per 1000 views, though that rate grows as your viewer count grows (so I think you make around $5 per 1000 views at 20K views?) So this video made him...about $3 - $6? This message board likely costs him about that today?

And he's been at this for just over 3 years now.

So if this is about the clicks...might I suggest there is probably some room for improvement in his strategy?

For example, Pundit was one of the consultants on 5e. If he made a series of videos concerning his consultations (whatever he can say under his NDA) and his thoughts about the beta test rules and then the rules which eventually came out for the core game, I bet he'd get a LOT more views. There is a lot of content there, a lot of history that nobody else can tell, and a lot of rules insight which a lot of fans are interested in. Coming at looking at 5e from an old school perspective is pretty popular. And once he had a following it would be easier for him to transition to covering indie games, including his own stuff. Not to mention I bet a lot of people would be curious to hear about gaming in Uruguay.

But that would require ditching some of the schtick. He'd have to be on camera, at least some of the time. He'd have to cut some of the hyperbolic character crap (but not all of it: people would want to seem him smoking a cigar and drinking some liquor and being brash still) or exaggerate it to be even more obvious schtick (one or the other). He'd have to actually promote it on social media (or get someone else to do it). And he'd have to spend more time to put more thought into his videos, come up with an intro with some opening and closing music, and probably put up a patreon. But, I bet it would pay off, after a year or so.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: RPGPundit on May 28, 2021, 11:23:39 PM
Ravenloft has removed alignment from #dnd5e and Drow are now Good. This is all a Postmodernist plan to move #dnd away from myth and moral absolutes of heroic fantasy into "OMG So Random" soulless play.
#ttrpg #osr


So, in case anyone was still thinking RPGPundit was posting accurate information about D&D:

1) Ravenloft doesn't ban alignment.
2) Ravenloft doesn't make Drow good.
3) The RPGPundit hasn't even read the book he's talking about.

1. Are there Alignment stats for any of the creatures in the new Ravenloft book? And that this is in fact a continuation of a change that actually started with Candlekeep?
Go ahead, look it up if you like, I'll wait.

Not listed in two books /= banned from D&D. You have evidence to the contrary? Go ahead, I'll wait.

Two major subsequent D&D books have no had Alignment. It's very clearly a policy change. Very clearly intentional. Or are you suggesting that the WoTC staff are a gang of rank incompetents who have just plum forgot that alignment exists for two major product launches in a row?

Is that your argument, that they're morons?


Quote

Quote
3. I don't need to read something to get reliable information about what is or isn't in it. Now, are alignment stats in it, you fucking liar??
  I never claimed alignment stats are in it, YOU claimed it banned alignment, you fucking liar.

And they clearly have. There's no more Alignment in the D&D rules from here on in. That's a ban.

But let's face it, you're not actually trying to claim "you still have alignment", you're just a smarmy little weasel trying to push ideological covering fire for these motherfucking Maoist cunts.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: RPGPundit on May 28, 2021, 11:30:32 PM
Speaking of Alignment, a recent Jordan Peterson quote struck me:

"Life is a battle of Good against Evil played out on the battlefield of Law against Chaos."

Exactly.
D&D invented the two axis alignment. In real mythology/religion, like Indo-European, Mesopotamian, Egyptian, etc you have order synonymous with good and chaos with bad. Ma’at vs Apep, Gods vs Titans/Giants, etc. They didn’t have good and evil as additional separate metaphysical concepts. Nor did Moorcock.

You may want to check out the ancient Chinese, they groked the multi axis alignment system.

Correct.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: RPGPundit on May 28, 2021, 11:35:36 PM

This might go back to the arguments that keep showing up that go something like: "No reasonable person would believe what Pundit says is literally true." It's all being done for the clicks.

But it's not getting him clicks in the quantity needed to monetize his channel in a meaningful way.

This video for example has about 2700 views. His MOST popular video has less than 11,000 views. That's not nearly enough to approach a justification for...well...ANY schtick. For reference, most channels get paid 0.5 USD per 1000 views, though that rate grows as your viewer count grows (so I think you make around $5 per 1000 views at 20K views?) So this video made him...about $3 - $6? This message board likely costs him about that today?

And he's been at this for just over 3 years now.

So if this is about the clicks...might I suggest there is probably some room for improvement in his strategy?

For example, Pundit was one of the consultants on 5e. If he made a series of videos concerning his consultations (whatever he can say under his NDA) and his thoughts about the beta test rules and then the rules which eventually came out for the core game, I bet he'd get a LOT more views. There is a lot of content there, a lot of history that nobody else can tell, and a lot of rules insight which a lot of fans are interested in. Coming at looking at 5e from an old school perspective is pretty popular. And once he had a following it would be easier for him to transition to covering indie games, including his own stuff. Not to mention I bet a lot of people would be curious to hear about gaming in Uruguay.

But that would require ditching some of the schtick. He'd have to be on camera, at least some of the time. He'd have to cut some of the hyperbolic character crap (but not all of it: people would want to seem him smoking a cigar and drinking some liquor and being brash still) or exaggerate it to be even more obvious schtick (one or the other). He'd have to actually promote it on social media (or get someone else to do it). And he'd have to spend more time to put more thought into his videos, come up with an intro with some opening and closing music, and probably put up a patreon. But, I bet it would pay off, after a year or so.

I learned long ago not to take strategic advice from people who despise me and would cheer if I died.

Nor do I need any. My RPG work bought me a three bedroom house, bitch. It took a great deal of work and effort and time, in other words discipline, but for the past four years or so I'm almost entirely making my living off RPGs. And for the last couple, I've literally been making more money than I would know what to do with.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: moonsweeper on May 29, 2021, 02:27:42 AM

I learned long ago not to take strategic advice from people who despise me and would cheer if I died.

Nor do I need any. My RPG work bought me a three bedroom house, bitch. It took a great deal of work and effort and time, in other words discipline, but for the past four years or so I'm almost entirely making my living off RPGs. And for the last couple, I've literally been making more money than I would know what to do with.

Dammit Pundit!
How dare you!

I can't believe you have the audacity to make an acceptable living off of the hobby you enjoy.  ;)
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Ghostmaker on May 29, 2021, 10:23:31 AM

This might go back to the arguments that keep showing up that go something like: "No reasonable person would believe what Pundit says is literally true." It's all being done for the clicks.

But it's not getting him clicks in the quantity needed to monetize his channel in a meaningful way.

This video for example has about 2700 views. His MOST popular video has less than 11,000 views. That's not nearly enough to approach a justification for...well...ANY schtick. For reference, most channels get paid 0.5 USD per 1000 views, though that rate grows as your viewer count grows (so I think you make around $5 per 1000 views at 20K views?) So this video made him...about $3 - $6? This message board likely costs him about that today?

And he's been at this for just over 3 years now.

So if this is about the clicks...might I suggest there is probably some room for improvement in his strategy?

For example, Pundit was one of the consultants on 5e. If he made a series of videos concerning his consultations (whatever he can say under his NDA) and his thoughts about the beta test rules and then the rules which eventually came out for the core game, I bet he'd get a LOT more views. There is a lot of content there, a lot of history that nobody else can tell, and a lot of rules insight which a lot of fans are interested in. Coming at looking at 5e from an old school perspective is pretty popular. And once he had a following it would be easier for him to transition to covering indie games, including his own stuff. Not to mention I bet a lot of people would be curious to hear about gaming in Uruguay.

But that would require ditching some of the schtick. He'd have to be on camera, at least some of the time. He'd have to cut some of the hyperbolic character crap (but not all of it: people would want to seem him smoking a cigar and drinking some liquor and being brash still) or exaggerate it to be even more obvious schtick (one or the other). He'd have to actually promote it on social media (or get someone else to do it). And he'd have to spend more time to put more thought into his videos, come up with an intro with some opening and closing music, and probably put up a patreon. But, I bet it would pay off, after a year or so.

I learned long ago not to take strategic advice from people who despise me and would cheer if I died.

Nor do I need any. My RPG work bought me a three bedroom house, bitch. It took a great deal of work and effort and time, in other words discipline, but for the past four years or so I'm almost entirely making my living off RPGs. And for the last couple, I've literally been making more money than I would know what to do with.
You remind me of Larry Correia. That's a compliment, mind you. He's derided as a D-list author... except that he bought part of a mountain in Utah to build a house there with his book proceeds.

Success is an excellent argument in one's favor, after all.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Omega on May 29, 2021, 11:22:53 AM

And they clearly have. There's no more Alignment in the D&D rules from here on in. That's a ban.

I can confirm that yes indeed no monster in the Beyond version had any alignment at all.
They do though in the descriptions often mention the creature is evil, vicious, and so on.
I think this was part of the "personalize it!" drive that seems to be a big ideal in the book? Which I guess would make listing alignments pointless if anything can be anything? Or maybe not. It makes little sense without some context and I just did not see any explanation?

I do not think any NPCs had alignments either other than something like "this person did evil things" or "this person hunts evil"
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on May 30, 2021, 12:44:36 PM
Speaking of Alignment, a recent Jordan Peterson quote struck me:

"Life is a battle of Good against Evil played out on the battlefield of Law against Chaos."

Exactly.
D&D invented the two axis alignment. In real mythology/religion, like Indo-European, Mesopotamian, Egyptian, etc you have order synonymous with good and chaos with bad. Ma’at vs Apep, Gods vs Titans/Giants, etc. They didn’t have good and evil as additional separate metaphysical concepts. Nor did Moorcock.

You may want to check out the ancient Chinese, they groked the multi axis alignment system.

Correct.
The Taoists did not have an alignment system with good/evil perpendicular to law/chaos. That’s not what the bagua is. The bagua is completely irrelevant to this argument.

The two-axis alignment system of law/chaos perpendicular to good/evil is unique to D&D and doesn’t have support in any real belief system. It has tons of problems with regards to ethical analysis, which many people have already analyzed and criticized at length for decades.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Wrath of God on May 30, 2021, 07:22:18 PM
Quote
Most of those do have alignment. Warhammer certainly does: Law vs Chaos. They just don't have alignment stats.

1st edition indeed had alignment, as it was mostly D&D pastiche. (It also had Good (for Elves) and Evil (for Necromancers)
Later it was scrapped - Law as tangible force was retconned out, and to fit Warp Lores of 40k and Fantasy - the Chaos is at least implied to be more like cosmic fuckup - than cosmological constant in D&D sake.

TBH - not to really absolves wokesters in WOTC, but Ravenloft seems to be this one convention that can easily work without alignment, considering whole premise of PCs vs what can be best described as Cosmic Horror in Gothic Tuxedo. There are certain conditions that make Demiplane to influence you... and can be easily done in descriptive way.
Especially since many traditional sins barely ticks evil in D&D like Pride, or are if anything more on L-C axis, like various lecherous shenanigans sans R-word itself.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: RPGPundit on May 30, 2021, 09:51:28 PM
Speaking of Alignment, a recent Jordan Peterson quote struck me:

"Life is a battle of Good against Evil played out on the battlefield of Law against Chaos."

Exactly.
D&D invented the two axis alignment. In real mythology/religion, like Indo-European, Mesopotamian, Egyptian, etc you have order synonymous with good and chaos with bad. Ma’at vs Apep, Gods vs Titans/Giants, etc. They didn’t have good and evil as additional separate metaphysical concepts. Nor did Moorcock.

You may want to check out the ancient Chinese, they groked the multi axis alignment system.

Correct.
The Taoists did not have an alignment system with good/evil perpendicular to law/chaos. That’s not what the bagua is. The bagua is completely irrelevant to this argument.

The two-axis alignment system of law/chaos perpendicular to good/evil is unique to D&D and doesn’t have support in any real belief system. It has tons of problems with regards to ethical analysis, which many people have already analyzed and criticized at length for decades.

The Confucians did. Not literally the D&D system of course. But they certainly had a perspective of that idea of there being a struggle between good and evil playing itself out in the human dimension in a struggle between order and chaos.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Shasarak on May 30, 2021, 11:14:34 PM
The Taoists did not have an alignment system with good/evil perpendicular to law/chaos. That’s not what the bagua is. The bagua is completely irrelevant to this argument.

The two-axis alignment system of law/chaos perpendicular to good/evil is unique to D&D and doesn’t have support in any real belief system. It has tons of problems with regards to ethical analysis, which many people have already analyzed and criticized at length for decades.

I think that it is only parts of privileged West Coast US civilisation that seem to believe there is no good and evil.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: TJS on May 31, 2021, 12:21:00 AM
I honestly couldn't give a flying fuck about Alignment.

A Demon is still a demon.

If the Orcs are carrying kidnapped children to put in the cooking pot to eat later no one's going to stop and debate alignment.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Shasarak on May 31, 2021, 01:15:08 AM
I honestly couldn't give a flying fuck about Alignment.

A Demon is still a demon.

If the Orcs are carrying kidnapped children to put in the cooking pot to eat later no one's going to stop and debate alignment.

Everyones gotta eat, amiright
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Omega on May 31, 2021, 07:22:05 AM
I honestly couldn't give a flying fuck about Alignment.

A Demon is still a demon.

If the Orcs are carrying kidnapped children to put in the cooking pot to eat later no one's going to stop and debate alignment.

Everyones gotta eat, amiright

Tastes like children..er... chicken... yeah... chicken...  :o
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on May 31, 2021, 10:41:33 AM
The Taoists did not have an alignment system with good/evil perpendicular to law/chaos. That’s not what the bagua is. The bagua is completely irrelevant to this argument.

The two-axis alignment system of law/chaos perpendicular to good/evil is unique to D&D and doesn’t have support in any real belief system. It has tons of problems with regards to ethical analysis, which many people have already analyzed and criticized at length for decades.

I think that it is only parts of privileged West Coast US civilisation that seem to believe there is no good and evil.
I'm getting tired of trying to explain this to you, but I'll try one final time.

In Ancient Egyptian religion, good and order were synonymous and represented by the goddess Ma'at. Evil and disorder were synonymous and represented by the demon serpent Apep. The constructive and creative aspect of chaos was represented by the god Set, who fought for Ma'at and defended the sun against Apep.

And this is probably where Moorcock got some of his inspiration from. In Moorcock's mythos, good and evil are not cosmological forces. Order and Chaos are, and they become hostile and destructive towards life at their extremes. At the extreme end of Order you get stuff like Leviathan from Hellraiser, and at the extreme end of Chaos you get... Chaos from Warhammer. It's the Balance that is synonymous with the good, in the sense of supporting the existence of life.

D&D's alignment system misunderstands this basic conceit and overcomplicates it by making good and evil their own cosmological forces rather than outcomes of order and chaos. Naturally, evil and good took precedence over order and chaos because human minds don't think in terms of multi-axis morality.

The Confucian morality doesn't legitimize the D&D alignment system, but concurs with Moorcock. Balance is good, imbalance is bad. The yin/yang doesn't map onto order/chaos, as yin/yang both have what we would consider orderly and chaotic qualities, the balance between yin/yang is good and the imbalance is bad.

I honestly couldn't give a flying fuck about Alignment.

A Demon is still a demon.

If the Orcs are carrying kidnapped children to put in the cooking pot to eat later no one's going to stop and debate alignment.
Sometimes the best wisdom is the simplest. Thank you.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: SHARK on May 31, 2021, 03:26:38 PM
The Taoists did not have an alignment system with good/evil perpendicular to law/chaos. That’s not what the bagua is. The bagua is completely irrelevant to this argument.

The two-axis alignment system of law/chaos perpendicular to good/evil is unique to D&D and doesn’t have support in any real belief system. It has tons of problems with regards to ethical analysis, which many people have already analyzed and criticized at length for decades.

I think that it is only parts of privileged West Coast US civilisation that seem to believe there is no good and evil.
I'm getting tired of trying to explain this to you, but I'll try one final time.

In Ancient Egyptian religion, good and order were synonymous and represented by the goddess Ma'at. Evil and disorder were synonymous and represented by the demon serpent Apep. The constructive and creative aspect of chaos was represented by the god Set, who fought for Ma'at and defended the sun against Apep.

And this is probably where Moorcock got some of his inspiration from. In Moorcock's mythos, good and evil are not cosmological forces. Order and Chaos are, and they become hostile and destructive towards life at their extremes. At the extreme end of Order you get stuff like Leviathan from Hellraiser, and at the extreme end of Chaos you get... Chaos from Warhammer. It's the Balance that is synonymous with the good, in the sense of supporting the existence of life.

D&D's alignment system misunderstands this basic conceit and overcomplicates it by making good and evil their own cosmological forces rather than outcomes of order and chaos. Naturally, evil and good took precedence over order and chaos because human minds don't think in terms of multi-axis morality.

The Confucian morality doesn't legitimize the D&D alignment system, but concurs with Moorcock. Balance is good, imbalance is bad. The yin/yang doesn't map onto order/chaos, as yin/yang both have what we would consider orderly and chaotic qualities, the balance between yin/yang is good and the imbalance is bad.

I honestly couldn't give a flying fuck about Alignment.

A Demon is still a demon.

If the Orcs are carrying kidnapped children to put in the cooking pot to eat later no one's going to stop and debate alignment.
Sometimes the best wisdom is the simplest. Thank you.

Greetings!

Hmmm...BoxcrayonTales, Chinese religion and society certainly discussed the importance of *Balance*--but it also very much affirmed the greater preference and superiority of Order over Chaos. The Chaos of the periodic floods from the great Yellow River, particularly, could and did unleash absolute Chaos where hundreds of thousands if not million of people were killed, chaos, strife, ruin, and rebellion following, with entire Dynasties ending from it. The forces of Chaos were very, very destructive, and generally viewed as being evil.

The importance of the Emperor keeping the "Mandate of Heaven" played into the Emperor's role as being divinely blessed and chosen, and charged with establishing all order and righteousness, and fighting against Chaos and Evil.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Wrath of God on May 31, 2021, 03:32:12 PM
Quote
Hmmm...BoxcrayonTales, Chinese religion and society certainly discussed the importance of *Balance*--but it also very much affirmed the greater preference and superiority of Order over Chaos. The Chaos of the periodic floods from the great Yellow River, particularly, could and did unleash absolute Chaos where hundreds of thousands if not million of people were killed, chaos, strife, ruin, and rebellion following, with entire Dynasties ending from it. The forces of Chaos were very, very destructive, and generally viewed as being evil.

But also floods from Yellow River made soil in its valleys extremely fertile which allowed for unprecedented population growth in this region compared to other lands.
You can chain the river to avoid floods, but then result will be barren soil in some time.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Shasarak on May 31, 2021, 04:49:35 PM
The Taoists did not have an alignment system with good/evil perpendicular to law/chaos. That’s not what the bagua is. The bagua is completely irrelevant to this argument.

The two-axis alignment system of law/chaos perpendicular to good/evil is unique to D&D and doesn’t have support in any real belief system. It has tons of problems with regards to ethical analysis, which many people have already analyzed and criticized at length for decades.

I think that it is only parts of privileged West Coast US civilisation that seem to believe there is no good and evil.
I'm getting tired of trying to explain this to you, but I'll try one final time.

In Ancient Egyptian religion, good and order were synonymous and represented by the goddess Ma'at. Evil and disorder were synonymous and represented by the demon serpent Apep. The constructive and creative aspect of chaos was represented by the god Set, who fought for Ma'at and defended the sun against Apep.

And this is probably where Moorcock got some of his inspiration from. In Moorcock's mythos, good and evil are not cosmological forces. Order and Chaos are, and they become hostile and destructive towards life at their extremes. At the extreme end of Order you get stuff like Leviathan from Hellraiser, and at the extreme end of Chaos you get... Chaos from Warhammer. It's the Balance that is synonymous with the good, in the sense of supporting the existence of life.

D&D's alignment system misunderstands this basic conceit and overcomplicates it by making good and evil their own cosmological forces rather than outcomes of order and chaos. Naturally, evil and good took precedence over order and chaos because human minds don't think in terms of multi-axis morality.

The Confucian morality doesn't legitimize the D&D alignment system, but concurs with Moorcock. Balance is good, imbalance is bad. The yin/yang doesn't map onto order/chaos, as yin/yang both have what we would consider orderly and chaotic qualities, the balance between yin/yang is good and the imbalance is bad.

I honestly couldn't give a flying fuck about Alignment.

A Demon is still a demon.

If the Orcs are carrying kidnapped children to put in the cooking pot to eat later no one's going to stop and debate alignment.
Sometimes the best wisdom is the simplest. Thank you.

Even in your Ancient Egyptian you have Chaotic Evil Apep and Lawful Evil Set.

I am sure with a few seconds of duckduckgoing I could find an example of Lawful Good (probably Osiris), Lawful Neutral (probably Thoth) and Chaotic Good (probably Isis)
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Wrath of God on May 31, 2021, 06:20:34 PM
Quote
Even in your Ancient Egyptian you have Chaotic Evil Apep and Lawful Evil Set.

The theories about Lawfulness of Set are vastly over-exaggerated.
Kinslaying is not lawful act :P

Quote
I am sure with a few seconds of duckduckgoing I could find an example of Lawful Good (probably Osiris), Lawful Neutral (probably Thoth) and Chaotic Good (probably Isis)

Maybe Bast could be somehow pushed into Chaotic Box, but you're hands would be... oh so scratched.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on May 31, 2021, 06:59:47 PM
The Taoists did not have an alignment system with good/evil perpendicular to law/chaos. That’s not what the bagua is. The bagua is completely irrelevant to this argument.

The two-axis alignment system of law/chaos perpendicular to good/evil is unique to D&D and doesn’t have support in any real belief system. It has tons of problems with regards to ethical analysis, which many people have already analyzed and criticized at length for decades.

I think that it is only parts of privileged West Coast US civilisation that seem to believe there is no good and evil.
I'm getting tired of trying to explain this to you, but I'll try one final time.

In Ancient Egyptian religion, good and order were synonymous and represented by the goddess Ma'at. Evil and disorder were synonymous and represented by the demon serpent Apep. The constructive and creative aspect of chaos was represented by the god Set, who fought for Ma'at and defended the sun against Apep.

And this is probably where Moorcock got some of his inspiration from. In Moorcock's mythos, good and evil are not cosmological forces. Order and Chaos are, and they become hostile and destructive towards life at their extremes. At the extreme end of Order you get stuff like Leviathan from Hellraiser, and at the extreme end of Chaos you get... Chaos from Warhammer. It's the Balance that is synonymous with the good, in the sense of supporting the existence of life.

D&D's alignment system misunderstands this basic conceit and overcomplicates it by making good and evil their own cosmological forces rather than outcomes of order and chaos. Naturally, evil and good took precedence over order and chaos because human minds don't think in terms of multi-axis morality.

The Confucian morality doesn't legitimize the D&D alignment system, but concurs with Moorcock. Balance is good, imbalance is bad. The yin/yang doesn't map onto order/chaos, as yin/yang both have what we would consider orderly and chaotic qualities, the balance between yin/yang is good and the imbalance is bad.

I honestly couldn't give a flying fuck about Alignment.

A Demon is still a demon.

If the Orcs are carrying kidnapped children to put in the cooking pot to eat later no one's going to stop and debate alignment.
Sometimes the best wisdom is the simplest. Thank you.

Even in your Ancient Egyptian you have Chaotic Evil Apep and Lawful Evil Set.

I am sure with a few seconds of duckduckgoing I could find an example of Lawful Good (probably Osiris), Lawful Neutral (probably Thoth) and Chaotic Good (probably Isis)
Again, Set is a god of chaos.

Quote
Even in your Ancient Egyptian you have Chaotic Evil Apep and Lawful Evil Set.

The theories about Lawfulness of Set are vastly over-exaggerated.
Kinslaying is not lawful act :P

Quote
I am sure with a few seconds of duckduckgoing I could find an example of Lawful Good (probably Osiris), Lawful Neutral (probably Thoth) and Chaotic Good (probably Isis)

Maybe Bast could be somehow pushed into Chaotic Box, but you're hands would be... oh so scratched.
The worship of Set changed over the millennia that he was worshiped. He got progressively demonized over time due to Egypt being conquered by foreigners.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Wrath of God on May 31, 2021, 07:09:12 PM
Yup. There is awesome copypasta about it.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Mistwell on May 31, 2021, 07:25:45 PM
Ravenloft has removed alignment from #dnd5e and Drow are now Good. This is all a Postmodernist plan to move #dnd away from myth and moral absolutes of heroic fantasy into "OMG So Random" soulless play.
#ttrpg #osr


So, in case anyone was still thinking RPGPundit was posting accurate information about D&D:

1) Ravenloft doesn't ban alignment.
2) Ravenloft doesn't make Drow good.
3) The RPGPundit hasn't even read the book he's talking about.

1. Are there Alignment stats for any of the creatures in the new Ravenloft book? And that this is in fact a continuation of a change that actually started with Candlekeep?
Go ahead, look it up if you like, I'll wait.

Not listed in two books /= banned from D&D. You have evidence to the contrary? Go ahead, I'll wait.

Two major subsequent D&D books have no had Alignment. It's very clearly a policy change. Very clearly intentional. Or are you suggesting that the WoTC staff are a gang of rank incompetents who have just plum forgot that alignment exists for two major product launches in a row?

Is that your argument, that they're morons?


Quote

Quote
3. I don't need to read something to get reliable information about what is or isn't in it. Now, are alignment stats in it, you fucking liar??
  I never claimed alignment stats are in it, YOU claimed it banned alignment, you fucking liar.

And they clearly have. There's no more Alignment in the D&D rules from here on in. That's a ban.



If you stopped mentioning cigars in your posts from here on out, would that in itself make cigars a banned topic on this message board, or even banned for you? No, it would not. We all know what the word banned means and we all know this is not what that word means. Alignment remains for all the core books, in all of DnD Beyond, on DMs Guild, etc..

Right now, they're not offering NEW content for alignment. Big deal. They don't offer new content for all sorts of stuff in the game. Shoot, I don't even think they're offering new content for the Sword Coast, and that remains the most supported setting they have. That doesn't make it "banned." None of this stuff is banned if they don't offer new content for it for a couple of books. Or even a couple of years.

But you knew all this. You chose that word because of you stupid tough guy schtick, which is tired and old at this point and badly in need of a refresher.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Chris24601 on May 31, 2021, 07:29:22 PM
Yeah, I’d put Set more under Chaotic Neutral overall. Ra is probably Lawful Good, Horus is Neutral Good (lawful leanings, but a couple of his stories have him being a bit on the chaotic side in dealing with his uncle... I’m thinking of the semen salad dressing specifically; there’s no way a Lawful entity came up with that stunt).

Hathor on the other hand is a split personality LG/CE depending on whether she’s in goddess of motherhood or the wrath of Ra who was slaughtering humanity and drinking their blood and was so horrific that even Ra didn’t dare face her directly so he invented beer, died it red so it looked like blood and got her drunk on it until she mellowed out and became good natured Hathor again.

The Egyptians have some fairly wacky hijinx in their mythology.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Wrath of God on May 31, 2021, 08:15:30 PM
Quote
Hathor on the other hand is a split personality LG/CE depending on whether she’s in goddess of motherhood or the wrath of Ra who was slaughtering humanity and drinking their blood and was so horrific that even Ra didn’t dare face her directly so he invented beer, died it red so it looked like blood and got her drunk on it until she mellowed out and became good natured Hathor again.

COWS SHALL NOT BE MOCKED

(https://imgix.gizmodo.com.au/content/uploads/sites/2/2020/09/25/evilcow.jpg?ar=16%3A9&auto=format&fit=crop&q=80&w=1280&nr=20)
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on June 01, 2021, 07:48:33 AM
Yeah, I’d put Set more under Chaotic Neutral overall. Ra is probably Lawful Good, Horus is Neutral Good (lawful leanings, but a couple of his stories have him being a bit on the chaotic side in dealing with his uncle... I’m thinking of the semen salad dressing specifically; there’s no way a Lawful entity came up with that stunt).

Hathor on the other hand is a split personality LG/CE depending on whether she’s in goddess of motherhood or the wrath of Ra who was slaughtering humanity and drinking their blood and was so horrific that even Ra didn’t dare face her directly so he invented beer, died it red so it looked like blood and got her drunk on it until she mellowed out and became good natured Hathor again.

The Egyptians have some fairly wacky hijinx in their mythology.
Real cultures don’t think in terms of D&D alignment. Trying to map real life culture’s deities to D&D alignments is an exercise in futility.

For example, the Greek gods are psychopathic rapists who destroy cities out of jealousy and spite. D&D labels them all “good”, except Hades who gets labeled “evil” because death is scary and evil... despite in myth Hades being the only god who didn’t torment mortals.

Screw the alignment mechanic! It’s an absurd mechanic made by autists that flies in the face of real ethics and mythology.

If nothing else, then WotC removing alignment will hopefully end all these pointless arguments about what mythological or pop culture figure fits into which alignment.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Chris24601 on June 01, 2021, 08:26:07 AM
Yeah, I’d put Set more under Chaotic Neutral overall. Ra is probably Lawful Good, Horus is Neutral Good (lawful leanings, but a couple of his stories have him being a bit on the chaotic side in dealing with his uncle... I’m thinking of the semen salad dressing specifically; there’s no way a Lawful entity came up with that stunt).

Hathor on the other hand is a split personality LG/CE depending on whether she’s in goddess of motherhood or the wrath of Ra who was slaughtering humanity and drinking their blood and was so horrific that even Ra didn’t dare face her directly so he invented beer, died it red so it looked like blood and got her drunk on it until she mellowed out and became good natured Hathor again.

The Egyptians have some fairly wacky hijinx in their mythology.
Real cultures don’t think in terms of D&D alignment. Trying to map real life culture’s deities to D&D alignments is an exercise in futility.

For example, the Greek gods are psychopathic rapists who destroy cities out of jealousy and spite. D&D labels them all “good”, except Hades who gets labeled “evil” because death is scary and evil... despite in myth Hades being the only god who didn’t torment mortals.

Screw the alignment mechanic! It’s an absurd mechanic made by autists that flies in the face of real ethics and mythology.

If nothing else, then WotC removing alignment will hopefully end all these pointless arguments about what mythological or pop culture figure fits into which alignment.
Oh, I don’t use Alignment in my own games at all (I use a variant of the Allegiances system)

Everyone knows Alignment in the real world is ridiculous... you just need to look at the “Batman of Every Alignment” chart to know this is the case. That doesn’t mean it’s not fun to try and slot non-game things into anyway, just for the laughs.

Everyone also knows that about the Greek Gods too (there’s also a pretty good argument that all the philandering was actually a political attempt at religious syncretism in a culture that didn’t have an actual word for rape and considered women, and a good percentage of men, to be basically livestock)... but you joylessly bring it up anyway.

Why do I feel that RPGs are more a joyless crusade for you and not something you actually enjoy?

If you can’t have fun with ridiculous mechanics then what’s even the point of RPGs?
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: RPGPundit on June 01, 2021, 08:32:55 AM
I honestly couldn't give a flying fuck about Alignment.

A Demon is still a demon.

If the Orcs are carrying kidnapped children to put in the cooking pot to eat later no one's going to stop and debate alignment.

Except the same situation that leads them to abolish alignment is what leads them to fill their fantasy settings with half-demons and half-vampires and undead and goblinoids that just act like normal 21st century people, where every fantasy city is a diverse tolerant hipster society. Killing a demon suddenly becomes a questionable Hate Crime.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: RPGPundit on June 01, 2021, 08:37:27 AM

The Confucian morality doesn't legitimize the D&D alignment system, but concurs with Moorcock. Balance is good, imbalance is bad. The yin/yang doesn't map onto order/chaos, as yin/yang both have what we would consider orderly and chaotic qualities, the balance between yin/yang is good and the imbalance is bad.


You're not as such wrong about what you wrote above, however you overlook that the Confucian system has a third power: "De", the power of human Virtue. The human consciousness is divided into Hun and Po, the great man and the inferior man. So you suddenly have a multivariant system: It's not enough to have harmony of the internal attributes of yin and yang, because there is also the external application of whether one has cultivated De, being Virtuous, or has embraced the base man within themselves and thus is Unvirtuous.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Ghostmaker on June 01, 2021, 08:44:13 AM
I honestly couldn't give a flying fuck about Alignment.

A Demon is still a demon.

If the Orcs are carrying kidnapped children to put in the cooking pot to eat later no one's going to stop and debate alignment.

Except the same situation that leads them to abolish alignment is what leads them to fill their fantasy settings with half-demons and half-vampires and undead and goblinoids that just act like normal 21st century people, where every fantasy city is a diverse tolerant hipster society. Killing a demon suddenly becomes a questionable Hate Crime.
Precisely. It's the insertion of 21st century mores and concepts into a quasi-medieval setting that turns the game dysfunctional and disjointed.

Should you emulate EVERYTHING about those times? No. I borrow from the SCA on that one -- limit your realism for the sake of fun. But remember that heroes NEED villains to battle. Give them some, for crying out loud.

(This ties into a thought I've had about SJWs -- they're desperate to find a worthy battle, but in a lot of cases they're unwilling to face a serious opponent. So they spend a lot of time 'punching down' and avoiding real conflicts.)
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on June 01, 2021, 11:25:10 AM
Yeah, I’d put Set more under Chaotic Neutral overall. Ra is probably Lawful Good, Horus is Neutral Good (lawful leanings, but a couple of his stories have him being a bit on the chaotic side in dealing with his uncle... I’m thinking of the semen salad dressing specifically; there’s no way a Lawful entity came up with that stunt).

Hathor on the other hand is a split personality LG/CE depending on whether she’s in goddess of motherhood or the wrath of Ra who was slaughtering humanity and drinking their blood and was so horrific that even Ra didn’t dare face her directly so he invented beer, died it red so it looked like blood and got her drunk on it until she mellowed out and became good natured Hathor again.

The Egyptians have some fairly wacky hijinx in their mythology.
Real cultures don’t think in terms of D&D alignment. Trying to map real life culture’s deities to D&D alignments is an exercise in futility.

For example, the Greek gods are psychopathic rapists who destroy cities out of jealousy and spite. D&D labels them all “good”, except Hades who gets labeled “evil” because death is scary and evil... despite in myth Hades being the only god who didn’t torment mortals.

Screw the alignment mechanic! It’s an absurd mechanic made by autists that flies in the face of real ethics and mythology.

If nothing else, then WotC removing alignment will hopefully end all these pointless arguments about what mythological or pop culture figure fits into which alignment.
Oh, I don’t use Alignment in my own games at all (I use a variant of the Allegiances system)

Everyone knows Alignment in the real world is ridiculous... you just need to look at the “Batman of Every Alignment” chart to know this is the case. That doesn’t mean it’s not fun to try and slot non-game things into anyway, just for the laughs.

Everyone also knows that about the Greek Gods too (there’s also a pretty good argument that all the philandering was actually a political attempt at religious syncretism in a culture that didn’t have an actual word for rape and considered women, and a good percentage of men, to be basically livestock)... but you joylessly bring it up anyway.

Why do I feel that RPGs are more a joyless crusade for you and not something you actually enjoy?

If you can’t have fun with ridiculous mechanics then what’s even the point of RPGs?

Right now I'm more of a world builder. I'm currently world building a system-agnostic fantasy setting that could be suitable for roleplaying, wargaming, video gaming, etc.

I can't help but be frustrated at how... fractured and incoherent the D&D "lore" is, even within a single setting. Like, the demons and devils don't have any kind of coherent art direction. There's no artistic motif unique to either to make them readily distinguishable from one another. For comparison, the chaos daemons in Warhammer have more coherent motifs.

The slaad, by contrast, do have a coherent art direction (frog people) but this makes little sense in regard to them being personifications of chaos. Wouldn't it make more sense for slaad to look like a unique patchwork of various bodyparts like the mongrelmen/mongrelfolk?

But I digress. This isn't the right thread for that.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Mistwell on June 01, 2021, 11:39:36 AM
Yeah, I’d put Set more under Chaotic Neutral overall. Ra is probably Lawful Good, Horus is Neutral Good (lawful leanings, but a couple of his stories have him being a bit on the chaotic side in dealing with his uncle... I’m thinking of the semen salad dressing specifically; there’s no way a Lawful entity came up with that stunt).

Hathor on the other hand is a split personality LG/CE depending on whether she’s in goddess of motherhood or the wrath of Ra who was slaughtering humanity and drinking their blood and was so horrific that even Ra didn’t dare face her directly so he invented beer, died it red so it looked like blood and got her drunk on it until she mellowed out and became good natured Hathor again.

The Egyptians have some fairly wacky hijinx in their mythology.
Real cultures don’t think in terms of D&D alignment. Trying to map real life culture’s deities to D&D alignments is an exercise in futility.

For example, the Greek gods are psychopathic rapists who destroy cities out of jealousy and spite. D&D labels them all “good”, except Hades who gets labeled “evil” because death is scary and evil... despite in myth Hades being the only god who didn’t torment mortals.

Screw the alignment mechanic! It’s an absurd mechanic made by autists that flies in the face of real ethics and mythology.

If nothing else, then WotC removing alignment will hopefully end all these pointless arguments about what mythological or pop culture figure fits into which alignment.
Oh, I don’t use Alignment in my own games at all (I use a variant of the Allegiances system)

Everyone knows Alignment in the real world is ridiculous... you just need to look at the “Batman of Every Alignment” chart to know this is the case. That doesn’t mean it’s not fun to try and slot non-game things into anyway, just for the laughs.

Everyone also knows that about the Greek Gods too (there’s also a pretty good argument that all the philandering was actually a political attempt at religious syncretism in a culture that didn’t have an actual word for rape and considered women, and a good percentage of men, to be basically livestock)... but you joylessly bring it up anyway.

Why do I feel that RPGs are more a joyless crusade for you and not something you actually enjoy?

If you can’t have fun with ridiculous mechanics then what’s even the point of RPGs?

Right now I'm more of a world builder. I'm currently world building a system-agnostic fantasy setting that could be suitable for roleplaying, wargaming, video gaming, etc.

I can't help but be frustrated at how... fractured and incoherent the D&D "lore" is, even within a single setting. Like, the demons and devils don't have any kind of coherent art direction. There's no artistic motif unique to either to make them readily distinguishable from one another. For comparison, the chaos daemons in Warhammer have more coherent motifs.

The slaad, by contrast, do have a coherent art direction (frog people) but this makes little sense in regard to them being personifications of chaos. Wouldn't it make more sense for slaad to look like a unique patchwork of various bodyparts like the mongrelmen/mongrelfolk?

But I digress. This isn't the right thread for that.

God forbid we talk about actual gaming in the gaming forum. Yeah, I guess we have to go back to calling people Maoists and SJWs and pretending that's about gaming rather than a culture argument thinly veiled in gaming as an excuse to vent about politics and culture.

For me, I'd much rather talk about your world building ideas.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on June 01, 2021, 11:51:59 AM
Yeah, I’d put Set more under Chaotic Neutral overall. Ra is probably Lawful Good, Horus is Neutral Good (lawful leanings, but a couple of his stories have him being a bit on the chaotic side in dealing with his uncle... I’m thinking of the semen salad dressing specifically; there’s no way a Lawful entity came up with that stunt).

Hathor on the other hand is a split personality LG/CE depending on whether she’s in goddess of motherhood or the wrath of Ra who was slaughtering humanity and drinking their blood and was so horrific that even Ra didn’t dare face her directly so he invented beer, died it red so it looked like blood and got her drunk on it until she mellowed out and became good natured Hathor again.

The Egyptians have some fairly wacky hijinx in their mythology.
Real cultures don’t think in terms of D&D alignment. Trying to map real life culture’s deities to D&D alignments is an exercise in futility.

For example, the Greek gods are psychopathic rapists who destroy cities out of jealousy and spite. D&D labels them all “good”, except Hades who gets labeled “evil” because death is scary and evil... despite in myth Hades being the only god who didn’t torment mortals.

Screw the alignment mechanic! It’s an absurd mechanic made by autists that flies in the face of real ethics and mythology.

If nothing else, then WotC removing alignment will hopefully end all these pointless arguments about what mythological or pop culture figure fits into which alignment.
Oh, I don’t use Alignment in my own games at all (I use a variant of the Allegiances system)

Everyone knows Alignment in the real world is ridiculous... you just need to look at the “Batman of Every Alignment” chart to know this is the case. That doesn’t mean it’s not fun to try and slot non-game things into anyway, just for the laughs.

Everyone also knows that about the Greek Gods too (there’s also a pretty good argument that all the philandering was actually a political attempt at religious syncretism in a culture that didn’t have an actual word for rape and considered women, and a good percentage of men, to be basically livestock)... but you joylessly bring it up anyway.

Why do I feel that RPGs are more a joyless crusade for you and not something you actually enjoy?

If you can’t have fun with ridiculous mechanics then what’s even the point of RPGs?

Right now I'm more of a world builder. I'm currently world building a system-agnostic fantasy setting that could be suitable for roleplaying, wargaming, video gaming, etc.

I can't help but be frustrated at how... fractured and incoherent the D&D "lore" is, even within a single setting. Like, the demons and devils don't have any kind of coherent art direction. There's no artistic motif unique to either to make them readily distinguishable from one another. For comparison, the chaos daemons in Warhammer have more coherent motifs.

The slaad, by contrast, do have a coherent art direction (frog people) but this makes little sense in regard to them being personifications of chaos. Wouldn't it make more sense for slaad to look like a unique patchwork of various bodyparts like the mongrelmen/mongrelfolk?

But I digress. This isn't the right thread for that.

God forbid we talk about actual gaming in the gaming forum. Yeah, I guess we have to go back to calling people Maoists and SJWs and pretending that's about gaming rather than a culture argument thinly veiled in gaming as an excuse to vent about politics and culture.

For me, I'd much rather talk about your world building ideas.
Thanks for the vote of confidence.

The basic premise of my setting is that there are a multitude of fantasy planets connected by a stargate network. Some of these planets host cultures resembling pastiches of historical Earth cultures or mythic/fairytale creatures. One planet might be a huge desert ruled by pharaohs, another a tidally locked world whose twilight and dark side is ruled by slavic vampire lords, another an immense primeval forest ruled by forest gods and woodland fairies, etc.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Omega on June 01, 2021, 12:51:54 PM
Except the same situation that leads them to abolish alignment is what leads them to fill their fantasy settings with half-demons and half-vampires and undead and goblinoids that just act like normal 21st century people, where every fantasy city is a diverse tolerant hipster society. Killing a demon suddenly becomes a questionable Hate Crime.

It works for settings like Planescape and Spelljammer and even Rifts.

But those days are long past and all these new "diverse" settings are just agenda platforms now. It allows them to infiltrate, co-opt, control and contaminate more and more.

Combine this with the Moral Guardian Bleeding Hearts who want to scrub everything nice and save and clean and you have our current state of nearly everything.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Chris24601 on June 01, 2021, 01:14:26 PM
I honestly couldn't give a flying fuck about Alignment.

A Demon is still a demon.

If the Orcs are carrying kidnapped children to put in the cooking pot to eat later no one's going to stop and debate alignment.
Except the same situation that leads them to abolish alignment is what leads them to fill their fantasy settings with half-demons and half-vampires and undead and goblinoids that just act like normal 21st century people, where every fantasy city is a diverse tolerant hipster society. Killing a demon suddenly becomes a questionable Hate Crime.
Well, as mentioned, I don’t use Alignment in my own system and there are people of part demonic ancestry (they’re more common than elves or orcs actually due to setting’s backstory), but that doesn’t mean there’s not irredeemable evil beings in the setting any more than the Dhampirs of Slavic folklore (who have special powers that allow them to identify and slay vampires) means vampires aren’t irredeemable monsters.

To the contrary, the Malfeans (those with demonic ancestry) are the most dedicated hunters of demons and the diabolists who summon them in the setting precisely because their ancestry is the direct result of the demons’ evils that they once visisted upon the entire race of Men during the Demon Empire. They are also the most dedicated to The Source (God in the setting) and what they call The Promise (that if they stay true to The Source and reject the demonic side of their ancestry, one day they will sent a redeemer).

Demons (and undead, who are basically their spiritual cousins) are universally irredeemably evil; seeking only to tear down Creation and the mortals so beloved by The Source out of pure spite (they already lost the war so it’s literally just trying to wreck as much as they can to make others suffer). Throughout development of the setting I had to completely rework entire sections precisely because that element suggested some demons might possibly redeemable.

Beyond demons and undead though, I do prefer a bit more nuance. The orcs are evil because their society is a bunch of might makes right assholes bent on conquering and enslaving their neighbors. You’re as justified killing them if you find them in human lands as if you came across an active terrorist cell operating in the United States... because they’re in the human lands for pretty much the same reason. Maybe if you meet an orc merchant at a bar in a border trade town you might be able to have a conversation and do business with them... but it doesn’t negate that their government and the soldiers loyal to it are villains who need to be stopped by any means necessary.

The elven kingdom is also a bunch of caste-based religious fascists who believe they’re superior to all other races (and think nothing of holding wild hunts with hapless mortals in the role of the hunted... basically all the horror stories involving the Fae in myth and legend belong to elven kingdoms). They are absolutely unrepentant villains and playable elves are universally exiles from the lower castes who fled the oppression of their society.

There’s also a whole boatload of inhuman man-eating beasts that wouldn’t qualify as evil in the moral sense (they lack the sapience to make such moral choices), but are nonetheless active perils to human life such that putting them down is a moral good (i.e. a chimera isn’t evil, but it eats a quarter of its body weight in flesh daily and finds human flesh especially tasty, but even just making off with a village’s livestock could doom the inhabitants to starvation).

But my setting is also very much a Thundarr the Barbarian post apocalyptic gonzo high-fantasy world full of sapient beastmen, mutants and the like with schizotech ranging from medieval all the way to 19th century steam engines and magitech zeppelins. The atmosphere is very much in the vein of the Wild West rather than any sort of Medieval (realistic or otherwise).

The few big trading towns adventurers are likely to flock to ARE fairly cosmopolitan because they’re at the crossroads of trade for the often mono-species villages that sprung up among the survivors of the Cataclysm two centuries prior and just like real world trading centers in history, tend to be more “live and let live” than other places (which doesn’t mean they put up with demons or undead or armed orc companies... just that if you’re a Malfean or beastman you’ll just be watched suspiciously and allowed to do business if you don’t cause trouble instead of automatically impaled on a spear by the town gate just for not being a member of the dominant species in the community).

Basically, the existence of non-humans/“monster” races in significant numbers in a setting has zero to do with whether there’s objective good and evil in the setting.

Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Eirikrautha on June 01, 2021, 02:39:29 PM
Well, as mentioned, I don’t use Alignment in my own system and there are people of part demonic ancestry (they’re more common than elves or orcs actually due to setting’s backstory), but that doesn’t mean there’s not irredeemable evil beings in the setting any more than the Dhampirs of Slavic folklore (who have special powers that allow them to identify and slay vampires) means vampires aren’t irredeemable monsters.

To the contrary, the Malfeans (those with demonic ancestry) are the most dedicated hunters of demons and the diabolists who summon them in the setting precisely because their ancestry is the direct result of the demons’ evils that they once visisted upon the entire race of Men during the Demon Empire. They are also the most dedicated to The Source (God in the setting) and what they call The Promise (that if they stay true to The Source and reject the demonic side of their ancestry, one day they will sent a redeemer).

Demons (and undead, who are basically their spiritual cousins) are universally irredeemably evil; seeking only to tear down Creation and the mortals so beloved by The Source out of pure spite (they already lost the war so it’s literally just trying to wreck as much as they can to make others suffer). Throughout development of the setting I had to completely rework entire sections precisely because that element suggested some demons might possibly redeemable.

Beyond demons and undead though, I do prefer a bit more nuance. The orcs are evil because their society is a bunch of might makes right assholes bent on conquering and enslaving their neighbors. You’re as justified killing them if you find them in human lands as if you came across an active terrorist cell operating in the United States... because they’re in the human lands for pretty much the same reason. Maybe if you meet an orc merchant at a bar in a border trade town you might be able to have a conversation and do business with them... but it doesn’t negate that their government and the soldiers loyal to it are villains who need to be stopped by any means necessary.

The elven kingdom is also a bunch of caste-based religious fascists who believe they’re superior to all other races (and think nothing of holding wild hunts with hapless mortals in the role of the hunted... basically all the horror stories involving the Fae in myth and legend belong to elven kingdoms). They are absolutely unrepentant villains and playable elves are universally exiles from the lower castes who fled the oppression of their society.

There’s also a whole boatload of inhuman man-eating beasts that wouldn’t qualify as evil in the moral sense (they lack the sapience to make such moral choices), but are nonetheless active perils to human life such that putting them down is a moral good (i.e. a chimera isn’t evil, but it eats a quarter of its body weight in flesh daily and finds human flesh especially tasty, but even just making off with a village’s livestock could doom the inhabitants to starvation).

But my setting is also very much a Thundarr the Barbarian post apocalyptic gonzo high-fantasy world full of sapient beastmen, mutants and the like with schizotech ranging from medieval all the way to 19th century steam engines and magitech zeppelins. The atmosphere is very much in the vein of the Wild West rather than any sort of Medieval (realistic or otherwise).

The few big trading towns adventurers are likely to flock to ARE fairly cosmopolitan because they’re at the crossroads of trade for the often mono-species villages that sprung up among the survivors of the Cataclysm two centuries prior and just like real world trading centers in history, tend to be more “live and let live” than other places (which doesn’t mean they put up with demons or undead or armed orc companies... just that if you’re a Malfean or beastman you’ll just be watched suspiciously and allowed to do business if you don’t cause trouble instead of automatically impaled on a spear by the town gate just for not being a member of the dominant species in the community).

Basically, the existence of non-humans/“monster” races in significant numbers in a setting has zero to do with whether there’s objective good and evil in the setting.
That's a cool setting,  but I think you're missing his point.  The issue isn't the  number of monster races in the setting; it's the number in the party. By making the monsters in the setting morally gray, you're just opening the door to all the special snowflakes who want their character to be as quirky and unique as they are (barf!).
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Chris24601 on June 01, 2021, 04:42:42 PM
That's a cool setting,  but I think you're missing his point.  The issue isn't the  number of monster races in the setting; it's the number in the party. By making the monsters in the setting morally gray, you're just opening the door to all the special snowflakes who want their character to be as quirky and unique as they are (barf!).
And where you see a negative in people being able to play whatever they want, I see it as, at worse, a neutral element. How many humans feature in The Dark Crystal again? How about in the main adventuring party of the Wizard of Oz? The Hobbit had how many humans in the main party?

Just because you prefer adventuring parties to look like a clone of the Fellowship of the Ring doesn't mean every fantasy setting has to have that as its baseline.

Also, the monsters in my setting are hardly morally gray. There's a difference between "being able to choose" and "morally grey." Every single human, elf, dwarf and hobbit in The Lord of the Rings was free to choose good or evil, but that doesn't make The Lord of the Rings a morally gray setting.

No one says "Indiana Jones is a morally grey setting because humans can be both heroes and villains." Why must non-humans always be one or the other? and why must the good ones the players have to choose from always be those featured in Tolkien?

If every setting looks just like Lord of the Rings, just play Lord of the Rings and be done with it. There's lots of lore, places to explore and adventures to be had. I shouldn't have to copy/paste those assumptions just to have a valid fantasy world. In my own world in order of importance and relevance to the setting backstory its Humans, Beastmen, Malfeans, Eldritch, Mutants, then Dwarves, Elves, Fetches, Golems and Gnomes in that order.

If not for my desire to include all the fantasy staples I could have left off elves and gnomes entirely (Eldritch have options that would get close) and dwarves almost got merged into humans (which halflings DID) until I actually found an interesting niche for them that wasn't just stout human with an accent (as magitech cyborgs whose body parts wear out at different rates and get replaced with artifice).

Basically, its NOT "elf" or "orc" that determines what should be a playable race in a setting... its the SETTING that determines what is or isn't common to the setting and, frankly, if you're running a sandbox it shouldn't matter how common a PC race is as long as the inhabitants of the setting treat it appropriately to the setting lore.

Likewise, I think sapient villains are much more interesting if they actually have reasons for their villainy. Villains who do bad things simply "For the Evuls" or because they "born evil" is immersion breaking for me.

The orcish empire of my setting are villains because their culture is centered around a might makes right system of morality that says that everyone weaker then you should bow to you and that its morally right to enslave everyone weaker than themselves who refuses to do so. They're also physically stronger, faster and have keener senses than humans and are every bit as intelligent in my setting. In D&D they'd definitely be labeled as evil on the whole, but the label doesn't make them "more evil" than their already described actions as ruthless conquerors who loot, kill, rape and enslave all those weaker than themselves (and feel justified in doing so) makes them.

The fact that some orcs or elves in my setting CAN choose to not be villains and instead be "defectors from decadence" actually makes the villainous ones even more so in my opinion because they're CHOOSING evil and villainy, not just a puppet programmed for evil actions by whatever created them.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Mistwell on June 01, 2021, 06:25:57 PM
Yeah, I’d put Set more under Chaotic Neutral overall. Ra is probably Lawful Good, Horus is Neutral Good (lawful leanings, but a couple of his stories have him being a bit on the chaotic side in dealing with his uncle... I’m thinking of the semen salad dressing specifically; there’s no way a Lawful entity came up with that stunt).

Hathor on the other hand is a split personality LG/CE depending on whether she’s in goddess of motherhood or the wrath of Ra who was slaughtering humanity and drinking their blood and was so horrific that even Ra didn’t dare face her directly so he invented beer, died it red so it looked like blood and got her drunk on it until she mellowed out and became good natured Hathor again.

The Egyptians have some fairly wacky hijinx in their mythology.
Real cultures don’t think in terms of D&D alignment. Trying to map real life culture’s deities to D&D alignments is an exercise in futility.

For example, the Greek gods are psychopathic rapists who destroy cities out of jealousy and spite. D&D labels them all “good”, except Hades who gets labeled “evil” because death is scary and evil... despite in myth Hades being the only god who didn’t torment mortals.

Screw the alignment mechanic! It’s an absurd mechanic made by autists that flies in the face of real ethics and mythology.

If nothing else, then WotC removing alignment will hopefully end all these pointless arguments about what mythological or pop culture figure fits into which alignment.
Oh, I don’t use Alignment in my own games at all (I use a variant of the Allegiances system)

Everyone knows Alignment in the real world is ridiculous... you just need to look at the “Batman of Every Alignment” chart to know this is the case. That doesn’t mean it’s not fun to try and slot non-game things into anyway, just for the laughs.

Everyone also knows that about the Greek Gods too (there’s also a pretty good argument that all the philandering was actually a political attempt at religious syncretism in a culture that didn’t have an actual word for rape and considered women, and a good percentage of men, to be basically livestock)... but you joylessly bring it up anyway.

Why do I feel that RPGs are more a joyless crusade for you and not something you actually enjoy?

If you can’t have fun with ridiculous mechanics then what’s even the point of RPGs?

Right now I'm more of a world builder. I'm currently world building a system-agnostic fantasy setting that could be suitable for roleplaying, wargaming, video gaming, etc.

I can't help but be frustrated at how... fractured and incoherent the D&D "lore" is, even within a single setting. Like, the demons and devils don't have any kind of coherent art direction. There's no artistic motif unique to either to make them readily distinguishable from one another. For comparison, the chaos daemons in Warhammer have more coherent motifs.

The slaad, by contrast, do have a coherent art direction (frog people) but this makes little sense in regard to them being personifications of chaos. Wouldn't it make more sense for slaad to look like a unique patchwork of various bodyparts like the mongrelmen/mongrelfolk?

But I digress. This isn't the right thread for that.

God forbid we talk about actual gaming in the gaming forum. Yeah, I guess we have to go back to calling people Maoists and SJWs and pretending that's about gaming rather than a culture argument thinly veiled in gaming as an excuse to vent about politics and culture.

For me, I'd much rather talk about your world building ideas.
Thanks for the vote of confidence.

The basic premise of my setting is that there are a multitude of fantasy planets connected by a stargate network. Some of these planets host cultures resembling pastiches of historical Earth cultures or mythic/fairytale creatures. One planet might be a huge desert ruled by pharaohs, another a tidally locked world whose twilight and dark side is ruled by slavic vampire lords, another an immense primeval forest ruled by forest gods and woodland fairies, etc.

That sounds fantastic!
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on June 01, 2021, 07:59:29 PM
The basic premise of my setting is that there are a multitude of fantasy planets connected by a stargate network. Some of these planets host cultures resembling pastiches of historical Earth cultures or mythic/fairytale creatures. One planet might be a huge desert ruled by pharaohs, another a tidally locked world whose twilight and dark side is ruled by slavic vampire lords, another an immense primeval forest ruled by forest gods and woodland fairies, etc.

That sounds fantastic!
Thank you. I'm surprised this concept isn't done already since it seems like something very easy to think up. It's basically just a mashup of Stargate SG-1 with Planescape. Age of Sigmar does something along these lines but not exactly with its platonic realms.

The benefit of using many planets is that you're not limited by the geography of a single planet. I always found it unbelievable how fantasy planets typically will loosely replicate the geography of Earth and then pack in tons of fantasy races. I never thought the logistics really made much sense. In real life, countless ethnic groups have been wiped from existence or subsumed into others. But in fantasy worlds we're expected to believe that a multitude of different sapient species at each other's throats have been able to maintain stable populations for countless millennia.

With a setting that spans countless planets, you have much more freedom to tinker with cultural development.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Shasarak on June 01, 2021, 11:07:18 PM
Quote
Even in your Ancient Egyptian you have Chaotic Evil Apep and Lawful Evil Set.

The theories about Lawfulness of Set are vastly over-exaggerated.
Kinslaying is not lawful act :P

Kinslaying is not a good act.

Set wanted to rule over creation not destroy it and fights off Apep to protect it.

Quote
Quote
I am sure with a few seconds of duckduckgoing I could find an example of Lawful Good (probably Osiris), Lawful Neutral (probably Thoth) and Chaotic Good (probably Isis)

Maybe Bast could be somehow pushed into Chaotic Box, but you're hands would be... oh so scratched.

The secret is using a laser pointer into the Chaotic Box.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Shasarak on June 01, 2021, 11:11:13 PM
I can't help but be frustrated at how... fractured and incoherent the D&D "lore" is, even within a single setting. Like, the demons and devils don't have any kind of coherent art direction. There's no artistic motif unique to either to make them readily distinguishable from one another. For comparison, the chaos daemons in Warhammer have more coherent motifs.

The slaad, by contrast, do have a coherent art direction (frog people) but this makes little sense in regard to them being personifications of chaos. Wouldn't it make more sense for slaad to look like a unique patchwork of various bodyparts like the mongrelmen/mongrelfolk?

But I digress. This isn't the right thread for that.

The real important thing that DnD needs is for Devils and Demons to have a coherent art direction.

That would fix all the problems.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: RPGPundit on June 02, 2021, 01:47:40 AM


Basically, the existence of non-humans/“monster” races in significant numbers in a setting has zero to do with whether there’s objective good and evil in the setting.

Sure, people could still probably get away with Gonzo-style settings where weirdo races for players and societies alike are commonplace. Though I imagine the Woke Grifters would let out a litany of other things that are offensive about actual Gonzo rather than their own Diversity Hipsterism Woke Settings.

But the point is that getting rid of alignment is part of getting rid of the style of play that is meant to invoke Myth. Because of an enmity to the moral values of western myth.

It's an attempt to make sure that it's as hard as possible for games with 5e to ever be run that way.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: TJS on June 02, 2021, 02:09:08 AM
Ok so now the problem is that if we don't have alignment people will want to play Orcs and shit like that?

People wanted to play Orcs and shit like that way back in 2nd edition.  Drizzt Do'urden was created when 1st edition was still a going concern.

People have always wanted to be special snowflakes.

This has nothing to do with alignment.  It's about the idea that the fans are always right.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Armchair Gamer on June 02, 2021, 01:44:05 PM
On a tangential note, anyone else think 6E will follow PF2E's lead by replacing 'Paladin' with the more generic, less 'problematic' Champion or the like, and making it clearer that it's their own conviction, rightness, and Special Snowflakery that gives them their powers?  ;)
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Ghostmaker on June 02, 2021, 01:47:13 PM
On a tangential note, anyone else think 6E will follow PF2E's lead by replacing 'Paladin' with the more generic, less 'problematic' Champion or the like, and making it clearer that it's their own conviction, rightness, and Special Snowflakery that gives them their powers?  ;)
The existence of the blackguard makes it clear that paladins don't have a lock on 'divinely-empowered warrior'. Hell, look at BECMI's Avenger option.

PF2 was a move out from under D&D's shadow. Whether it was a good idea or not, well, we'll just have to see.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Chris24601 on June 02, 2021, 01:55:01 PM


Basically, the existence of non-humans/“monster” races in significant numbers in a setting has zero to do with whether there’s objective good and evil in the setting.

Sure, people could still probably get away with Gonzo-style settings where weirdo races for players and societies alike are commonplace. Though I imagine the Woke Grifters would let out a litany of other things that are offensive about actual Gonzo rather than their own Diversity Hipsterism Woke Settings.

But the point is that getting rid of alignment is part of getting rid of the style of play that is meant to invoke Myth. Because of an enmity to the moral values of western myth.

It's an attempt to make sure that it's as hard as possible for games with 5e to ever be run that way.
I'd be more inclined to believe the older games were meant to evoke myth and not be off-brand Lord of the Rings simulators if "Demigod" and "God" were default PC races. "Sapient Animal" and "Nature Spirits" would also be a solid addition if you were trying to actually evoke myth.

Halflings, good-aligned elves (vs. the monster manual entries they'd be if you were trying to actually trying to evoke actual mythology) and dwarves that are taller than a man's knees just evoke someone whose only exposure to actual myth and legend is second hand by way of Tolkien or D&D.

I'd wager in actual myths and legends you'd find more characters with demonic ancestry (ex. Nephilim, Merlin and various cambions), beastmen (Enkidu, Chiron) or even part vampires (Baltic folklore where Dhampirs were reputed to be monster hunters with special powers) as protagonists (or protagonist adjacent) far more often than you'll ever find an elf or dwarf protagonist and halflings are literally just renamed hobbits with no connection to any mythology beyond emulating Tolkien.

So, no, I don't see allowing players to run part-celestials, part-demons, part-vampires, beastmen of various varieties, nature spirits or talking animals as particularly deleterious to being able to evoke actual mythology.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Steven Mitchell on June 02, 2021, 02:10:59 PM
Well there is myth and then there is myth.  Are we talking a solid appreciation for a mythic tradition with some deep dive into particulars?  Or are we talking watered-down Joseph Campbell as learned second-hand via a sophomoric (in both meanings of the word) survey in a lit class?  Because the latter is what I usually get from this crowd--a mile wide and 1 millimeter deep.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: HappyDaze on June 02, 2021, 02:22:44 PM
On a tangential note, anyone else think 6E will follow PF2E's lead by replacing 'Paladin' with the more generic, less 'problematic' Champion or the like, and making it clearer that it's their own conviction, rightness, and Special Snowflakery that gives them their powers?  ;)
Paladin at least doesn't have the gender-defining foulness of Sorcerer.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on June 02, 2021, 02:40:17 PM
On a tangential note, anyone else think 6E will follow PF2E's lead by replacing 'Paladin' with the more generic, less 'problematic' Champion or the like, and making it clearer that it's their own conviction, rightness, and Special Snowflakery that gives them their powers?  ;)
What about renaming the barbarian class because it derives from an ancient Roman slur for foreigners (https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/446874/a-non-racist-alternative-to-barbarian)?

But seriously, the barbarian class' name doesn't make sense. What's barbaric about them? They're Norse berserkers and that's it. 5e even removes the illiteracy restriction from past editions (which didn't make much sense anyway since the Norse invented runes).

For that matter, the druid's name is nonsensical since they aren't Celtic and are not particularly associated with trees (druid literally means "of the tree"). Why not call them, idk, animists or shamans or something? You can still keep the name "druid" specifically for tree-worshipers.

I'd be more inclined to believe the older games were meant to evoke myth and not be off-brand Lord of the Rings simulators if "Demigod" and "God" were default PC races. "Sapient Animal" and "Nature Spirits" would also be a solid addition if you were trying to actually evoke myth.
It depends on which mythology you're trying to evoke. The presentation varies wildly.

D&D isn't particularly very evocative of mythology. It has various monsters and stuff taken from mythology, but it doesn't try to evoke the same moods, themes, etc from that mythology. Nor does it try to do an original and creative take on the subject.

Take the Minotaur, for example. It's based on the Greek Minotaur, but aside from superficial similarities it has nothing in common with the myth's themes (divine punishment, revenge, etc) or tries to do a particularly creative original take. The 5e Minotaurs are cultists of Baphomet who use black magic to turn themselves into monsters and they like axes and mazes for no apparent reason.

Admittedly, the original myth of the Minotaur doesn't give a lot of material to work with. Minos pisses off Poseidon, Poseidon makes his wife birth a half-bull monster, Minos keeps the monster imprisoned in a labyrinth, when Minos' son dies in Athens Minos demands a tithe of sacrifices to the Minotaur, Theseus kills the Minotaur and steals Minos' daughter, and in some variations Minos has a one-sided infatuation with Theseus because Greek heroes and villains were like that.

It was only after I read Courtney Campbell's blog, the Mazes & Minotaurs RPG, Masters & Minions: Maze of the Minotaur, etc that I started coming up with interesting ideas inspired by the myth, what little we know of Minoan culture, etc. Campbell's blog post on minotaur ecology (https://web.archive.org/web/20200112231241/http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.com/2013/06/on-ecology-of-minotaur.html) had tons of ideas for settings. Mazes & Minotaurs had tons of ideas for minotaur variants like two heads, breathing fire, psychic powers, grotesque mutations, etc. Masters & Minions turned minotaurs into weird bee-like things...

Anyway, the idea I came up with was to treat Minotaurism as a curse linked to a fantasy counterpart culture of the Minoans. The curse has two effects, which may come gradually: the victim becomes trapped in their own personal labyrinth demiplane linked to their personality, and they turn into hybrid bull monsters. Otherwise the minotaurs are wildly variable and the GM can customize however they like.

A PC minotaur trying to break the curse before they lose themselves forever is a valid option. As is someone who goes around trying to rescue the minotaurs from the curse and restore lost Crete.

Well there is myth and then there is myth.  Are we talking a solid appreciation for a mythic tradition with some deep dive into particulars?  Or are we talking watered-down Joseph Campbell as learned second-hand via a sophomoric (in both meanings of the word) survey in a lit class?  Because the latter is what I usually get from this crowd--a mile wide and 1 millimeter deep.
Agreed.

However, many myths don't provide a lot material to work with. Unless you want a one-note monster without much else to it (which, quite frankly, a number of mythological monsters ultimately are), you have to invent new material at some point. That material can be inspired by the myth, or the writer can make up random shit. I personally prefer to use an analysis of the myth as a starting point.

But, you know, that sort of thing is difficult for a lot of people. It's much easier to just mindlessly iterate on the self-referential D&D slop.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Chris24601 on June 02, 2021, 03:08:22 PM
Well there is myth and then there is myth.  Are we talking a solid appreciation for a mythic tradition with some deep dive into particulars?  Or are we talking watered-down Joseph Campbell as learned second-hand via a sophomoric (in both meanings of the word) survey in a lit class?  Because the latter is what I usually get from this crowd--a mile wide and 1 millimeter deep.
Well, in my own case, I consider my game’s Player and GM sections on heroic virtues (and the recommendation that your PC should embody at least one and the ways a GM can reinforce, test and reward heroic virtues) and one called “greater than the sum of their parts” (about building your adventuring party around belonging to a family, tribe, noble house, religious order or rebel alliance instead of random misfits) to be far more important to creating characters than my race or class sections even though neither of those have any mechanics to them.

Basically, I don’t think requiring PCs to be random humans, elves and dwarves makes them a better vehicle for exploring myth and western values than a family of outcast Malfeans whose players have decided that their motivations are the virtues of temperance, diligence and loyalty (to each other and their faith) would be.

A halfling is not more virtuous and a better exemplar of western cultures than a centaur simply by dint of being a halfling. It’s how the setting values virtues that matters.

In my case, the GM section on virtues covers how to use the virtues of compassion, courage, diligence, justice, loyalty, hope, temperance and wisdom as draws for adventure hooks, as visible examples PCs can come across in the world, as tests of character and as rewards for staying true to a virtue despite it being tested.

The setting also reinforces the notion of supernatural evils by making Diabolismc Necromancy and all the supernatural creatures associated with them unavailable to PCs by default (GMs may do as they wish if their own setting has different moral rules) and the GM section discussing the ways these paths darken and enslave the will to entities that desire only the ruin of Creation (and have no free will in their destructive natures at all which is why they are unsuited to being PCs).

Those matter a hell of a lot more than whether or not someone is playing a lizardman or an elf.

Also note that I say all of the above this as someone who pretty much exclusively plays humans (and the occasional half-elf) regardless of setting. But I make the distinction between what I prefer and enjoy and what options aren’t detrimental to the Superversive themes of my setting. Somebody wanting to play a centaur or a talking giant eagle (both of which have come up in playtest) isn’t anything I would play, but neither is it something that undermines heroic virtues and PCs as champions who protect the common folk from the many dangers of the world.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: jhkim on June 02, 2021, 03:17:29 PM
But the point is that getting rid of alignment is part of getting rid of the style of play that is meant to invoke Myth. Because of an enmity to the moral values of western myth.

It's an attempt to make sure that it's as hard as possible for games with 5e to ever be run that way.

I'd be more inclined to believe the older games were meant to evoke myth and not be off-brand Lord of the Rings simulators if "Demigod" and "God" were default PC races. "Sapient Animal" and "Nature Spirits" would also be a solid addition if you were trying to actually evoke myth.

I agree with Chris24601 here. But strictly speaking, Pundit's claim is that rather than races, it is lacking *alignment* is part of getting rid of evoking Myth.

However, it's notably that Pundit has his own mythic game - Lords of Olympus - that doesn't have any parallel to alignment. Each character just has a "personality" section, and no systemic categories of their morality or such. Other myth-inspired games like Runequest, Ars Magica, and others don't use alignment as well.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: RPGPundit on June 02, 2021, 04:00:35 PM
Ok so now the problem is that if we don't have alignment people will want to play Orcs and shit like that?

People wanted to play Orcs and shit like that way back in 2nd edition.  Drizzt Do'urden was created when 1st edition was still a going concern.

People have always wanted to be special snowflakes.

This has nothing to do with alignment.  It's about the idea that the fans are always right.

No,  it's not really about that at all. I don't know where you got that from.

It's about the fact that the settings will be such where there's no objective good or evil. Its an encouragement of all monsters basically acting like 21st century people.

So it's not "people will want to play a tiefling", but rather "if they play a tiefling no one will fear or hate them or care about how they behave, and the local bakery is run by a wacky beholder and people cheer every time friendly kobolds come to frolic in their fields; and yes sure followers of that one religion have done more terrorist attacks than any other major religion combined but we're not allowed to judge or even say that, because the real enemy is INTOLERANCE".
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: RPGPundit on June 02, 2021, 04:01:49 PM
On a tangential note, anyone else think 6E will follow PF2E's lead by replacing 'Paladin' with the more generic, less 'problematic' Champion or the like, and making it clearer that it's their own conviction, rightness, and Special Snowflakery that gives them their powers?  ;)

Given that 5e already makes it explicit that both Paladins AND CLERICS can be Atheists, it's a distinct possibility. If it doesn't happen its just because of pressure to keep the legacy name, as much as the SJWs hate the very idea of a paladin of the faith.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: oggsmash on June 02, 2021, 04:06:56 PM
On a tangential note, anyone else think 6E will follow PF2E's lead by replacing 'Paladin' with the more generic, less 'problematic' Champion or the like, and making it clearer that it's their own conviction, rightness, and Special Snowflakery that gives them their powers?  ;)

Given that 5e already makes it explicit that both Paladins AND CLERICS can be Atheists, it's a distinct possibility. If it doesn't happen its just because of pressure to keep the legacy name, as much as the SJWs hate the very idea of a paladin of the faith.

   This is just dumb.    If you want an atheist to do magic....make a wizard.   The framework of a paladin is obviously built on ideas of warriors in literature empowered by god (I can think of a couple of Christian and Muslim warriors inspiring this idea)as much as martial skill and training.  I could live with an evil paladin (call it blackguard or what not), but the ideas around the paladin are pretty black and white.
   Which I guess it is important to remember rule 0, you get to have fun and disregard screwed up "new Canon" or RAW if you want to.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: RPGPundit on June 02, 2021, 04:08:44 PM


So, no, I don't see allowing players to run part-celestials, part-demons, part-vampires, beastmen of various varieties, nature spirits or talking animals as particularly deleterious to being able to evoke actual mythology.

So you're being deliberately obtuse, right?

Because the PRODUCT of this change has NOT been to make D&D sessions more Mythlike. It has been to make them more like a Tumblr fanart page.
It has NOT been to make D&D settings more like accurate depictions of myth. It has been to force all acceptable settings regardless of their nature to look like the culture of Seattle or Portland in 2021.
It has not made demi-humans more epic. It's made them as just weird skin-color versions of 21st century hipster humans.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: RPGPundit on June 02, 2021, 04:12:52 PM
On a tangential note, anyone else think 6E will follow PF2E's lead by replacing 'Paladin' with the more generic, less 'problematic' Champion or the like, and making it clearer that it's their own conviction, rightness, and Special Snowflakery that gives them their powers?  ;)
What about renaming the barbarian class because it derives from an ancient Roman slur for foreigners (https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/446874/a-non-racist-alternative-to-barbarian)?

But seriously, the barbarian class' name doesn't make sense. What's barbaric about them? They're Norse berserkers and that's it. 5e even removes the illiteracy restriction from past editions (which didn't make much sense anyway since the Norse invented runes).

For that matter, the druid's name is nonsensical since they aren't Celtic and are not particularly associated with trees (druid literally means "of the tree"). Why not call them, idk, animists or shamans or something? You can still keep the name "druid" specifically for tree-worshipers.

Well, I think the barbarian can be made to represent more than just norse berserkers, but in fact you have a very good point here: if the Barbarian was meant to be a viking, then in fact the Barbarian SHOULD be literate and the Druid should NOT be literate, as the Celts had no written language.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: RPGPundit on June 02, 2021, 04:13:54 PM
But the point is that getting rid of alignment is part of getting rid of the style of play that is meant to invoke Myth. Because of an enmity to the moral values of western myth.

It's an attempt to make sure that it's as hard as possible for games with 5e to ever be run that way.

I'd be more inclined to believe the older games were meant to evoke myth and not be off-brand Lord of the Rings simulators if "Demigod" and "God" were default PC races. "Sapient Animal" and "Nature Spirits" would also be a solid addition if you were trying to actually evoke myth.

I agree with Chris24601 here. But strictly speaking, Pundit's claim is that rather than races, it is lacking *alignment* is part of getting rid of evoking Myth.

However, it's notably that Pundit has his own mythic game - Lords of Olympus - that doesn't have any parallel to alignment. Each character just has a "personality" section, and no systemic categories of their morality or such. Other myth-inspired games like Runequest, Ars Magica, and others don't use alignment as well.


In Lords of Olympus case, you're playing gods. Gods don't have to follow any moral code, BECAUSE THEY'RE GODS.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: RPGPundit on June 02, 2021, 04:15:19 PM


   This is just dumb.    If you want an atheist to do magic....make a wizard.   The framework of a paladin is obviously built on ideas of warriors in literature empowered by god (I can think of a couple of Christian and Muslim warriors inspiring this idea)as much as martial skill and training.  I could live with an evil paladin (call it blackguard or what not), but the ideas around the paladin are pretty black and white.
   Which I guess it is important to remember rule 0, you get to have fun and disregard screwed up "new Canon" or RAW if you want to.

Historically and speaking from the point of view of occultism, no wizards are atheists either, even if they're often of an unorthodox religion.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: oggsmash on June 02, 2021, 04:19:03 PM


   This is just dumb.    If you want an atheist to do magic....make a wizard.   The framework of a paladin is obviously built on ideas of warriors in literature empowered by god (I can think of a couple of Christian and Muslim warriors inspiring this idea)as much as martial skill and training.  I could live with an evil paladin (call it blackguard or what not), but the ideas around the paladin are pretty black and white.
   Which I guess it is important to remember rule 0, you get to have fun and disregard screwed up "new Canon" or RAW if you want to.

Historically and speaking from the point of view of occultism, no wizards are atheists either, even if they're often of an unorthodox religion.

   True, but at least you have a niche that is right there for D&D if you want a spell caster who is not beholden to some god.  Making an atheist Cleric, if it were in my campaign would be a situation involving masterful role playing, because the Cleric will have ZERO powers or spells, and is likely to look like an asshole with his mace and Fedora attempting to compel others to follow his ways.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Pat on June 02, 2021, 04:33:51 PM
On a tangential note, anyone else think 6E will follow PF2E's lead by replacing 'Paladin' with the more generic, less 'problematic' Champion or the like, and making it clearer that it's their own conviction, rightness, and Special Snowflakery that gives them their powers?  ;)
The existence of the blackguard makes it clear that paladins don't have a lock on 'divinely-empowered warrior'. Hell, look at BECMI's Avenger option.

PF2 was a move out from under D&D's shadow. Whether it was a good idea or not, well, we'll just have to see.
There was also "A plethora of paladins in Dragon #106, with 7 new holy warriors for 1e. They're intended flesh out the alignments between the paladin and the anti-paladin, except they have far more unfortunate names:

Myrikhan
Garath
Lyan
Paramander
Fantra
Illrigger
Arrikhan
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Wrath of God on June 02, 2021, 04:44:15 PM
Quote
But the point is that getting rid of alignment is part of getting rid of the style of play that is meant to invoke Myth. Because of an enmity to the moral values of western myth.

The alignment in D&D is loose hodgepodge of few more fantasy than mythical concepts (sans maybe Heaven vs Hell concept, but even that is sort of diminished by Blood War and things like that), and it fits western culture about as well as rhinoceros hoves fits Greta Garbo's gloves.

Quote
On a tangential note, anyone else think 6E will follow PF2E's lead by replacing 'Paladin' with the more generic, less 'problematic' Champion or the like, and making it clearer that it's their own conviction, rightness, and Special Snowflakery that gives them their powers?  ;)

As long as Good and Evil, Law and Chaos are equal cosmological forces, perpetually in clash but also in balance, all four necessary for reality to continue... as long I'm all for - other forces than LG having their chosen champions as well.

Quote
5e even removes the illiteracy restriction from past editions (which didn't make much sense anyway since the Norse invented runes).

Off-topic - well if I remember correctly Norse probably gained concept of alphabet from Southerners - Etruscans are main suspects - and Etruscans just like all Western Eurasia and North Africa used alphabet derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs and then spread in more modern form by Phoenicians if I had not mistaken something.

Now I'd also say while all rage powers points to berserker I think the most vital inspiration here is Conan, who was Welsh ;)

Quote
For that matter, the druid's name is nonsensical since they aren't Celtic and are not particularly associated with trees (druid literally means "of the tree"). Why not call them, idk, animists or shamans or something? You can still keep the name "druid" specifically for tree-worshipers.

Druids were one of priestly professions of Brythonic and Goedelic pagan religions. They were not tree-worshippers (though name means "tree-knower" in Proto-Celtic) per se (though there were sacred trees in Celtic religion - but just like holy oaks of Donnar or Perkun it was not tree for sake of tree.

Calling them animistist and shamans would also be weird - as D&D druids do not commune with spirit, do not practice trances (shaman btw is Ewenki terms so it can also be seen as culture-specific).

Quote
Gods don't have to follow any moral code, BECAUSE THEY'RE GODS.

That's not that obvious, and especially in mainstream D&D settings were alignments are more primordial cosmic powers than Gods, I'm not sure it would work.
If NG God shift to NE - well he gonna be booted to NE plane, probably by plane itself authomatically.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: jhkim on June 02, 2021, 05:01:26 PM
   This is just dumb.    If you want an atheist to do magic....make a wizard.   The framework of a paladin is obviously built on ideas of warriors in literature empowered by god (I can think of a couple of Christian and Muslim warriors inspiring this idea)as much as martial skill and training.  I could live with an evil paladin (call it blackguard or what not), but the ideas around the paladin are pretty black and white.
   Which I guess it is important to remember rule 0, you get to have fun and disregard screwed up "new Canon" or RAW if you want to.

The term "paladin" derives from the root of "palace" and came from the peers of Charlemagne's court. Obviously, Charlemagne's paladins were all Christian, but they weren't particularly religious. Maugris aka Malagigi was an enchanter who was a paladin. The English definition I read is:

Quote
1: a trusted military leader (as for a medieval prince)
2: a leading champion of a cause
Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/paladin
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Chris24601 on June 02, 2021, 05:11:54 PM
But the point is that getting rid of alignment is part of getting rid of the style of play that is meant to invoke Myth. Because of an enmity to the moral values of western myth.

It's an attempt to make sure that it's as hard as possible for games with 5e to ever be run that way.

I'd be more inclined to believe the older games were meant to evoke myth and not be off-brand Lord of the Rings simulators if "Demigod" and "God" were default PC races. "Sapient Animal" and "Nature Spirits" would also be a solid addition if you were trying to actually evoke myth.

I agree with Chris24601 here. But strictly speaking, Pundit's claim is that rather than races, it is lacking *alignment* is part of getting rid of evoking Myth.
Well, that’s a silly argument. A morally black-and-white setting doesn’t require alignments, just a clear statement of what actions are black and which are white.

If you’ve already established that warbands of orcs are razing villages and taking the survivors as slaves does adding “Alignment: usually Chaotic Evil” to their statblock add anything at all to the campaign?

Beowulf, The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Willow, Star Wars, etc. all managed to establish Black and White morality without the need to slap alignment stats on things.

What makes the WotC stuff toxic to western values isn’t the lack of alignment entries, it’s excusing the evil actions and choices of various sapient beings as justified “because white/human supremacy.”
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on June 02, 2021, 05:18:40 PM
At this point I’m probably better off using Spheres of Power/Might to create characters. I don’t need classes to represent arbitrarily chosen “archetypes.” I like having the option to invent my own.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: jhkim on June 02, 2021, 05:20:52 PM
But strictly speaking, Pundit's claim is that rather than races, it is lacking *alignment* is part of getting rid of evoking Myth.

However, it's notably that Pundit has his own mythic game - Lords of Olympus - that doesn't have any parallel to alignment. Each character just has a "personality" section, and no systemic categories of their morality or such. Other myth-inspired games like Runequest, Ars Magica, and others don't use alignment as well.

In Lords of Olympus case, you're playing gods. Gods don't have to follow any moral code, BECAUSE THEY'RE GODS.

Yeah, it's not like there are good gods versus evil gods or anything like that in myth.  ::)

In myth, humans also have free will - and will vary in the moral codes they follow, just like Greek gods. It's possible to classify heroes into good heroes and evil heroes, but it's just as possible to group gods into good gods and evil gods.

As far as I have seen, no one who plays non-alignment games like RuneQuest, Ars Magica, and others ever says "This isn't mythic because it doesn't have alignment."
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: HappyDaze on June 02, 2021, 05:23:59 PM
So it's not "people will want to play a tiefling", but rather "if they play a tiefling no one will fear or hate them or care about how they behave, and the local bakery is run by a wacky beholder and people cheer every time friendly kobolds come to frolic in their fields; and yes sure followers of that one religion have done more terrorist attacks than any other major religion combined but we're not allowed to judge or even say that, because the real enemy is INTOLERANCE".
Alignment doesn't have as much to do with race relations and religions as you're suggesting. There are places in D&D settings where elves are feared or hated by humans, and that's with a CG base. Likewise elves and dwarfs have longstanding bad relations in D&D, and they are both good. The religion of Pholtus (Greyhawk) was a LN religion, but most outside of it were quick to denounce its intolerance and harsh measures.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Shasarak on June 02, 2021, 05:46:06 PM
   This is just dumb.    If you want an atheist to do magic....make a wizard.   The framework of a paladin is obviously built on ideas of warriors in literature empowered by god (I can think of a couple of Christian and Muslim warriors inspiring this idea)as much as martial skill and training.  I could live with an evil paladin (call it blackguard or what not), but the ideas around the paladin are pretty black and white.
   Which I guess it is important to remember rule 0, you get to have fun and disregard screwed up "new Canon" or RAW if you want to.

The term "paladin" derives from the root of "palace" and came from the peers of Charlemagne's court. Obviously, Charlemagne's paladins were all Christian, but they weren't particularly religious. Maugris aka Malagigi was an enchanter who was a paladin. The English definition I read is:

Quote
1: a trusted military leader (as for a medieval prince)
2: a leading champion of a cause
Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/paladin

As Charlemagne was responsible for spreading Christianity through Europe, "weren't particularly religious" seems like a stretch.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Chris24601 on June 02, 2021, 05:46:24 PM


So, no, I don't see allowing players to run part-celestials, part-demons, part-vampires, beastmen of various varieties, nature spirits or talking animals as particularly deleterious to being able to evoke actual mythology.

So you're being deliberately obtuse, right?

Because the PRODUCT of this change has NOT been to make D&D sessions more Mythlike. It has been to make them more like a Tumblr fanart page.
It has NOT been to make D&D settings more like accurate depictions of myth. It has been to force all acceptable settings regardless of their nature to look like the culture of Seattle or Portland in 2021.
It has not made demi-humans more epic. It's made them as just weird skin-color versions of 21st century hipster humans.
No, I’m not being obtuse. I just refuse to conflate “nonhuman races are allowed as player options”, “alignment statblocks make things more mythical”, and “Woke values are infecting the presentation of values in D&D.”

Because they’re NOT actually the same issue at all.

If characters must have alignments to be mythic, then I guess WEG Star Wars, Rolemaster and a host of other games  all utterly fail at presenting mythical situations.

Which is clearly incorrect.

Ergo, the statement “removing alignment makes things less mythical” is false.

Likewise, If allowing Protagonists to be things other than humans, elves, dwarves or hobbits makes them less mythic, then you need to explain why Gilgamesh (Enkidu was a beastman), various Greek/Norse/Egyptian myths (Chiron is a centaur, lots of main characters are demigods or even Gods), all things Arthur related (Merlin was a cambion) plus more modern stories like John Carter of Mars or Narnia with its sapient animals or The Dark Crystal (movie not Netflix abomination) where no humans exist at all do not qualify as mythic fantasy.

Discworld with its troll and werewolf and golem and orangutan protagonists is clearly a Wokist plot to rob the fantasy genre of its mythical elements.

Hell, even Tolkien deviates from folklore with his benevolent elves and dwarves taller than a man’s knees and devoid of magic.

Except none of those things is Woke garbage so the statement that allowing these things makes D&D Woke garbage is also false.

The only thing that makes D&D Woke garbage in and of itself are the story and plot elements that reinforce Wole ideology; saying evil actions are justified because “racism/white/human supremacy”, of treating moral failings as virtues and what thr West traditionally comsiders virtues to be sins.

Your conflating “things I don’t like” with “woke” just muddies the waters and makes it easier for them to squirm away.

The issue isn’t removing the alignment block... if you don’t need an alignment block for Darth Vader and the Stormtroopers then you don’t need one for Strahd and his minions either. The issue is the Woke redefining the concept of evil.

The issue isn’t non-Tolkien races... plenty of myths and legends and fantasy stories feature entirely different species... the issue is that the Woke excuse and justify the evil actions of various creatures because [insert woke victim status here].
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: jhkim on June 02, 2021, 07:25:56 PM
The term "paladin" derives from the root of "palace" and came from the peers of Charlemagne's court. Obviously, Charlemagne's paladins were all Christian, but they weren't particularly religious. Maugris aka Malagigi was an enchanter who was a paladin. The English definition I read is:

Quote
1: a trusted military leader (as for a medieval prince)
2: a leading champion of a cause
Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/paladin

As Charlemagne was responsible for spreading Christianity through Europe, "weren't particularly religious" seems like a stretch.

I'm not talking about their personal conviction. There's a difference between:

(1) a knight who is personally committed to Christian values and devotion to chivalry
(2) someone who is chosen by God and has holy powers, like a saint or holy man

I haven't read that much of the stories, but in what I've read, Charlemagne's paladins are regarded as #1. As I noted from the dictionary definition, the term "paladin" has come to mean knight for a cause rather than a more religious Christian meaning like "saint".
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on June 02, 2021, 07:29:58 PM
But strictly speaking, Pundit's claim is that rather than races, it is lacking *alignment* is part of getting rid of evoking Myth.

However, it's notably that Pundit has his own mythic game - Lords of Olympus - that doesn't have any parallel to alignment. Each character just has a "personality" section, and no systemic categories of their morality or such. Other myth-inspired games like Runequest, Ars Magica, and others don't use alignment as well.

In Lords of Olympus case, you're playing gods. Gods don't have to follow any moral code, BECAUSE THEY'RE GODS.

Yeah, it's not like there are good gods versus evil gods or anything like that in myth.  ::)

In myth, humans also have free will - and will vary in the moral codes they follow, just like Greek gods. It's possible to classify heroes into good heroes and evil heroes, but it's just as possible to group gods into good gods and evil gods.

As far as I have seen, no one who plays non-alignment games like RuneQuest, Ars Magica, and others ever says "This isn't mythic because it doesn't have alignment."
Heroes by definition are the good guys. Flawed, perhaps, but they’re the opposite of villains.

Evil gods are a rhetorical tool rather than objects of worship. Competing religions would accuse each of blood libel and worshiping demons. Cultures that did engage in human sacrifice devised elaborate justifications for doing so, a far cry from being knowingly and happily evil.

Whether gods can even be evil depends on how you define “god.” I know of no religion that has evil gods, at least not ones distinct from demons (hence “demonization”). Nobody ever deliberately worshiped demons; at best they exploited the flaws of demons for their own benefit.

Also, morals aren’t consistent across civilizations, so the gods of ancient religions come across as bloodthirsty psychopaths now.

Long story short: D&D is not founded on any serious study of theology or comparative religion.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Ghostmaker on June 02, 2021, 07:55:45 PM
Ok so now the problem is that if we don't have alignment people will want to play Orcs and shit like that?

People wanted to play Orcs and shit like that way back in 2nd edition.  Drizzt Do'urden was created when 1st edition was still a going concern.

People have always wanted to be special snowflakes.

This has nothing to do with alignment.  It's about the idea that the fans are always right.

No,  it's not really about that at all. I don't know where you got that from.

It's about the fact that the settings will be such where there's no objective good or evil. Its an encouragement of all monsters basically acting like 21st century people.

So it's not "people will want to play a tiefling", but rather "if they play a tiefling no one will fear or hate them or care about how they behave, and the local bakery is run by a wacky beholder and people cheer every time friendly kobolds come to frolic in their fields; and yes sure followers of that one religion have done more terrorist attacks than any other major religion combined but we're not allowed to judge or even say that, because the real enemy is INTOLERANCE".
The irony is you could do that without taking a giant shit all over the game.

Instead of a beholder, have a spectator run the bakery. He was summoned by accident and can't leave for another 88 years, so fuck it, he's a mainstay now.

Friendly kobolds? Well, maybe not friendly, but less obnoxious ones who are the result of a multi-year breeding program by a silver dragon to try and work out their issues. They're lawful neutral and very standoffish, but the town trades with them regularly.

This is all worldbuilding but the point for the Tumblrinas isn't to worldbuild; it's to cripple the setting so that nobody wants to play.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Shasarak on June 02, 2021, 08:51:13 PM
The term "paladin" derives from the root of "palace" and came from the peers of Charlemagne's court. Obviously, Charlemagne's paladins were all Christian, but they weren't particularly religious. Maugris aka Malagigi was an enchanter who was a paladin. The English definition I read is:

Quote
1: a trusted military leader (as for a medieval prince)
2: a leading champion of a cause
Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/paladin

As Charlemagne was responsible for spreading Christianity through Europe, "weren't particularly religious" seems like a stretch.

I'm not talking about their personal conviction. There's a difference between:

(1) a knight who is personally committed to Christian values and devotion to chivalry
(2) someone who is chosen by God and has holy powers, like a saint or holy man

I haven't read that much of the stories, but in what I've read, Charlemagne's paladins are regarded as #1. As I noted from the dictionary definition, the term "paladin" has come to mean knight for a cause rather than a more religious Christian meaning like "saint".

Are you trying to suggest that Charlemagne's real life paladins are not RPG accurate?
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Ratman_tf on June 02, 2021, 09:04:27 PM


So, no, I don't see allowing players to run part-celestials, part-demons, part-vampires, beastmen of various varieties, nature spirits or talking animals as particularly deleterious to being able to evoke actual mythology.

So you're being deliberately obtuse, right?

Because the PRODUCT of this change has NOT been to make D&D sessions more Mythlike. It has been to make them more like a Tumblr fanart page.
It has NOT been to make D&D settings more like accurate depictions of myth. It has been to force all acceptable settings regardless of their nature to look like the culture of Seattle or Portland in 2021.
It has not made demi-humans more epic. It's made them as just weird skin-color versions of 21st century hipster humans.
No, I’m not being obtuse. I just refuse to conflate “nonhuman races are allowed as player options”, “alignment statblocks make things more mythical”, and “Woke values are infecting the presentation of values in D&D.”

Because they’re NOT actually the same issue at all.

If characters must have alignments to be mythic, then I guess WEG Star Wars, Rolemaster and a host of other games  all utterly fail at presenting mythical situations.


WEG Star Wars leaned pretty heavily into Dark Side (Evil) and Light Side (Good) mechanics. Even for non-Force users.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: jhkim on June 02, 2021, 09:22:15 PM
I'm not talking about their personal conviction. There's a difference between:

(1) a knight who is personally committed to Christian values and devotion to chivalry
(2) someone who is chosen by God and has holy powers, like a saint or holy man

I haven't read that much of the stories, but in what I've read, Charlemagne's paladins are regarded as #1. As I noted from the dictionary definition, the term "paladin" has come to mean knight for a cause rather than a more religious Christian meaning like "saint".

Are you trying to suggest that Charlemagne's real life paladins are not RPG accurate?

Heh. Nice!

Obviously French and Italian myth got it wrong. ;)
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Omega on June 03, 2021, 11:00:25 AM
All of this of course ignores the little fact that OD&D allowed for playing monsters right out of the box and AD&D allowed for it but with some trepadition as to its impact on balance.

As noted in an older thread. 5e has so far actually introduced surprisingly few new races into the official books. The Tome of Foes book allowed a batch as optional and is the rallying point the woke cult are using as leverage. Falls flat a bit as the core rules allready suggested shuffling bonuses as an option for making new races and players have been doing it for decades.

Of course the cult would have everyone believe this is a new concept.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Torque2100 on June 03, 2021, 04:01:01 PM
As I stated previously, I really am not seeing the tentacles of some insidious Post-Modernist Communist revolution in the push to remove Alignment.  It's finally addressing a problem that gamers have been complaining about for 40 years. If you took a poll of people's most hated rules in DnD, I think Alignment would easily be number one with Vancian Casting coming in a close second.

Alignment has always been problematic (in the Pre-Woke sense) because it tries to formalize and make objective things which are by definition subjective:  Good and Evil.  Sure most people can come up with definitions of evil, but those are all full of edge cases.  Is it evil to cause harm?  Okay sure, but sometimes you have to cause lesser harm to prevent greater harm?  Okay well Evil is "causing harm unnecessarily."  Okay, by what measure is harm unnecessary?  Is it wrong to lie?  What if you're lying to protect people?

Human beings are not axiomatic.  What makes an act "Good" or "Evil" is often entirely situational. Furthermore, by attempting to impose objective standards onto something that is by definition subjective, you're denying one of the most fundamental realities of human the experience: everyone is the hero of their own story.  All people, no matter how vile their actions, believed what they were doing was ultimately good.  Rudolf Höss maintained that his actions as Commandant of Auschwitz were justified until the day he went to the gallows.

The two best examples I can think of for the subjectivity of Morality are Slavery and Religious Freedom.   To our modern eyes, Slavery is just about the most Evil thing it's possible to do to another person and the closest thing to a universally recognized evil in the Western World.  You're depriving another human being of their freedom, holding them captive and forcing them to do what you say or else without pay. The idea that someone might be so irreparably in debt that the only option is to sell themselves or a family member into slavery, is to us, pure Evil.   An Ancient Roman wouldn't see it that way.  To them the opposite is true.  To them the idea of modern Bankruptcy is evil.  "You can't do that!  Forcing the Creditor to take a loss?!  Why would anyone ever pay their debts then, society will break down because no one pays what the owe!"

On the opposite end of the spectrum is something that's pretty much seen as a universal Good by most modern people: Religious Liberty and Tolerance.  This seems obvious to us.  Golden rule: treat others as you would like to be treated yourself.  You wouldn't want a religion you don't want forced on you at the point of a spear, so it's wrong to do it to other people. However, to the eyes of a Medieval person, the idea of religious tolerance would be utterly horrifying. 

"What are you doing?  You can't just let these Pagans and Heathens kneel down to worship false idols!  Don't you realize you're condemning them to eternal torment in Hell?!?!"

I disagree with Pundit that having an Alignment system is vitally necessary for Fantasy in order to have the cosmic struggle of Good vs Evil or Order vs Chaos.  Pundit is on the right track by returning to the three-Alignment system or Order-Neutral-Chaos from Basic DnD.  That version has fewer inherent contradictions and really does feel more like where your character stands in the cosmic struggle.  Especially, and this is going to make him bristle I think, but the three-alignment system has some refreshingly Grey morality.  Order is not necessarily good and Chaos is not necessarily evil.

However, it's still not a great system.  It's been 50 years since DnD Came out. We have had numerous examples of how to handle cosmic struggle manifesting in a personal way far better than Alignment. I would point as an example to the Corruption system in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.  As a setting, the struggle between Order and Chaos is hugely important in  Warhammer, so characters will often be in conflict with it.   What I do like about Warhammer's Corruption system is that simply being in contact with places, creatures, people or objects tainted by Chaos, some of that Chaos can rub off on you.  It makes Chaos way more frightening.  It really does feel like your character is caught up in a cosmic struggle greater than themselves.

I also disagree that Fantasy always must have absolute morality.  I would argue that Robert E Howard and Fritz Leiber were far more influential to Fantasy Gaming than Tolkien was and their work features characters who are ne'er do wells at best.  Grey morality in the Hyborean Age or Nehwon is the rule, not the exception.

If DnD eliminates Alignment altogether I think that would be a positive step.  I don't think this will happen. WotC seem to be happily cribbing from the OSR so a return to the Basic DnD  3 alignment system is most likely for any 5.5e that WotC may release in the near future.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on June 03, 2021, 05:43:44 PM
All of this of course ignores the little fact that OD&D allowed for playing monsters right out of the box and AD&D allowed for it but with some trepadition as to its impact on balance.

As noted in an older thread. 5e has so far actually introduced surprisingly few new races into the official books. The Tome of Foes book allowed a batch as optional and is the rallying point the woke cult are using as leverage. Falls flat a bit as the core rules allready suggested shuffling bonuses as an option for making new races and players have been doing it for decades.

Of course the cult would have everyone believe this is a new concept.

Technically it isn't the first time Ravenloft has allowed playing monsters (one of the later Ravenloft adventures contained rules for playing undead: you could technically have a party of flesh golems using the rules in the created as well). I think though there is a difference here where there is a kind of gothy element to it, and a very player focused element (where these seem more presented as standard options during character creation for cool factor). My issue with it, is when Ravenloft first came out it wasn't Vampire, and wasn't meant to be run in that way. It isn't an urban fantasy game. This stuff just looks like urban fantasy to me (and there is nothing wrong with urban fantasy I actually love the Dresden files, but so much of the stuff I am seeing in the marketing and on threads, looks like it just goes against stuff that was pretty foundational to Ravenloft's appeal for me).
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on June 03, 2021, 06:06:55 PM
Probably mentioned this before but one key thing about alignment in old ravenloft was you couldn't detect good and evil. That had a pretty big impact on play. It is relatively minor as adjustments go but important.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: HappyDaze on June 03, 2021, 06:32:55 PM
Probably mentioned this before but one key thing about alignment in old ravenloft was you couldn't detect good and evil. That had a pretty big impact on play. It is relatively minor as adjustments go but important.
So the only change with this version is that now the DM can't detect alignment either.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on June 03, 2021, 06:58:17 PM
Probably mentioned this before but one key thing about alignment in old ravenloft was you couldn't detect good and evil. That had a pretty big impact on play. It is relatively minor as adjustments go but important.
So the only change with this version is that now the DM can't detect alignment either.

I don't know what they are doing in terms of alignment in this edition, but removing alignment would have more significant impact, and the GM not knowing alignment would have a significant impact. The GM is playing the dark powers in Ravenloft, and alignment is a consideration when handling powers checks. You could certainly do it without the tool of alignment provided evil still exists in the setting (and maybe it just isn't pinned down mechanically or something). But evil needs to be a real thing, the dark powers need to respond to evil.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: RPGPundit on June 03, 2021, 07:47:03 PM
   This is just dumb.    If you want an atheist to do magic....make a wizard.   The framework of a paladin is obviously built on ideas of warriors in literature empowered by god (I can think of a couple of Christian and Muslim warriors inspiring this idea)as much as martial skill and training.  I could live with an evil paladin (call it blackguard or what not), but the ideas around the paladin are pretty black and white.
   Which I guess it is important to remember rule 0, you get to have fun and disregard screwed up "new Canon" or RAW if you want to.

The term "paladin" derives from the root of "palace" and came from the peers of Charlemagne's court. Obviously, Charlemagne's paladins were all Christian, but they weren't particularly religious. Maugris aka Malagigi was an enchanter who was a paladin. The English definition I read is:

Quote
1: a trusted military leader (as for a medieval prince)
2: a leading champion of a cause
Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/paladin

Maugris was not one of Charlemagne's paladins. He and his brothers were enemies of Charlemagne. Also, Maugris was explicitly Christian if I recall correctly. Or at least in no moment an unbeliever. In spite of having been raised by fairies.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: RPGPundit on June 03, 2021, 07:56:16 PM
But strictly speaking, Pundit's claim is that rather than races, it is lacking *alignment* is part of getting rid of evoking Myth.

However, it's notably that Pundit has his own mythic game - Lords of Olympus - that doesn't have any parallel to alignment. Each character just has a "personality" section, and no systemic categories of their morality or such. Other myth-inspired games like Runequest, Ars Magica, and others don't use alignment as well.

In Lords of Olympus case, you're playing gods. Gods don't have to follow any moral code, BECAUSE THEY'RE GODS.

Yeah, it's not like there are good gods versus evil gods or anything like that in myth.  ::)

In grecoroman myth? No, there aren't. There are gods who are enemies of each other, gods who are more or less cruel, but all the greek/roman gods are some variety of asshole.

In most pagan systems you don't have "good versus evil gods". That's just not a thing. There's "good gods vs monsters", "good gods vs demons", "good gods vs older good gods", etc.

Only religions influenced by Zoroastrianism or Manichaeism tend to think of there being some kind of "cosmic balance" of good and evil gods.


But regardless, humans cannot judge the gods themselves, because the measure of whether a human is good or evil is representative of whether you have the favor or wrath of your god(s).
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: RPGPundit on June 03, 2021, 08:00:44 PM
So it's not "people will want to play a tiefling", but rather "if they play a tiefling no one will fear or hate them or care about how they behave, and the local bakery is run by a wacky beholder and people cheer every time friendly kobolds come to frolic in their fields; and yes sure followers of that one religion have done more terrorist attacks than any other major religion combined but we're not allowed to judge or even say that, because the real enemy is INTOLERANCE".
Alignment doesn't have as much to do with race relations and religions as you're suggesting. There are places in D&D settings where elves are feared or hated by humans, and that's with a CG base. Likewise elves and dwarfs have longstanding bad relations in D&D, and they are both good. The religion of Pholtus (Greyhawk) was a LN religion, but most outside of it were quick to denounce its intolerance and harsh measures.

That's not what I'm suggesting. What I'm suggesting is that most races are too alien from human, and they're supposed to be so, in order that we understand them as archetype and myth. If you have alignment, that helps to define their archetype. If there is no alignment, archetype gets weaker, and soon you have beholders acting like humans, or dragons owning little shops in the city, or stone giants and umberhulks getting gay-married in the plaza.
Then every game world gets turned into 2021 seattle with monsters replacing hipsters.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: RPGPundit on June 03, 2021, 08:07:20 PM


So, no, I don't see allowing players to run part-celestials, part-demons, part-vampires, beastmen of various varieties, nature spirits or talking animals as particularly deleterious to being able to evoke actual mythology.

So you're being deliberately obtuse, right?

Because the PRODUCT of this change has NOT been to make D&D sessions more Mythlike. It has been to make them more like a Tumblr fanart page.
It has NOT been to make D&D settings more like accurate depictions of myth. It has been to force all acceptable settings regardless of their nature to look like the culture of Seattle or Portland in 2021.
It has not made demi-humans more epic. It's made them as just weird skin-color versions of 21st century hipster humans.
No, I’m not being obtuse. I just refuse to conflate “nonhuman races are allowed as player options”, “alignment statblocks make things more mythical”, and “Woke values are infecting the presentation of values in D&D.”

Because they’re NOT actually the same issue at all.

If characters must have alignments to be mythic, then I guess WEG Star Wars, Rolemaster and a host of other games  all utterly fail at presenting mythical situations.

Which is clearly incorrect.

Ergo, the statement “removing alignment makes things less mythical” is false.

Likewise, If allowing Protagonists to be things other than humans, elves, dwarves or hobbits makes them less mythic, then you need to explain why Gilgamesh (Enkidu was a beastman), various Greek/Norse/Egyptian myths (Chiron is a centaur, lots of main characters are demigods or even Gods), all things Arthur related (Merlin was a cambion) plus more modern stories like John Carter of Mars or Narnia with its sapient animals or The Dark Crystal (movie not Netflix abomination) where no humans exist at all do not qualify as mythic fantasy.

Discworld with its troll and werewolf and golem and orangutan protagonists is clearly a Wokist plot to rob the fantasy genre of its mythical elements.

Hell, even Tolkien deviates from folklore with his benevolent elves and dwarves taller than a man’s knees and devoid of magic.

Except none of those things is Woke garbage so the statement that allowing these things makes D&D Woke garbage is also false.

The only thing that makes D&D Woke garbage in and of itself are the story and plot elements that reinforce Wole ideology; saying evil actions are justified because “racism/white/human supremacy”, of treating moral failings as virtues and what thr West traditionally comsiders virtues to be sins.

Your conflating “things I don’t like” with “woke” just muddies the waters and makes it easier for them to squirm away.

The issue isn’t removing the alignment block... if you don’t need an alignment block for Darth Vader and the Stormtroopers then you don’t need one for Strahd and his minions either. The issue is the Woke redefining the concept of evil.

The issue isn’t non-Tolkien races... plenty of myths and legends and fantasy stories feature entirely different species... the issue is that the Woke excuse and justify the evil actions of various creatures because [insert woke victim status here].

No, again, the PART YOU SEEM TO REFUSE TO UNDERSTAND is that when the WotC people say 'we're taking away alignment', they don't mean the literal two letter abbreviations on the statblock, they mean the very IDEA of MORAL ALIGNMENT.

They don't believe there is such a thing as moral alignment. And that is ABSOLUTELY CONNECTED to their goal to make every D&D setting into an OMG-so-random version of Downtown Seattle During Pride 2021.

So I don't give a twopenny fuck at the fact that you get pissed off every time you see "LG" or "CN" on a character sheet, because that's not the issue here. The issue is fighting back against the banalification of our hobby into a propaganda-delivery-system for racial grifter degenerate marxists.
EVERYTHING they're doing has to do with everything else they're doing because they only ever do anything to the game for one reason: To push their Ideological Agenda.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Pat on June 03, 2021, 08:07:46 PM

Maugris was not one of Charlemagne's paladins. He and his brothers were enemies of Charlemagne. Also, Maugris was explicitly Christian if I recall correctly. Or at least in no moment an unbeliever. In spite of having been raised by fairies.
Depends on your source. That's true in the medieval story, The Four Sons of Aymon. But in Boiardo and Ariosto's later works (Orlando Innamorato and Orlando Furioso), Maugris (as Malagigi) was definitely a paladin.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: RPGPundit on June 03, 2021, 08:12:24 PM
The term "paladin" derives from the root of "palace" and came from the peers of Charlemagne's court. Obviously, Charlemagne's paladins were all Christian, but they weren't particularly religious. Maugris aka Malagigi was an enchanter who was a paladin. The English definition I read is:

Quote
1: a trusted military leader (as for a medieval prince)
2: a leading champion of a cause
Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/paladin

As Charlemagne was responsible for spreading Christianity through Europe, "weren't particularly religious" seems like a stretch.

I'm not talking about their personal conviction. There's a difference between:

(1) a knight who is personally committed to Christian values and devotion to chivalry
(2) someone who is chosen by God and has holy powers, like a saint or holy man

I haven't read that much of the stories, but in what I've read, Charlemagne's paladins are regarded as #1. As I noted from the dictionary definition, the term "paladin" has come to mean knight for a cause rather than a more religious Christian meaning like "saint".

The Paladins were holy warriors, fighting the Saracens. They mostly die stopping the Islamization of Europe. There's absolutely no way you can look at Charlemagne's medieval stories without religion being center stage.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: RPGPundit on June 03, 2021, 08:17:03 PM

Maugris was not one of Charlemagne's paladins. He and his brothers were enemies of Charlemagne. Also, Maugris was explicitly Christian if I recall correctly. Or at least in no moment an unbeliever. In spite of having been raised by fairies.
Depends on your source. That's true in the medieval story, The Four Sons of Aymon. But in Boiardo and Ariosto's later works (Orlando Innamorato and Orlando Furioso), Maugris (as Malagigi) was definitely a paladin.

Maybe so. But those are made up. By Italians.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Pat on June 03, 2021, 08:23:44 PM

Maugris was not one of Charlemagne's paladins. He and his brothers were enemies of Charlemagne. Also, Maugris was explicitly Christian if I recall correctly. Or at least in no moment an unbeliever. In spite of having been raised by fairies.
Depends on your source. That's true in the medieval story, The Four Sons of Aymon. But in Boiardo and Ariosto's later works (Orlando Innamorato and Orlando Furioso), Maugris (as Malagigi) was definitely a paladin.

Maybe so. But those are made up. By Italians.
And Lancelot's first appearance in the Matter of Britain was in a story by Chrétien de Troyes, a Frenchman.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: jhkim on June 03, 2021, 08:59:24 PM
The Paladins were holy warriors, fighting the Saracens. They mostly die stopping the Islamization of Europe. There's absolutely no way you can look at Charlemagne's medieval stories without religion being center stage.

In the stories, Charlemagne's paladins are all Christians and motivated by their religion - but they do not all do saintly miracles like laying on hands. The question is, how does one extrapolate this into fantasy worlds that don't have Saracens, Christianity or anything like the same cosmology?

In English, the term "paladin" has come to mean knight or noble warrior for a cause, but not necessarily a religious cause. For example, in "Have Gun, Will Travel", the main character was a gunslinger called Paladin. Likewise, there was a mercenary in comics called Paladin.

If there is a fantasy kingdom being invaded by dwarves, and a knight swears to his king and to his country to fight off the invaders, but isn't devoutly religious - is that character a paladin? What if there is a chaotic knight with no king but great devotion to a trickster god? Is that character a paladin?

I think there's no clear single definition, given limitless ranges of fantasy worlds.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Shasarak on June 03, 2021, 09:23:09 PM
If there is a fantasy kingdom being invaded by dwarves, and a knight swears to his king and to his country to fight off the invaders, but isn't devoutly religious - is that character a paladin?

No

Quote
What if there is a chaotic knight with no king but great devotion to a trickster god? Is that character a paladin?

No

Quote
I think there's no clear single definition, given limitless ranges of fantasy worlds.

It seems like the definition is clear.

The question is why would a trickster god even want to have a heavily armpured fighter as his holy warrior?  It seems antithetical.  Why not a Cleric/Rogue combination?
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Chris24601 on June 03, 2021, 09:59:13 PM
No, again, the PART YOU SEEM TO REFUSE TO UNDERSTAND is that when the WotC people say 'we're taking away alignment', they don't mean the literal two letter abbreviations on the statblock, they mean the very IDEA of MORAL ALIGNMENT.

They don't believe there is such a thing as moral alignment. And that is ABSOLUTELY CONNECTED to their goal to make every D&D setting into an OMG-so-random version of Downtown Seattle During Pride 2021.

So I don't give a twopenny fuck at the fact that you get pissed off every time you see "LG" or "CN" on a character sheet, because that's not the issue here. The issue is fighting back against the banalification of our hobby into a propaganda-delivery-system for racial grifter degenerate marxists.
EVERYTHING they're doing has to do with everything else they're doing because they only ever do anything to the game for one reason: To push their Ideological Agenda.
No, what you fail to see is that I agree the Woke attitude is a problem... to quote myself...

The only thing that makes D&D Woke garbage in and of itself are the story and plot elements that reinforce Woke ideology; saying evil actions are justified because “racism/white/human supremacy”, or treating moral failings as virtues and what the West traditionally considers virtues to be sins.
I understand you perfectly. I just disagree with your conclusions and think you're way too focused on unimportant side-issues that have nothing inherently (this is a key word) to do with Wokism.

I disagree with your premise that a system which doesn't use alignment and has races beyond those found in Tolkien are automatically vehicles of Woke designed to destroy the hobby; which seems to be your whole argument and is burying the real issue behind side-issues that make it easy to dismiss you.

"The people at WotC don't believe in good and evil, embrace moral relativism and are injecting it into settings where objective good and evil exist" is something I 100% agree with.

"The people at WotC are treating every race as if it were just a cosplay furry outfit for someone from 21st Century Seattle instead of something with a genuine culture which makes it feel inauthentic" is also something I'd 100% agree with.

"Not using alignment stats and allowing anything but races found in Tolkien's books is, in and of itself, going to destroy the hobby" is ridiculous and inarguably false as proven by the many RPGs out there that don't use alignment, have numerous playable monstrous races and long predate the rise of Woke.

Just because the Woke use non-Tolkien races doesn't mean non-Tolkien races are woke any more than a bike lock and chain is woke because the Woke use it as a weapon. If the Woke use a hammer to cave in some guy's head, should we declare anyone who uses a hammer in their job (say, building houses) to be Woke?

No. That's ridiculous.

So stop mistaking the tools (non-Tolkien races) for the hooligan wielding it as a weapon. The issue is the hooligan, not the tool.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: HappyDaze on June 04, 2021, 06:09:38 AM
That's not what I'm suggesting. What I'm suggesting is that most races are too alien from human, and they're supposed to be so, in order that we understand them as archetype and myth.
Do you even D&D? Joking aside, mainline D&D was never really about making demihuman races "too alien from human" and while it drew inspiration from archetype & myth, it was never trying to be those things itself.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: HappyDaze on June 04, 2021, 06:11:39 AM
If there is a fantasy kingdom being invaded by dwarves, and a knight swears to his king and to his country to fight off the invaders, but isn't devoutly religious - is that character a paladin?

No

Quote
What if there is a chaotic knight with no king but great devotion to a trickster god? Is that character a paladin?

No

Quote
I think there's no clear single definition, given limitless ranges of fantasy worlds.

It seems like the definition is clear.

The question is why would a trickster god even want to have a heavily armpured fighter as his holy warrior?  It seems antithetical.  Why not a Cleric/Rogue combination?
Wouldn't empowering a holy warrior that seems antithetical be exactly what a trickster god might do?
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Chris24601 on June 04, 2021, 09:08:54 AM
That's not what I'm suggesting. What I'm suggesting is that most races are too alien from human, and they're supposed to be so, in order that we understand them as archetype and myth.
Do you even D&D? Joking aside, mainline D&D was never really about making demihuman races "too alien from human" and while it drew inspiration from archetype & myth, it was never trying to be those things itself.
There’s a reason why ‘race’ is fairly appropriate terminology for Tolkien’s cultures; they’re NOT entirely alien species with completely different biologies. Elves and Men could have children (though there are supernatural aspects related to retaining or surrendering immortality that go beyond just biology) and hobbits are counted among the races of Men. Depending on when you talked with Tolkien, orcs/goblins were either corrupted Elves or Men.*

There are other, more alien, creatures as well, and not all of them would make good PCs for a variety of reasons, but the playable ones were at least broadly “human” in form, biology and psyche.

I have all sorts of fantastic races beyond the D&D/Tolkien standard, but I still have certain requirements; they must be sapient and free-willed and, while not strictly a requirement, most have at least some connection to humanity. Animals lack sapience so don’t qualify. Spirits like demons and astral servitors are entirely defined by their natures and so lack free will (more accurately their wills are so fully comformed to their purpose that they always choose to be true to it... but as a practical matter they don’t have the freedom to choose as mortals do) and also don’t qualify.

The result though is that, for the most part, the psychologies of the playable species are not so alien as to be incomprehensible to humans and because they have free will they can choose to be heroes, villains or something in between.**

* I can appreciate that this changed over time, I had to backtrack and rewrite elements of my own created world because the theology didn’t hang together as I continued to refine it... but if even Tolkien had the same problem, then I am not so discouraged.

** Which is far better for giving GMs freedom to set up their own campaigns or alternate settings. “Anyone” could be a hero or a villain (which is not the same as saying “Everyone” can be... just that heroism and villainy can come from anywhere).
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: HappyDaze on June 04, 2021, 11:57:12 AM
That's not what I'm suggesting. What I'm suggesting is that most races are too alien from human, and they're supposed to be so, in order that we understand them as archetype and myth.
Do you even D&D? Joking aside, mainline D&D was never really about making demihuman races "too alien from human" and while it drew inspiration from archetype & myth, it was never trying to be those things itself.
There’s a reason why ‘race’ is fairly appropriate terminology for Tolkien’s cultures; they’re NOT entirely alien species with completely different biologies. Elves and Men could have children (though there are supernatural aspects related to retaining or surrendering immortality that go beyond just biology) and hobbits are counted among the races of Men. Depending on when you talked with Tolkien, orcs/goblins were either corrupted Elves or Men.*

There are other, more alien, creatures as well, and not all of them would make good PCs for a variety of reasons, but the playable ones were at least broadly “human” in form, biology and psyche.

I have all sorts of fantastic races beyond the D&D/Tolkien standard, but I still have certain requirements; they must be sapient and free-willed and, while not strictly a requirement, most have at least some connection to humanity. Animals lack sapience so don’t qualify. Spirits like demons and astral servitors are entirely defined by their natures and so lack free will (more accurately their wills are so fully comformed to their purpose that they always choose to be true to it... but as a practical matter they don’t have the freedom to choose as mortals do) and also don’t qualify.

The result though is that, for the most part, the psychologies of the playable species are not so alien as to be incomprehensible to humans and because they have free will they can choose to be heroes, villains or something in between.**

* I can appreciate that this changed over time, I had to backtrack and rewrite elements of my own created world because the theology didn’t hang together as I continued to refine it... but if even Tolkien had the same problem, then I am not so discouraged.

** Which is far better for giving GMs freedom to set up their own campaigns or alternate settings. “Anyone” could be a hero or a villain (which is not the same as saying “Everyone” can be... just that heroism and villainy can come from anywhere).
I do agree that fiends, aberrations, elementals, and some other creatures are probably best when they have alien mindsets. However,  virtually all humanoids (including giants) are very likely to be human-like in mind as well as body. Undead of such races that remember their lives likely retain elements of human-like thinking, and constructs may reflect their creators.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Shasarak on June 04, 2021, 05:25:46 PM
Wouldn't empowering a holy warrior that seems antithetical be exactly what a trickster god might do?

Not a Trickster God.

Maybe a Lame Edgelord God.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Chris24601 on June 04, 2021, 06:01:58 PM
I do agree that fiends, aberrations, elementals, and some other creatures are probably best when they have alien mindsets. However,  virtually all humanoids (including giants) are very likely to be human-like in mind as well as body. Undead of such races that remember their lives likely retain elements of human-like thinking, and constructs may reflect their creators.
Add undead, astral servitors and normal animals (but not unusual animals; if you want to pull a Narnia, there’s options for that) onto the fiends/demons, aberrations/horrors and elementals and you pretty much have the list of what’s not playabe in my setting (and undead and astral servitors are included in the GM’s Guide both for making NPCs and for GMs who want a setting with different metaphysical rules than my included setting).

Frankly, the argument about how common the species is in the world isn’t material to whether it should be included as a player option or not. There’s plenty of fantastic fiction where “the last X” travels with other protagonists on whatever the story’s adventure is... so it’s good to have mechanics for those types of things rather than just dumping that in the laps of the GMs and saying “houserule it.”

This goes double if your system is focused around “big damned heroes” instead of “potential hero zeroes.” If dragons* and human heroes are both one-in-a-million, then allowing a PC to be either a young human hero or an average young dragon isn’t allowing one player to play something particularly rarer than the other.

Rarity only matters relative to the rarity of the other PCs, not to the NPC background population (just as you wouldn’t make the number of superhero PCs in a Mutants & Masterminds game dependent on the ratio of superhumans to humans, because the game is about playing a superhuman).

* I specifically mention dragons because one of the old D&D choose your adventure books I had as a kid involved you being turned into a dragon at the start and the best ending of the many included paths ended with you choosing to remain a dragon.

Give a 12 year old that book then show them the Dragonlance module where a disguised silver dragon is one of the pre-gen PCs available, then try telling them “Nope, D&D isn’t a game where you’re allowed to play dragons.”
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Mistwell on June 04, 2021, 06:23:46 PM
I am curious what people would think about a replacement for alignment. Similar to Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws for PCs?

Or if something just said, "Aggressive/Cruel/Sneaky" next to it?
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: HappyDaze on June 04, 2021, 06:24:48 PM
I am curious what people would think about a replacement for alignment. Similar to Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws for PCs?

Or if something just said, "Aggressive/Cruel/Sneaky" next to it?
Something like the various behavioral Hindrances in Savage Worlds?
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Ghostmaker on June 04, 2021, 06:34:24 PM
If you desperately feel the need to have a setting where anything goes, do Planescape. That's a pretty solid campaign world and you can run into fucking anything there.

You want to play a dragon? There are perfectly good rules for that (the Dragon Magazine 1-20 level advancement for dragon PCs is pretty balanced). Ask your GM. Hell, I did -- and we had a blast with it.

But see, this isn't about playing some weird critter as a PC. Pundit's touched on this, as have I. This is about wokeists shitting things up because they want everything THEIR way. They don't want to play a character who might draw nervous envy, or scorn, or prejudice, and use that as a springboard into awesome roleplay. No, everything must be TOLERANT and HAPPY because otherwise they get sad and that's not faaaaaaair.

And the solution is to fucking show them the door.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Mistwell on June 04, 2021, 06:35:25 PM
I am curious what people would think about a replacement for alignment. Similar to Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws for PCs?

Or if something just said, "Aggressive/Cruel/Sneaky" next to it?
Something like the various behavioral Hindrances in Savage Worlds?

Yes, like that.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: HappyDaze on June 04, 2021, 06:39:51 PM
If you desperately feel the need to have a setting where anything goes, do Planescape. That's a pretty solid campaign world and you can run into fucking anything there.

You want to play a dragon? There are perfectly good rules for that (the Dragon Magazine 1-20 level advancement for dragon PCs is pretty balanced). Ask your GM. Hell, I did -- and we had a blast with it.

But see, this isn't about playing some weird critter as a PC. Pundit's touched on this, as have I. This is about wokeists shitting things up because they want everything THEIR way. They don't want to play a character who might draw nervous envy, or scorn, or prejudice, and use that as a springboard into awesome roleplay. No, everything must be TOLERANT and HAPPY because otherwise they get sad and that's not faaaaaaair.

And the solution is to fucking show them the door.
You're too focused on the few that fit your narrow parameters. Most players that I have encountered that want to play a character of a more exotic race expect that it will matter (often negatively) and would be disappointed if their choice was simply accepted without remark.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Mishihari on June 04, 2021, 10:37:04 PM
I am curious what people would think about a replacement for alignment. Similar to Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws for PCs?

Or if something just said, "Aggressive/Cruel/Sneaky" next to it?

Those work too.  My favorite is TMNT's system, with descriptors like "scrupulous," "anarchist," etc
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Mishihari on June 04, 2021, 10:40:25 PM
And here's the replacement for alignments that I went with for the game I'm writing right now:

Precepts
While it is entirely possible to play an RPG as if one’s hero is oneself transported into the game world and gifted with fantastic abilities, many players prefer to play a hero with different values and personality than their own, much as an actor in an improvisational play.  Precepts are an aid to the latter players to help remember the character’s personality and make decisions according to his values.  The player simply lists up to five statements describing the hero’s values, in order of priority.  Precepts have no mechanical effect.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Mishihari on June 04, 2021, 10:41:19 PM
D&D needs alignment, though.  To me, it's one of the defining characteristics of the game.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: RPGPundit on June 05, 2021, 12:36:01 AM

Maugris was not one of Charlemagne's paladins. He and his brothers were enemies of Charlemagne. Also, Maugris was explicitly Christian if I recall correctly. Or at least in no moment an unbeliever. In spite of having been raised by fairies.
Depends on your source. That's true in the medieval story, The Four Sons of Aymon. But in Boiardo and Ariosto's later works (Orlando Innamorato and Orlando Furioso), Maugris (as Malagigi) was definitely a paladin.

Maybe so. But those are made up. By Italians.
And Lancelot's first appearance in the Matter of Britain was in a story by Chrétien de Troyes, a Frenchman.

Yeah, but the French were still Franks. The Italian stuff is like a whole Alternate Universe. It's its own thing.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Omega on June 05, 2021, 03:00:34 AM
Wouldn't empowering a holy warrior that seems antithetical be exactly what a trickster god might do?

Was thinking the same thing. It is a theme in various books and comics even.
Some force empowers a person with near diametric opposite beliefs and sets them off on a path of destruction. Then eventually reveals and points out either the truth of their patrons nature. Or that the "hero" has been slaughtering innocent people and done more evil in the name of good than evil could. Bravo.

Also wayyy back I had a book whos name I forget. But the base premise was a rich man setting up a series of contests with a group of people for a huge reward. All this at the aegis of a demon. And sure enough there is alot of backstabbing throughout. But at the end of the book the demon reveals itself to be a heavenly being who set it all up to find virtuous people.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Omega on June 05, 2021, 03:04:10 AM
I am curious what people would think about a replacement for alignment. Similar to Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws for PCs?

Or if something just said, "Aggressive/Cruel/Sneaky" next to it?

Why not just go back to what alignment was in AD&D, an inclination and something that could, and often did shift from the things the character did over time. Dragonlance just took that and hammered it down into a pretty simple mechanic to track it.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on June 05, 2021, 09:17:56 AM
D&D needs alignment, though.  To me, it's one of the defining characteristics of the game.

My feeling is it is a pretty key aspect of what makes D&D, D&D. But it is also the easiest thing in the world to ignore if you don't like it. That is one of the reasons alignment debates don't really make a lot of sense to me. I gamed in plenty of groups that ignored alignment because they thought it was stupid. But it was there for those who found it useful. So keeping it in seems the best solution since it is an extremely simple matter to ignore.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on June 05, 2021, 09:22:47 AM
I am curious what people would think about a replacement for alignment. Similar to Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws for PCs?

Or if something just said, "Aggressive/Cruel/Sneaky" next to it?


I think my issue with this stuff is there are tons of games that people could play if they don't like alignment and want an alternative. There are tons of games people can play if they don't like classes or races and want an alternative. I don't play D&D that much, mostly I play other games that do the things I want specifically in an RPG. But when I play D&D, I want D&D. And for me, D&D has key elements that are part of what make it, it. I feel like this was the lesson learned with 4E: change the game too much, it loses its essence and the fan base splits. Maybe they have enough new people that this isn't a concern. But I think the hobby would be way healthier if instead of everyone fighting to get D&D to be their perfect RPG, folks tried some of the alternatives if they are unsatisfied with D&D, played them, talked about them, etc. Trying force D&D to be other games, just doesn't seem like a great idea to me.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: HappyDaze on June 05, 2021, 10:32:15 AM
Trying force D&D to be other games, just doesn't seem like a great idea to me.
I think WotC would like to force D&D to be all games and then, because of its size and number of players, force all games to be D&D. As a gamer, I find the idea repugnant, but from the business side, I can see why they would want that.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: jhkim on June 05, 2021, 10:46:37 AM
D&D needs alignment, though.  To me, it's one of the defining characteristics of the game.

My feeling is it is a pretty key aspect of what makes D&D, D&D. But it is also the easiest thing in the world to ignore if you don't like it. That is one of the reasons alignment debates don't really make a lot of sense to me. I gamed in plenty of groups that ignored alignment because they thought it was stupid. But it was there for those who found it useful. So keeping it in seems the best solution since it is an extremely simple matter to ignore.

That is true both ways, though. It's easy to add in alignment if you want it. Personally, I'm one of those who has ignored alignment ever since I played D&D in grade school in the 1970s. I tend to agree that it should be supported as an optional rule, but I don't see it as core to D&D in my view.

In particular, I don't think anguished cries of "soulless worlds" are justified if it isn't required in every book.

The real crux is whether every published character and creature needs to be given an official alignment. What I really *don't* want is for alignment to be a straightjacket - i.e. an author has a cool character concept, but they get cut or edited because they don't fit the alignment system. On the other hand, if characters are published without regard for whether they fit alignment, then I think the assignments will be highly arbitrary - and the issue might as well be left to GMs to assign alignment based on their views and tastes.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on June 05, 2021, 02:34:32 PM
I’m fine with alignment if we go back to the original Moorcock version
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on June 05, 2021, 02:57:12 PM
D&D needs alignment, though.  To me, it's one of the defining characteristics of the game.

My feeling is it is a pretty key aspect of what makes D&D, D&D. But it is also the easiest thing in the world to ignore if you don't like it. That is one of the reasons alignment debates don't really make a lot of sense to me. I gamed in plenty of groups that ignored alignment because they thought it was stupid. But it was there for those who found it useful. So keeping it in seems the best solution since it is an extremely simple matter to ignore.

That is true both ways, though. It's easy to add in alignment if you want it. Personally, I'm one of those who has ignored alignment ever since I played D&D in grade school in the 1970s. I tend to agree that it should be supported as an optional rule, but I don't see it as core to D&D in my view.

In particular, I don't think anguished cries of "soulless worlds" are justified if it isn't required in every book.

The real crux is whether every published character and creature needs to be given an official alignment. What I really *don't* want is for alignment to be a straightjacket - i.e. an author has a cool character concept, but they get cut or edited because they don't fit the alignment system. On the other hand, if characters are published without regard for whether they fit alignment, then I think the assignments will be highly arbitrary - and the issue might as well be left to GMs to assign alignment based on their views and tastes.

I think you can always make exceptions to a system like alignment where needed---do you have examples). At the same time, D&D is almost its own genre. Anyone who has read the Drizzt books and got to the "Your a ranger" bit is aware how much the mechanics impact the fiction (maybe they handle that stuff differently these days). I do understand your concern though, Salvatore almost had to take Artemis Entreri out of the books when they got rid of the Assassin from 1E to 2E (but he was able to keep it by saying Artemis wasn't an assassin, but a multi class something or other). So having to fit concepts to the mechanics of the game can impact play. But I think alignment has been around so long, and been a part of the system and its settings for so long, even when it doesn't have mechanical weight it is important.

In terms of it not being core, or being core: I still fall on core. I think the reason is, enough people use it and see it as essential, that taking it out will have a massive ripple effect in the fanbase (and I am not just talking old school fans or OSR fans). You can see this in some of the polls that have been coming up at eWorld on the topic (it is surprisingly popular in the polls even though if you go by individual posts and arguments you might get a different impression). So I think it would be just as risky to remove alignment from the game as it would be to remove some of the other core aspects. There is always rooms to change things and fine tune. Saves have been streamlined over time. Alignment has been different in different editions.

I don't think taking alignment out makes worlds soulless. Plenty of games don't have alignment and have settings with plenty of soul.

Obviously WOTC can do what it wants, and I am not clear on whether alignment is going to be part of the game going into 6E. But it has been in the game from the beginning. I think they should be very cautious about taking something out like that (especially when a sidebar that says "if you don't like alignment feel free to ignore it" would pretty much fix any issues people who don't like it have). And I get this swings both ways, but I think it is much easier to take out, than to put back in
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Mishihari on June 05, 2021, 04:27:40 PM
I haven't read the new Ravenloft and I'm not going to, but it seems likely that removing alignments is a sign of a more fundamental issue.  It seems like WotC is trying to remove the ideas of morally right and wrong from the game, as a reflection of their politics.  You can have morality in an RPG without mechanical support, which some of this thread has been about.  And I'm okay with that.  But if removing alignment is part of a larger effort to try to move folks away from morality as a whole, the I think that's a real problem.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Omega on June 06, 2021, 02:29:59 AM
I haven't read the new Ravenloft and I'm not going to, but it seems likely that removing alignments is a sign of a more fundamental issue.  It seems like WotC is trying to remove the ideas of morally right and wrong from the game, as a reflection of their politics.

But thats the thing. The new Ravenloft book does not remove alignments. It just puts the onus of what alignment anything has in the hands of the DM. As noted in this or another thread. Most of the entries are noted as being evil, malignant, etc.

Some are taking the lack of alignment being specifically noted on each monster as some sort of sign. When its just being taken out of context far as I can tell. The book is a mess to read in parts and the recurring problem of spending alot of time saying very little.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Eirikrautha on June 06, 2021, 09:37:49 AM
In particular, I don't think anguished cries of "soulless worlds" are justified if it isn't required in every book.

Where are you pendants when someone on the left uses hyperbole?  I understand exactly what Pundit is saying, that people in our hobby who don't believe in absolute terms like good and evil, are attempting to influence the game in such a way as to discourage the usage of such idea, even in settings where such strong divisions would be appropriate (see: Ravenloft).  Did he exaggerate for effect here?  Sure, it's a time-tested rhetorical strategy (dating back to the ancient Greeks) to emphasize a point.  How is that your issue here?  When some 'tard on twitter declares that someone is "literally Hitler" for using the wrong pronoun, why don't I ever see your kind jumping out of the woodwork declaring, "ackshully, Hitler is a singular individual, so no one else can be 'literally' him..."  Why is your objection to hyperbole only with the people with whom you already disagree?

The real crux is whether every published character and creature needs to be given an official alignment. What I really *don't* want is for alignment to be a straightjacket - i.e. an author has a cool character concept, but they get cut or edited because they don't fit the alignment system. On the other hand, if characters are published without regard for whether they fit alignment, then I think the assignments will be highly arbitrary - and the issue might as well be left to GMs to assign alignment based on their views and tastes.
Bigtime citation needed here.  I need to see a character concept (or three) that don't fit into the alignment system.  The system is so broad (and therefore flexible) that just about any personality can be wedged in there to a satisfactory degree.  You are, once again, engaging in the either-or fallacy: either alignment is a straight-jacket, or it's totally arbitrary.  No, there is the possibility that it works just fine for 95% of the cases and is just a little off for a handful of other exceptions, but not enough off to matter.  Which is how it usually works when used.  So I need examples of these "totally unique" character ideas.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Chris24601 on June 06, 2021, 04:20:09 PM
The real crux is whether every published character and creature needs to be given an official alignment. What I really *don't* want is for alignment to be a straightjacket - i.e. an author has a cool character concept, but they get cut or edited because they don't fit the alignment system. On the other hand, if characters are published without regard for whether they fit alignment, then I think the assignments will be highly arbitrary - and the issue might as well be left to GMs to assign alignment based on their views and tastes.
Bigtime citation needed here.  I need to see a character concept (or three) that don't fit into the alignment system.  The system is so broad (and therefore flexible) that just about any personality can be wedged in there to a satisfactory degree.  You are, once again, engaging in the either-or fallacy: either alignment is a straight-jacket, or it's totally arbitrary.  No, there is the possibility that it works just fine for 95% of the cases and is just a little off for a handful of other exceptions, but not enough off to matter.  Which is how it usually works when used.  So I need examples of these "totally unique" character ideas.
Here’s two for you... what alignment is John Wyck? What alignment is Oliver Queen in season one of Arrow? Neither follow the law, but want justice and have codes. Both are serial murderers even if the targets are ruthless criminals and the latter is seeking to protect/avenge the innocent via vigilantism. Both are protagonists of their own stories.

Similarly, what alignment is Lancelot, who did many heroic deeds, but whose affair with the queen ultimately brought down Camelot? How about Hercules or Jason? Or Robin Hood who robbed from corrupt government officials to give the wealth they stole under color of law back to the people (so is that lawful or chaotic), but also killed a bunch of soldiers who were just doing their jobs and trying to take care of their own families while doing so?

Locking them down to a single category on law/chaos and good/evil axis doesn’t begin to capture the nuances and putting either as neutral neutral since they don’t land cleanly on any extreme is just a complete misrepresentation of them.

On top of that is the general D&D assumption that Evil=Villain which shuts down several categories of adventures where the protagonist would, by usual measures engage in mostly evil actions (think Jack Bauer from 24) and whether you just label them LN to avoid the E=villain or label them as an evil character even as they act as a protagonist (or protagonist adjacent) there’s going to be some dissonance that just wouldn’t exist if you just labeled them as “protagonist” or “protagonist allied” and then spent a sentence or two laying out their motives and methods.

As is referenced in the “Batman is every alignment” chart, most actual characters exist on a spectrum that makes alignment not a great fit. On the other hand, if you gave Batman Allegiances of “Protect the Innocent” and “Justice” you get a far clearer picture of who Batman is that is consistent and easy to grok regardless of which alignment you slot him into (and even more interesting is if you rank the Allegiances to know how they will respond when one or more come into conflict).

The biggest sin of D&D’s alignment system is that it robs the settings of a lot of nuance where the right thing can be done for the bad reasons or the wrong thing can be done for good reasons which gives a much more realistic presentation of good and evil than simply slapping an alignment code onto someone or something and thinking that’s sufficient character development.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Ratman_tf on June 06, 2021, 05:27:14 PM
The real crux is whether every published character and creature needs to be given an official alignment. What I really *don't* want is for alignment to be a straightjacket - i.e. an author has a cool character concept, but they get cut or edited because they don't fit the alignment system. On the other hand, if characters are published without regard for whether they fit alignment, then I think the assignments will be highly arbitrary - and the issue might as well be left to GMs to assign alignment based on their views and tastes.
Bigtime citation needed here.  I need to see a character concept (or three) that don't fit into the alignment system.  The system is so broad (and therefore flexible) that just about any personality can be wedged in there to a satisfactory degree.  You are, once again, engaging in the either-or fallacy: either alignment is a straight-jacket, or it's totally arbitrary.  No, there is the possibility that it works just fine for 95% of the cases and is just a little off for a handful of other exceptions, but not enough off to matter.  Which is how it usually works when used.  So I need examples of these "totally unique" character ideas.
Here’s two for you... what alignment is John Wyck? What alignment is Oliver Queen in season one of Arrow? Neither follow the law, but want justice and have codes. Both are serial murderers even if the targets are ruthless criminals and the latter is seeking to protect/avenge the innocent via vigilantism. Both are protagonists of their own stories.

Similarly, what alignment is Lancelot, who did many heroic deeds, but whose affair with the queen ultimately brought down Camelot? How about Hercules or Jason? Or Robin Hood who robbed from corrupt government officials to give the wealth they stole under color of law back to the people (so is that lawful or chaotic), but also killed a bunch of soldiers who were just doing their jobs and trying to take care of their own families while doing so?

Locking them down to a single category on law/chaos and good/evil axis doesn’t begin to capture the nuances and putting either as neutral neutral since they don’t land cleanly on any extreme is just a complete misrepresentation of them.

On top of that is the general D&D assumption that Evil=Villain which shuts down several categories of adventures where the protagonist would, by usual measures engage in mostly evil actions (think Jack Bauer from 24) and whether you just label them LN to avoid the E=villain or label them as an evil character even as they act as a protagonist (or protagonist adjacent) there’s going to be some dissonance that just wouldn’t exist if you just labeled them as “protagonist” or “protagonist allied” and then spent a sentence or two laying out their motives and methods.

As is referenced in the “Batman is every alignment” chart, most actual characters exist on a spectrum that makes alignment not a great fit. On the other hand, if you gave Batman Allegiances of “Protect the Innocent” and “Justice” you get a far clearer picture of who Batman is that is consistent and easy to grok regardless of which alignment you slot him into (and even more interesting is if you rank the Allegiances to know how they will respond when one or more come into conflict).

The biggest sin of D&D’s alignment system is that it robs the settings of a lot of nuance where the right thing can be done for the bad reasons or the wrong thing can be done for good reasons which gives a much more realistic presentation of good and evil than simply slapping an alignment code onto someone or something and thinking that’s sufficient character development.

This isn't a problem if you go by what has been in every ruleset I can remember. That Alignment is a tool, not a straightjacket.

I think Batman would be Neutral Good. He is forced to work outside the system because the system in Gotham is largely corrupt. I wouldn't call him CG, because he does have his own code he follows pretty closely.
That doesn't mean Batman always does so and so. Like the alignment chart meme, any specific day or specific instance might have Batman doing something considered LG, or NE, or whatever. Because ethics isn't as simple as an alignment chart. But averaged over the existence of the character, he'd tend towards one alignment.

Many characters have an alignment, and then a Bad Day, where they go against their alignment and bad shit happens. Lancelot is a good example. The Fallen Paladin trope comes from that circumstance.

I find alignment very useful in my games. I can eyeball what a NPCs general attitude will be off their alignment. I do agree that "slapping an alignment code" on an NPC isn't enough for deep motivations that drive adventures. Any decent antagonist is going to need more fleshing out. For a band of orc raiders? I'm good with just knowing they're CE.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Eirikrautha on June 06, 2021, 05:27:48 PM
The real crux is whether every published character and creature needs to be given an official alignment. What I really *don't* want is for alignment to be a straightjacket - i.e. an author has a cool character concept, but they get cut or edited because they don't fit the alignment system. On the other hand, if characters are published without regard for whether they fit alignment, then I think the assignments will be highly arbitrary - and the issue might as well be left to GMs to assign alignment based on their views and tastes.
Bigtime citation needed here.  I need to see a character concept (or three) that don't fit into the alignment system.  The system is so broad (and therefore flexible) that just about any personality can be wedged in there to a satisfactory degree.  You are, once again, engaging in the either-or fallacy: either alignment is a straight-jacket, or it's totally arbitrary.  No, there is the possibility that it works just fine for 95% of the cases and is just a little off for a handful of other exceptions, but not enough off to matter.  Which is how it usually works when used.  So I need examples of these "totally unique" character ideas.
Here’s two for you... what alignment is John Wyck? What alignment is Oliver Queen in season one of Arrow? Neither follow the law, but want justice and have codes. Both are serial murderers even if the targets are ruthless criminals and the latter is seeking to protect/avenge the innocent via vigilantism. Both are protagonists of their own stories.

Similarly, what alignment is Lancelot, who did many heroic deeds, but whose affair with the queen ultimately brought down Camelot? How about Hercules or Jason? Or Robin Hood who robbed from corrupt government officials to give the wealth they stole under color of law back to the people (so is that lawful or chaotic), but also killed a bunch of soldiers who were just doing their jobs and trying to take care of their own families while doing so?

Locking them down to a single category on law/chaos and good/evil axis doesn’t begin to capture the nuances and putting either as neutral neutral since they don’t land cleanly on any extreme is just a complete misrepresentation of them.

On top of that is the general D&D assumption that Evil=Villain which shuts down several categories of adventures where the protagonist would, by usual measures engage in mostly evil actions (think Jack Bauer from 24) and whether you just label them LN to avoid the E=villain or label them as an evil character even as they act as a protagonist (or protagonist adjacent) there’s going to be some dissonance that just wouldn’t exist if you just labeled them as “protagonist” or “protagonist allied” and then spent a sentence or two laying out their motives and methods.

As is referenced in the “Batman is every alignment” chart, most actual characters exist on a spectrum that makes alignment not a great fit. On the other hand, if you gave Batman Allegiances of “Protect the Innocent” and “Justice” you get a far clearer picture of who Batman is that is consistent and easy to grok regardless of which alignment you slot him into (and even more interesting is if you rank the Allegiances to know how they will respond when one or more come into conflict).

The biggest sin of D&D’s alignment system is that it robs the settings of a lot of nuance where the right thing can be done for the bad reasons or the wrong thing can be done for good reasons which gives a much more realistic presentation of good and evil than simply slapping an alignment code onto someone or something and thinking that’s sufficient character development.
Each and every one of those examples can be fit pretty easily into the alignment system (with the exception of whatever character you said from Arrow, as I don't watch trash shows like that and have no clue who it is).  John Wick was lawful evil (pre-films), but his alignment shifted to lawful neutral with his marriage (which is why he left the business).  Of course, his lawfulness is to his own sense of justice, and not necessarily to the code of the assassins guild.  But he fits that description just fine.

Please note, I'm not explaining this for your benefit.  You've made it very clear you don't even play D&D and are a reflexive critic of it, so I really don't care what you think.  But I want to make sure the general reader of this thread can see that alignment is nowhere near as restrictive as you assert.  Sure, you'll nit-pick anything I'll say just because you don't want alignment to be useful.  But some people find it flexible and useful, even if that doesn't fit your (self)limited understanding...
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: SHARK on June 06, 2021, 06:12:01 PM
The real crux is whether every published character and creature needs to be given an official alignment. What I really *don't* want is for alignment to be a straightjacket - i.e. an author has a cool character concept, but they get cut or edited because they don't fit the alignment system. On the other hand, if characters are published without regard for whether they fit alignment, then I think the assignments will be highly arbitrary - and the issue might as well be left to GMs to assign alignment based on their views and tastes.
Bigtime citation needed here.  I need to see a character concept (or three) that don't fit into the alignment system.  The system is so broad (and therefore flexible) that just about any personality can be wedged in there to a satisfactory degree.  You are, once again, engaging in the either-or fallacy: either alignment is a straight-jacket, or it's totally arbitrary.  No, there is the possibility that it works just fine for 95% of the cases and is just a little off for a handful of other exceptions, but not enough off to matter.  Which is how it usually works when used.  So I need examples of these "totally unique" character ideas.
Here’s two for you... what alignment is John Wyck? What alignment is Oliver Queen in season one of Arrow? Neither follow the law, but want justice and have codes. Both are serial murderers even if the targets are ruthless criminals and the latter is seeking to protect/avenge the innocent via vigilantism. Both are protagonists of their own stories.

Similarly, what alignment is Lancelot, who did many heroic deeds, but whose affair with the queen ultimately brought down Camelot? How about Hercules or Jason? Or Robin Hood who robbed from corrupt government officials to give the wealth they stole under color of law back to the people (so is that lawful or chaotic), but also killed a bunch of soldiers who were just doing their jobs and trying to take care of their own families while doing so?

Locking them down to a single category on law/chaos and good/evil axis doesn’t begin to capture the nuances and putting either as neutral neutral since they don’t land cleanly on any extreme is just a complete misrepresentation of them.

On top of that is the general D&D assumption that Evil=Villain which shuts down several categories of adventures where the protagonist would, by usual measures engage in mostly evil actions (think Jack Bauer from 24) and whether you just label them LN to avoid the E=villain or label them as an evil character even as they act as a protagonist (or protagonist adjacent) there’s going to be some dissonance that just wouldn’t exist if you just labeled them as “protagonist” or “protagonist allied” and then spent a sentence or two laying out their motives and methods.

As is referenced in the “Batman is every alignment” chart, most actual characters exist on a spectrum that makes alignment not a great fit. On the other hand, if you gave Batman Allegiances of “Protect the Innocent” and “Justice” you get a far clearer picture of who Batman is that is consistent and easy to grok regardless of which alignment you slot him into (and even more interesting is if you rank the Allegiances to know how they will respond when one or more come into conflict).

The biggest sin of D&D’s alignment system is that it robs the settings of a lot of nuance where the right thing can be done for the bad reasons or the wrong thing can be done for good reasons which gives a much more realistic presentation of good and evil than simply slapping an alignment code onto someone or something and thinking that’s sufficient character development.

This isn't a problem if you go by what has been in every ruleset I can remember. That Alignment is a tool, not a straightjacket.

I think Batman would be Neutral Good. He is forced to work outside the system because the system in Gotham is largely corrupt. I wouldn't call him CG, because he does have his own code he follows pretty closely.
That doesn't mean Batman always does so and so. Like the alignment chart meme, any specific day or specific instance might have Batman doing something considered LG, or NE, or whatever. Because ethics isn't as simple as an alignment chart. But averaged over the existence of the character, he'd tend towards one alignment.

Many characters have an alignment, and then a Bad Day, where they go against their alignment and bad shit happens. Lancelot is a good example. The Fallen Paladin trope comes from that circumstance.

I find alignment very useful in my games. I can eyeball what a NPCs general attitude will be off their alignment. I do agree that "slapping an alignment code" on an NPC isn't enough for deep motivations that drive adventures. Any decent antagonist is going to need more fleshing out. For a band of orc raiders? I'm good with just knowing they're CE.

Greetings!

Excellent, Ratman! I agree.

Alignment is a simple tool and a quick character guidline. Of course, more significant characers need to have their personalities and motivations fleshed out and detailed. That doesn't mean that alignment and the alignment system isn't effective or useful.

And yeah, a warband of Orcs are Chaotic Evil. What more detail do they need?

I think many people get so caught up in their hatred of D&D that they purposely search through the brilliance of Gygax and the Dungeon Master's Guide always trying to find exceptions and stupid loopholes or imagining complex, unlikely scenarios simply to make an argument and screech "Nyah! Nyah! Nyah!"

Most players I have seen do not put anywhere near such thought into trying to game the alignment system. Giving them a brief summary of what each alignment symbolizes and values has been generally quite sufficient. It has worked very well for *decades* now.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Pat on June 06, 2021, 06:22:43 PM
I think Batman would be Neutral Good. He is forced to work outside the system because the system in Gotham is largely corrupt. I wouldn't call him CG, because he does have his own code he follows pretty closely.
So CG people are unable to have a moral code? They're all random fishmalks and inconsistent wishy-washy types who don't stand for anything and can't be relied upon?

I don't think that works as a functional alignment system.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Wrath of God on June 06, 2021, 07:06:49 PM
Quote
I think Batman would be Neutral Good. He is forced to work outside the system because the system in Gotham is largely corrupt. I wouldn't call him CG, because he does have his own code he follows pretty closely.

Meanwhile in D&D settings God of Battle is more oft than not Chaotic Neutral fellow.
And yet despite it - he is usually being of quite harsh if very violence-centric code of conduct, code of personal honor, bravery and so on.
Idea that having personal code is Lawful, is like utterly dumb idea overall considering how traditional D&D settings were written down, how Barbarians went meant to be Chaotic of Alignment even though tribal Barbaric cultures are usually all about codes of conducts, often elaborate to nausea.

Also traditionally all those Robin Hood types and other rebels and revolutionaries are marked as CG, even if they clearly fight to replace old Code of Conduct with their own better.
Damn idealistic Anarchist will have code of conduct. And it's gonna be pro-Chaos code of conduct.

Quote
This isn't a problem if you go by what has been in every ruleset I can remember. That Alignment is a tool, not a straightjacket.

But really for what? Alignment have sense only if you truly play on Cosmic Powers of Alignment as some sort of karmic mechanism, which would considering their power made D&D worlds vitally different from real myths, legends just as much as from modern SJW inspired fantasies.
Alignment as tool... like tool for whom?
If I'm GM I make my own NPCs and I can easily drop 2-3 values, virtues, vices for each that would be way more useful in overall descriptor than LG or CN.

Quote
For a band of orc raiders? I'm good with just knowing they're CE.

And what that knowledge really gives you? What extra aside of fact that you just met group of violent raiders traveling to burn some village. What CE matters in this situation?
Why do you need it as GM or as a player.

You see I get you can fit many character or at least shoehorn them into 9 box chart. But why is it useful to you - if you're GM you made this guy anyway and decided what his role gonna be. If you are PC you make choices based on GM description of given NPC's action. Unless you really dig into specific Wheel cosmology - it seems kinda useless.

Quote
And yeah, a warband of Orcs are Chaotic Evil. What more detail do they need?

Why do need even this details. They are warband of Orcs, why do you need alignment for them at all?
In fact much more than alignment detial which is redundant with BAND OF AGRESSIVE RAIDERS I need other details, like about their numbers, equipment, tactics, competence of their leaders and so on :P That's what I need when I meet warband of Orcs in a fantasy world, I do not give a shit if they are CE or NE or maybe even TN as inherently immortal intelligent but soulless mushrooms :P


Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Chris24601 on June 06, 2021, 07:28:56 PM
Please note, I'm not explaining this for your benefit.  You've made it very clear you don't even play D&D and are a reflexive critic of it, so I really don't care what you think.
Uh huh. Don’t care a wit.

For the record, I am currently in a 3.5e and a 4E campaign and would even consider some 5e if it had the right GM. What I have a strong dislike for is OSR-style play (including TSR D&D).

Also, I criticize bad mechanics in every system I play. This board just heavily discusses D&D so it gets the brunt here.

My $0.02 is Allegiances do everything Alignment does as a tool only better and are even easier for new players to grok and far less prone to cause conflicts over different interpretations of what is Good/Evil/Lawful/Chaotic and whether its tendencies, cosmic forces, etc.

Basically; I’ve never seen debates over what it means to have Allegiances to The Old Faith, My Family and The Kingdom of Ironhold.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Wrath of God on June 06, 2021, 07:57:14 PM
Quote
My $0.02 is Allegiances do everything Alignment does as a tool only better and are even easier for new players to grok and far less prone to cause conflicts over different interpretations of what is Good/Evil/Lawful/Chaotic and whether its tendencies, cosmic forces, etc.

I'd also add some mental traits as at least some alignment - I am looking at you Chaotic Neutral - are usually described by those.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Ratman_tf on June 06, 2021, 08:58:12 PM
I think Batman would be Neutral Good. He is forced to work outside the system because the system in Gotham is largely corrupt. I wouldn't call him CG, because he does have his own code he follows pretty closely.
So CG people are unable to have a moral code? They're all random fishmalks and inconsistent wishy-washy types who don't stand for anything and can't be relied upon?

I don't think that works as a functional alignment system.

(https://miro.medium.com/max/924/1*kEsw4IbcH4ILEr17mkJk3A.jpeg)

That is precisely the opposite of what I just typed, man.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Pat on June 06, 2021, 09:05:12 PM
That is precisely the opposite of what I just typed
I wouldn't call him CG, because he does have his own code he follows pretty closely.

You said he can't be CG because he follows his own code. If you believe something else, you'll have to clarify it, because your two statements seem to contradict each other.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Ratman_tf on June 06, 2021, 09:22:07 PM
That is precisely the opposite of what I just typed
I wouldn't call him CG, because he does have his own code he follows pretty closely.

You said he can't be CG because he follows his own code. If you believe something else, you'll have to clarify it, because your two statements seem to contradict each other.

I didn't say "can't". I can see an argument for Batman being CG or even LG.
It certainly doesn't help that different writers have had different takes on Batman. I think that's more of a factor in the Batman alignments meme.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Pat on June 06, 2021, 09:31:48 PM
That is precisely the opposite of what I just typed
I wouldn't call him CG, because he does have his own code he follows pretty closely.

You said he can't be CG because he follows his own code. If you believe something else, you'll have to clarify it, because your two statements seem to contradict each other.

I didn't say "can't". I can see an argument for Batman being CG or even LG.
It certainly doesn't help that different writers have had different takes on Batman. I think that's more of a factor in the Batman alignments meme.
I'm more curious about the interpretation of CG than Batman, though he can work as an illustration. Different writers have different interpretations, and different readers do as well, but I'd say he's solidly CG. Largely a loner, working with others only when necessary or when he's in charge. The odd man out in groups, always does his own thing. Follows a strict code, but it's an internal code rather than based on external laws. Not to mention outlaw/vigilante.

Interpretations that categorize him as evil either tend to blame him for things beyond his control (inspiring villains or something), or take a very negative view of vigilantes or taking the law into your own hands. Same with most of the neutral interpretations. But if we accept the general ethos of the Batman mythos, he has to be good, iconically so.

Lawful interpretations are based on his personal code, which seems to be a very bad interpretation of law because it denies chaos any kind of code, and denies things like the classic barbarian. Neutral is possible because he does work with groups and does respect the legal system (even if he doesn't follow it himself). But too many other characteristics point to chaotic.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Eirikrautha on June 06, 2021, 11:21:15 PM
I am continuously amused at how many people seem to conflate "I can't figure out how alignment would work for me" and "alignment doesn't work."  I mean, not to be too rude, your mental limitations are not universal.  In this case, maybe it's just you.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Chris24601 on June 07, 2021, 02:04:04 AM
I am continuously amused at how many people seem to conflate "I can't figure out how alignment would work for me" and "alignment doesn't work."  I mean, not to be too rude, your mental limitations are not universal.  In this case, maybe it's just you.
Insults are the resort of those who lack actual arguments. “You’re too stupid to understand” is a step below even that. You’re better than that.

It’s not that alignment doesn’t work it’s that there are so many BETTER systems that accomplish the same thing (you can hold Allegiance to an ethical code or religious faith) in addition to other more nuanced things (Allegiance to “power” or “revenge” provide so much more information on a villain than “evil” can, and in the same number of words), and do so without potentially grinding a game to a halt over different interpretations of ethics (ex. the killing of orc children for example; good, evil, neutral? Your 1e AD&D cleric and paladin powers may ride on being able to read your DM’s mind for their answer).

I’ve seen Paladins and Clerics hit with losing their powers because sparing orc children was an evil act in the DM’s mind and the same DM also taking away a Paladin’s powers in a later game for killing orc children because that was an evil act (I’ve mentioned my anti-Christian dick of a DM who almost drove me from the hobby entirely before so this shouldn’t actually surprise anyone... there’s a reason I have zero interest in ever playing OSR/TSR games again; it’s a horrible sense memory reminder).

Alignment to me just feels a basic mechanic you graduate from to mechanics that can do the job better (and that the 3x3 alignment grid is a step down in design from Basic’s more coherent single Law/Chaos axis).
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Ratman_tf on June 07, 2021, 02:21:51 AM
I’ve seen Paladins and Clerics hit with losing their powers because sparing orc children was an evil act in the DM’s mind and the same DM also taking away a Paladin’s powers in a later game for killing orc children because that was an evil act (I’ve mentioned my anti-Christian dick of a DM who almost drove me from the hobby entirely before so this shouldn’t actually surprise anyone... there’s a reason I have zero interest in ever playing OSR/TSR games again; it’s a horrible sense memory reminder).

Seems that's more of a dick DM problem than an alignment problem. If I were to enforce any alignment mechanics, I would make clear to the player what I was about to do and why, and if they want to take backsies or not.

Quote
Alignment to me just feels a basic mechanic you graduate from to mechanics that can do the job better (and that the 3x3 alignment grid is a step down in design from Basic’s more coherent single Law/Chaos axis).

It works for me. It's also part of the charm of D&D. If someone doesn't like it and doesn't want to use it, I don't care. I just want to say there's some of us that like the system and want to use it.

In my brother's campaign, I played a lawful evil assassin. The big quest was to destroy a bunch of artifacts that a lich was using as phylacteries. (He wasn't shy about ripping off Harry Potter for that idea.) Some of the artifacts were good aligned. My character volunteered to destroy the good artifacts, since any alignment mechanics wouldn't ding him. That idea, that my alignment was useful to the party and our specific quest, wouldn't have been possible without D&D alignments. At least, I can't think of other systems that would have faciliated it as easily.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Toran Ironfinder on June 07, 2021, 03:05:19 AM
Not an expert on DnD, I spent a bit of time with Star Wars (D20 and WEG), as a Christian in my forties, it was somewhat frowned upon in my youth. This is a question of the interplay of worldbuilding and rules on one hand, and continuity/discontinuity with an established world on the other. As I understanding, rules and worldbuilding elements were combined in significant ways in earlier editions, not only were Paladins lawful good, but clerics had to pay a tithe, Paladins had limits on their equipment and their accumulation of wealth, Rangers at lower levels could only have equipment they could carry. Different classes had distinctly different strongholds and followers; these were differences in worldbuilding that were reflected in the rules. Some systems have had different approaches to morality (Both versions of Star Wars had Dark Side points), some have tended to do so outside of the rules (a GM for example, isn't denying player agency to have law enforcement seeking the murder hobos, whether there is a CE in a box or not). Modern systems tend to have more of a sandbox orientation that separates worldbuilding concerns from rules considerations.

As to cultures, though, these are worldbuilding pure and simple, whether they are in the rules or not. Drow are evil societies in DnD worlds, run by absolute despotic monarchs who would conquer the overworld, if they would stop stabbing each other in the back. There is something reminiscent of the late Roman Republic, at least as it appears in popular imagination; various political factions stabbing each other in the back. When you go to a world with an established history, culture and feel, and change it due to the feelings (often today treated as if it were thinking) resulting from the modern zeitgeist, it should leave a question mark in our mind. Continuities are important in shared universes, they are necessary for the suspension of disbelief required to have fun in the game world, and when you mess with those continuities, there are going to be issues.

I'm not going to suggest that WOTC shouldn't or can't make changes in their mechanics, but if they make changes to mechanics or fluff that influences worldbuilding in significant ways, they should probably choose not to re-edit the old worlds and instead create new ones for those system/fluff systems.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: TJS on June 07, 2021, 04:44:31 AM
Hank the Ranger: "So we found the band of Orcs that slaughtered all the adult villagers and then ate them while stealing the children to sell into slavery, should we rush in and kill them and save the children?"

Bob the Paladin: "Oh I don't know.  Everything is so hard nowadays.  In the old days I could just cast detect evil and know if they were chaotic evil, but now I'm just not sure.  Everything is just different shades of grey now.   Perhaps it's best not to interfere."

Susan the Sorcerer: "Hey that Orc chief is twirling his moustache.  He also has a spiffy black hat.  Hey now that I look at it, they're all wearing identical black hats".

Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Chris24601 on June 07, 2021, 08:36:24 AM
Seems that's more of a dick DM problem than an alignment problem.
It’s a sense memory association thing. When what in retrospect was a psychological abuser likes something and pushes something, you grow to despise it. I particularly loathe cleric-only healing in systems and anything that puts worship of pagan gods front and center and systems that rely on a lot of “DM May I” resolutions.

I have the same in reverse for Palladium (first and foremost Robotech), which basically saved my interest in the hobby. That healing is a generic magic spell and the system describes their gods as aliens from another dimension that primitive cultures have mistaken for deities is something that definitely felt right. Similarly, though I wouldn’t use them today, Palladium’s alignments were detailed with specific explanations and examples of where their moral and ethical lines clear.

Throw in that their parry/dodge rules made the sort of light-armored heroes I prefer (I love me some swashbuckling, but in D&D even Robin Hood would be wearing plate if he were a PC fighter) a viable approach and non-Vancian casting and Palladium Fantasy was pretty much the cure to my woes.

For similar reasons 4E D&D is by far my favorite for killing the cleric’s healing supremacy entirely (I never saw a divine class played once across multiple tables in any 4E campaign... warlords, bards and artificers with the gods so nebulous we didn’t even know their names most times was the norm) and being the first edition of D&D where light armored heroes were viable and also the nuked the magic item Christmas tree of 3e (and the inherent bonuses option got used at every table I ever played at as soon as it came out) and finally let wizards feel like wizards with at-will cantrips and basic attack spells that meant they didn’t need crossbows or lawn darts once they’d fired off their few spells for the day.

Basically OSR/TSR is a set of systems I have to fight every step of the way to get a game I enjoy. Why fight a system when I can just use one that does what I enjoy (Palladium, 4E, my own systems) right out of the box?
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Omega on June 07, 2021, 12:53:55 PM
This isn't a problem if you go by what has been in every ruleset I can remember. That Alignment is a tool, not a straightjacket.

I think Batman would be Neutral Good.

1: Very. Especially AD&D and Dragonlance alignment was something constantly in potential flux as the things the characters do cause their alignment to drift.

2: Off topic but at least since the 70s or early 80s Batman has been anything but Neutral or Good. He is paranoid to the point he plots contingencies against his friends and secretly funnels funds into research into spying on and even eliminating superHEROES. And He has formed at least one group under his own aegis that has killed people on his direct orders. From the 90s on hes been increasingly a bigger threat to the superhero community than to criminals.

In D&D Terms his alignment is closer to Lawful Neutral where the law is the law, its just the laws are written by him. Or Lawful Evil even since his obsessions cause him to very very very often go off every deep end. He has a strict code and woe any superhero that stands in the way of it. But when his paranoia invariably backfires he tends to own up to it and try to fix things. Least for those still living after.

The problem is with these attempts to try and map someone like Batman to alignment is they always forget that we are not dealing with one static version, but a series of different takes on the character sometimes within a single series over time.

Similar to any given PC who starts out with good intentions but gets caught up in the bloodlust or just plain cold equasions and and starts a descent into evil.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Omega on June 07, 2021, 12:57:46 PM
So CG people are unable to have a moral code? They're all random fishmalks and inconsistent wishy-washy types who don't stand for anything and can't be relied upon?

I don't think that works as a functional alignment system.

Chaotic Good in D&D usually, depending on the writer, means the person does whats right despite laws or people saying otherwise because some law or opinion has failed. They can be organized. Just not in the regimented manner lawful tends to.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: jhkim on June 07, 2021, 02:47:58 PM
The real crux is whether every published character and creature needs to be given an official alignment. What I really *don't* want is for alignment to be a straightjacket - i.e. an author has a cool character concept, but they get cut or edited because they don't fit the alignment system. On the other hand, if characters are published without regard for whether they fit alignment, then I think the assignments will be highly arbitrary - and the issue might as well be left to GMs to assign alignment based on their views and tastes.

Bigtime citation needed here.  I need to see a character concept (or three) that don't fit into the alignment system.  The system is so broad (and therefore flexible) that just about any personality can be wedged in there to a satisfactory degree.  You are, once again, engaging in the either-or fallacy: either alignment is a straight-jacket, or it's totally arbitrary.  No, there is the possibility that it works just fine for 95% of the cases and is just a little off for a handful of other exceptions, but not enough off to matter.  Which is how it usually works when used.  So I need examples of these "totally unique" character ideas.

The clearest case where alignment doesn't work well is when you have two sides who both consider themselves to be good, and the other side evil.

For example, I ran a short campaign that was set in 1600s era England, when there were massive tensions between Catholics and Protestants. Is it *possible* to use alignments in such a setting? Sure, it's possible. But I don't think it adds anything, and if anything muddles how to handle the conflicts. What is the alignment of someone who believes in the divine right of kings and restoring James to the throne versus someone who champions democracy? What about a Presbyterian and a Catholic?

Other settings are historically inspired, like HarnWorld. For example, I played in a game where our characters were all missionaries for the worship of Ilvir. We had different values than those who worship Larani, the more traditional good goddess. But to us, individuality and creativity were more important than the chivalry and conformity of the Laranians. We were the equivalent of a strange sect like the Society of Universal Friends or Mormons. And many were repulsed by us, but we gained some followers. Were we good? Were the Laranians who opposed us evil? Were we both neutral despite considering ourselves good?

Or in my Vinland campaign, there were conflicts between the Norse and their Algonquian allies, and the encroaching Haudenosaunee. The Norse considered themselves good, but they still went on raids as a matter of course, to collect good and slaves. And the Haudenosaunee were much the same.

While it is possible to attach alignments, I don't see that it improves the game compared to not using alignment.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Pat on June 07, 2021, 03:29:59 PM
The real crux is whether every published character and creature needs to be given an official alignment. What I really *don't* want is for alignment to be a straightjacket - i.e. an author has a cool character concept, but they get cut or edited because they don't fit the alignment system. On the other hand, if characters are published without regard for whether they fit alignment, then I think the assignments will be highly arbitrary - and the issue might as well be left to GMs to assign alignment based on their views and tastes.

Bigtime citation needed here.  I need to see a character concept (or three) that don't fit into the alignment system.  The system is so broad (and therefore flexible) that just about any personality can be wedged in there to a satisfactory degree.  You are, once again, engaging in the either-or fallacy: either alignment is a straight-jacket, or it's totally arbitrary.  No, there is the possibility that it works just fine for 95% of the cases and is just a little off for a handful of other exceptions, but not enough off to matter.  Which is how it usually works when used.  So I need examples of these "totally unique" character ideas.

The clearest case where alignment doesn't work well is when you have two sides who both consider themselves to be good, and the other side evil.

For example, I ran a short campaign that was set in 1600s era England, when there were massive tensions between Catholics and Protestants. Is it *possible* to use alignments in such a setting? Sure, it's possible. But I don't think it adds anything, and if anything muddles how to handle the conflicts. What is the alignment of someone who believes in the divine right of kings and restoring James to the throne versus someone who champions democracy? What about a Presbyterian and a Catholic?
Alignment is designed for labeling baddies, not for moral relativism. It's for Dark Lords and innately evil minions, not Saladin and King Richard holy smiting each other in the Holy Land. Or in a single axis law-chaos alignment system, it's about sides. The law/chaos split doesn't have to about one side being evil and the other side being good, but they do have to be irreconcilably opposed.

But if you want more nuance and subjectivity, it's quite possible to retain alignment and all the mechanics, with only a few tweaks. Instead of having absolute good and evil, have relative good and evil, defined by different religions. If the God of the English knights considers the God of the Saracen infidels to be evil, and vice versa, then their paladins can holy smite each other with abandon.

Good or evil thus becomes defined by each religion, with more tolerant or cosmopolitan religions (like the syncretic Greek or Roman religions) not automatically labeling everything from other religions as evil, while more intolerant (and often monotheistic) religions may consider anything that's spiritual or otherworldly but not of their faith to be evil. Schisms or heresies can be treated as variations on the core religion.

It's important in this case to distinguish between metaphysical good and evil, and mundane rivalries. The knights of England may hate the knights of France as much as they hate true devils, but smite only works against creatures designated as evil by their religion, not against other humans they just happen to hate.

There's more to cover of course, but that's the essentials. And I do think it adds a lot to the game to have alignment in many of these cases.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: KingCheops on June 07, 2021, 04:48:23 PM
The biggest problem I usually run into with alignment is murder hobos dragging others down.  I'm currently dealing with this problem in one game where I'm LG but most of the group is N or C/NG.  To avoid being a dick I acquiesce to what they want to do.  But I mean in the capital city we assaulted an evil cult in their base which included fireballs and a wall of fire (luckily middle eastern setting so buildings mostly made out of mud brick or stone) and then the group just wanted to move in since we got the deed off their corpses.  My objections based on the laws of the city were dismissed because they were so excited to have a "base of operations."

Of course later on my Temple arrested me on charges among which were heresy and "setting up illegal chapterhouses."  So now we're infiltrating the temple to take out an evil cult (different one surprisingly) that has taken over and was behind the charges against me.  Again my objections of "shouldn't we try to get some actual evidence?" were largely ignored.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Shasarak on June 07, 2021, 04:56:59 PM
What about a Presbyterian and a Catholic?

Thats an easy one.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: jhkim on June 07, 2021, 06:55:25 PM
The clearest case where alignment doesn't work well is when you have two sides who both consider themselves to be good, and the other side evil.

For example, I ran a short campaign that was set in 1600s era England, when there were massive tensions between Catholics and Protestants. Is it *possible* to use alignments in such a setting? Sure, it's possible. But I don't think it adds anything, and if anything muddles how to handle the conflicts. What is the alignment of someone who believes in the divine right of kings and restoring James to the throne versus someone who champions democracy? What about a Presbyterian and a Catholic?

Alignment is designed for labeling baddies, not for moral relativism. It's for Dark Lords and innately evil minions, not Saladin and King Richard holy smiting each other in the Holy Land. Or in a single axis law-chaos alignment system, it's about sides. The law/chaos split doesn't have to about one side being evil and the other side being good, but they do have to be irreconcilably opposed.

Yes, that was my point. Eirikrautha was saying that alignment was so broad and flexible that it could handle anything, and I was arguing that there were situations it didn't handle, or at least, that it doesn't handle well.

And I note that this isn't even about moral relativism per se. A GM might be devoutly Catholic and have that be true in their historical game -- but even so, they still might not think that categories like Chaotic Neutral or Neutral Good are useful descriptors for distinguishing characters who are a Presbyterian, a Jew, a Hindu, and a Muslim. Even given an absolute morality, one can recognize that there are multiple different moral and legal codes that other people adhere to. And further, individual people might have codes and views that aren't defined by their broad religion. A French nun and a patriotic Irish warrior might both be Catholic, but have quite different personal moral codes.


But if you want more nuance and subjectivity, it's quite possible to retain alignment and all the mechanics, with only a few tweaks. Instead of having absolute good and evil, have relative good and evil, defined by different religions. If the God of the English knights considers the God of the Saracen infidels to be evil, and vice versa, then their paladins can holy smite each other with abandon.

Good or evil thus becomes defined by each religion, with more tolerant or cosmopolitan religions (like the syncretic Greek or Roman religions) not automatically labeling everything from other religions as evil, while more intolerant (and often monotheistic) religions may consider anything that's spiritual or otherworldly but not of their faith to be evil. Schisms or heresies can be treated as variations on the core religion.

In practice, I've always handled this by just having a ruling that priestly powers work according to the laws of their religion - rather than calling it "alignment". If someone is a Norse prophetess, her powers work according to her faith. If she wanted to strike someone down by calling on the disir, I would rule on the spot about whether the disir support that action. Likewise, in games set on Harn, priestly powers work according to the laws of their god. If my priest of Agrik called a holy strike, the GM would judge based on Agrikan theology.

That doesn't require alignment. Keeping track of many different alignments for each NPC or creature seems cumbersome compared to just making a call for each case. I could imagine keeping track of multiple different alignments per character i.e. cult leader NPC -- Alignments: lawful good to Morgath, lawful neutral to Agrik, chaotic evil to Larani, etc. But I'm not sure I see the point of that.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Ratman_tf on June 07, 2021, 06:57:33 PM
The biggest problem I usually run into with alignment is murder hobos dragging others down.  I'm currently dealing with this problem in one game where I'm LG but most of the group is N or C/NG.  To avoid being a dick I acquiesce to what they want to do.  But I mean in the capital city we assaulted an evil cult in their base which included fireballs and a wall of fire (luckily middle eastern setting so buildings mostly made out of mud brick or stone) and then the group just wanted to move in since we got the deed off their corpses.  My objections based on the laws of the city were dismissed because they were so excited to have a "base of operations."

Of course later on my Temple arrested me on charges among which were heresy and "setting up illegal chapterhouses."  So now we're infiltrating the temple to take out an evil cult (different one surprisingly) that has taken over and was behind the charges against me.  Again my objections of "shouldn't we try to get some actual evidence?" were largely ignored.

A person can play a murder hobo without alignment. I'd think it would be easier without a specified alignment getting in the way.l
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Pat on June 07, 2021, 07:30:42 PM
And I note that this isn't even about moral relativism per se. A GM might be devoutly Catholic and have that be true in their historical game -- but even so, they still might not think that categories like Chaotic Neutral or Neutral Good are useful descriptors for distinguishing characters who are a Presbyterian, a Jew, a Hindu, and a Muslim. Even given an absolute morality, one can recognize that there are multiple different moral and legal codes that other people adhere to. And further, individual people might have codes and views that aren't defined by their broad religion. A French nun and a patriotic Irish warrior might both be Catholic, but have quite different personal moral codes.
That's why I pointed out it's really about the good-evil axis, when using subjective alignments. If you come from a tolerant religion that accepts other gods as being valid, then an alien god won't automatically ping the evil detector. But if you come from an intolerant religion, then they will. It's not about pinning people to one of 9 quadrants. It's about defining them relative to your belief system. This can also work for law and chaos, but that's not a common division in most real world religions.

Your example of a Catholic French nun and a Catholic Irish warrior requires a couple distinctions in a subjective alignment system. The first is that good and is not defined by their personal beliefs, but by the religion they adhere to. If they adhere to the same religion, then they're held to the same code. The same things are evil, and that applies both to actions and to spell effects like detecting or exclusion. But as I noted, it's possible to have variants within an overarching religion. In the medieval Catholic church these were often called schisms or heresies. Each might have a different evil-dar. But -- and this is important -- it's still not based on their personal beliefs. It's based on the greater belief system that subscribe to, even if that belief system is a heresy that takes issue with the religion it's based on. It's never about the individual.

That said, they can have different personal beliefs. They can often be summarized by allegiances to a country, organization, or a philosophy, but they can have their own twists or even an entire personal code as well. But that's just part of a personality description and roleplaying. It can create some hooks and contacts that have relevance within the campaign, but it doesn't trigger any supernatural effects.

That doesn't require alignment. Keeping track of many different alignments for each NPC or creature seems cumbersome compared to just making a call for each case. I could imagine keeping track of multiple different alignments per character i.e. cult leader NPC -- Alignments: lawful good to Morgath, lawful neutral to Agrik, chaotic evil to Larani, etc. But I'm not sure I see the point of that.
You're thinking about it the wrong way. In a subjective alignment system, it's not about placing every figure on an objective 9 point grid. It's about defining good and evil (or possibly law and chaos, though as I noted that largely ahistorical), from the perspective of the major religions. Creatures don't have an eternal alignment that applies in all cases. Instead, they're judged based on the moral system of each different religion. Is the queen known for all kinds of abuses, even against the church, but is passionate about expanding the religion to new lands? In a highly expansionistic religion, all her failings could be considered minor sins, and easily forgiven if new souls are saved. In another religion, those could be mortal sins. That's defined by the religion, just as much as which creatures ping the good/evil radar.

You don't give each creature a universal alignment, but you also don't have to rely on judgment calls for every case. Instead, you define what each religion considers good, and what it consider evil.

If you're interested, "For king and country" by Paul Suttie in Dragon #101 is an excellent run down of this approach.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Shasarak on June 07, 2021, 08:10:51 PM
If you have trouble grokking Alignment then Subjective Alignment will completely break your brain.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: SHARK on June 07, 2021, 08:41:48 PM
The real crux is whether every published character and creature needs to be given an official alignment. What I really *don't* want is for alignment to be a straightjacket - i.e. an author has a cool character concept, but they get cut or edited because they don't fit the alignment system. On the other hand, if characters are published without regard for whether they fit alignment, then I think the assignments will be highly arbitrary - and the issue might as well be left to GMs to assign alignment based on their views and tastes.

Bigtime citation needed here.  I need to see a character concept (or three) that don't fit into the alignment system.  The system is so broad (and therefore flexible) that just about any personality can be wedged in there to a satisfactory degree.  You are, once again, engaging in the either-or fallacy: either alignment is a straight-jacket, or it's totally arbitrary.  No, there is the possibility that it works just fine for 95% of the cases and is just a little off for a handful of other exceptions, but not enough off to matter.  Which is how it usually works when used.  So I need examples of these "totally unique" character ideas.

The clearest case where alignment doesn't work well is when you have two sides who both consider themselves to be good, and the other side evil.

For example, I ran a short campaign that was set in 1600s era England, when there were massive tensions between Catholics and Protestants. Is it *possible* to use alignments in such a setting? Sure, it's possible. But I don't think it adds anything, and if anything muddles how to handle the conflicts. What is the alignment of someone who believes in the divine right of kings and restoring James to the throne versus someone who champions democracy? What about a Presbyterian and a Catholic?
Alignment is designed for labeling baddies, not for moral relativism. It's for Dark Lords and innately evil minions, not Saladin and King Richard holy smiting each other in the Holy Land. Or in a single axis law-chaos alignment system, it's about sides. The law/chaos split doesn't have to about one side being evil and the other side being good, but they do have to be irreconcilably opposed.

But if you want more nuance and subjectivity, it's quite possible to retain alignment and all the mechanics, with only a few tweaks. Instead of having absolute good and evil, have relative good and evil, defined by different religions. If the God of the English knights considers the God of the Saracen infidels to be evil, and vice versa, then their paladins can holy smite each other with abandon.

Good or evil thus becomes defined by each religion, with more tolerant or cosmopolitan religions (like the syncretic Greek or Roman religions) not automatically labeling everything from other religions as evil, while more intolerant (and often monotheistic) religions may consider anything that's spiritual or otherworldly but not of their faith to be evil. Schisms or heresies can be treated as variations on the core religion.

It's important in this case to distinguish between metaphysical good and evil, and mundane rivalries. The knights of England may hate the knights of France as much as they hate true devils, but smite only works against creatures designated as evil by their religion, not against other humans they just happen to hate.

There's more to cover of course, but that's the essentials. And I do think it adds a lot to the game to have alignment in many of these cases.

Greetings!

Pat! Very well said. ;D

I use the traditional alignment system in my own world of Thandor, though I interpret it in much of the same manner as you describe here. It doesn't have to be *perfect*. It also doesn't have to always be absolutely consistent. Alignment and the moral universe doesn't always have to make entire sense or to be fully comprehensible to the people of the fantasy world--or even to the Players. It's ok if it remains a bit mysterious and uncertain.

I'm reminded of St. Paul's instruction, "For we see through a glass darkly..."

I like using the Alignment system. It works just fine in my campaigns.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Pat on June 07, 2021, 09:18:59 PM
Pat! Very well said. ;D

I use the traditional alignment system in my own world of Thandor, though I interpret it in much of the same manner as you describe here. It doesn't have to be *perfect*. It also doesn't have to always be absolutely consistent. Alignment and the moral universe doesn't always have to make entire sense or to be fully comprehensible to the people of the fantasy world--or even to the Players. It's ok if it remains a bit mysterious and uncertain.
Thanks. I definitely agree with mysterious and uncertain, but I do think it needs to be consistent. Not knowing isn't the same as previously defined rules randomly changing. The players may be in the dark when it comes to certain rules, but they should be able to rely on the rules they know not changing. That rewards their investment in the campaign, and helps make the world seem more real.

The one exception I could see is when the religion itself changes (or splits, in the case of a heresy), say a revelation from above or the new laws of a prophet. (Think Moses. Or for a fictional example, the Ahma from the Tales of Wyre storyhour at EN World makes a great example.) But that should be a rare, campaign-defining event. In fact, that would be a great end game result or even reward for a paladin or cleric PC.

Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: robertliguori on June 08, 2021, 10:22:43 AM
In general, you should not look to real-world religion at all when you design D&D theology and religion.  There would never be a Martin Luther of Pelor, because the Church of Pelor is in regular and direct communion with Pelor and Pelor's celestial hierarchy of agents.

Also, there is the fact that in D&D worlds with aligned planes, gods flatly do not define morality.  Pelor can say that burning the infidel with holy sunfire is Good.  He is wrong, and him doing so will drag his shiny ass to the Lower Planes as surely as it will the least of his servants.

Also also, a world where Pelor exists is a world in which worship of Pelor is mediated not by cultural contact with strongly religious cultures which venerate Pelor, but with Pelor's direct agents.  Evangelism in D&D worlds isn't about spreading the doctrine of your chosen god or goddess; every culture with enough magic to get casters with Contact Other Plane will have a good and objective idea of who the main deities of the world are, as well as what they are about, even if they have never traded or interacted.

Religion in D&D is ahistorical; our world's conceptions of religion and faith have extraordinarily little to do with D&D religion, and faith as a concept means something wildly different in D&D worlds.

Now, of course, you can play in worlds other than the default implied setting.  But if you're using the default rules, then serious theological arguments should start and end with the high-level clerics casting Contact Other Plane, Commune, and maybe a few Planar Ally spells to double-check their doctrinal understanding with their deity's higher-ups, then record the output of this, and any other cleric who does the same process and asks the same questions should get the same answer.

---

I also must say that I personally strongly dislike the your-religion-works-differently method of moral quandries.  In D&D worlds, things like afterlives, curses, and divine punishment are objective facts.  Either some religions are right and others are wrong, or none of the religions are objectively right and "Detect Evil" just detects according to an arbitrary moral code.

So, who codifies a religion? Does every cleric get their own subtlety different implementations of the What's Evil detection spells? What's the point of them, then? Who is in charge of deciding when a religion becomes real enough to get their own detection keys? Can your world's Scientologists cast Detect Psychiatry?

If Good and Evil are actual, first-class concepts such that casting Detect Evil or Smite Evil have game-world effects, then you should bite the bullet, declare what is true, and deal with things like "The Blood of Vol teaches that use of undead in warfare to spare the lives of the living is a Good act, as long as the corpses raised are Karrnathi nationals who consented to having their bodies defend their nation and kinsmen after their deaths.  They are wrong; raising the dead is always Evil, even when you do Good with them."  And if they're not, then you should bite the bullet the other way, and have your clergy deal with the fact that their magic and holy codes are 100% arbitrary, that the church of their deity's opposition feature can do all of their tricks, and that there are dozens of other religions that are just on an entirely different spectrum, and finally, that there is objective truth of the world that can be noted and shaped with magic, and that their god's truth is not one of those things.

---

The thing is, it's going to be really hard to tell a game set in a historic-inspired setting where you have actual divine magics and any resemblance to historic events and not make a really horrifying pigs-ear of sectarian problems; you can look at the loops that 7th Sea goes through to avoid declaring any of the Christian-analogue religions actually true or false in the way the smaller and pagan-ier faiths can be as an example of inexpertly attempting to thread this needle.  Now, you can set a historic game where part of the premise is that the medieval Catholic understanding of sin is broadly correct, and that heresy and apostasy are actual, serious evil acts.  Dogs in the Vinyard bites this bullet and declares the morality of 1900s-era settler Mormon theology objectively true, and that things like unrepentant homosexuality or wives not being subordinate to their husband can literally destroy communities by calling down demonic influence.  You can do this, and make it clear that what is true in the game is not what is true in our world, but it's still very, very easy to tread on ground most people don't want in their games this way.

So, I generally prefer either the morality-as-physics or every-cleric-is-LARPing models.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Ghostmaker on June 08, 2021, 10:36:43 AM
Robert's made a good point here. In fact, the word 'faith' in a religious context probably is not the same as what we would consider it, since it is a fact in these settings (except for maybe Eberron) that the god is out there. And if there is a doctrinal dispute, there are spells that can be used to resolve it.

This is an interesting conundrum; I may need to contemplate it for a while myself.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on June 08, 2021, 11:11:59 AM
Robert's made a good point here. In fact, the word 'faith' in a religious context probably is not the same as what we would consider it, since it is a fact in these settings (except for maybe Eberron) that the god is out there. And if there is a doctrinal dispute, there are spells that can be used to resolve it.

This is an interesting conundrum; I may need to contemplate it for a while myself.
In Classic Play: The Book of the Planes (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/1673/The-Book-of-the-Planes) by Mongoose, they mention something about maybe the GM could have gods be flawed and not know the answer to doctrinal disputes. (emphasis mine):

Quote
Part of the charm of a plane-hopping game is encountering truly bizarre phenomena, philosophies and entities, and being able to deal with cosmological questions like the meaning of life and death directly, on a practical level. The downside of this is that there is always one player who nitpicks or finds fault with explanations. Be prepared for questions like ‘why is there farming (or mining, or whatever) when there’s an infinite plane of food (or minerals, or whatever)?’, ‘how can there be different versions of the same religion when a cleric can just pop into the god’s home plane and ask for clarification?’, or ‘why do people live here when there is that portal to a much nicer plane that we just came through?’ Even the best Games Master can get tripped up sometimes, especially in strange environments where a lot of assumptions no longer apply.
Quote
Stealing the player’s ideas: Whenever any objection is raised, people will try to rationalise it – ‘people don’t mine the plane of Earth because it is too dangerous’, ‘the god allows different versions of the same faith because he’s undecided himself’ and so on. Listen to your players and do not be afraid to borrow their solutions

I don't like the typical D&D approach to religion precisely because of its ahistoricity (and because different writers write different things and can't agree on theology). I prefer to write religion that is based on actual religious psychology. The Eberron approach where divine magic comes from belief is extremely useful to me. By positing that spells are colored by the belief of the caster then you can set up religious schisms where both sides believe they are right because their "god" told them and can even summon "angels" to fight for them. Naturally, both sides will assume that the other side is consorting with demons.

Technically D&D already operates on "belief makes reality" according to Planescape, but Eberron is the first setting to actually put that into practice.

However, as Terry Pratchet points out, this logic leads to the bizarre disturbing situation where good but guilt-ridden people go to hell, jerks who picket funerals go to heaven, and therefore it's vitally important to shoot missionaries on sight. I'm still trying to figure out that problem because that just doesn't sit well with me ethically.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: jhkim on June 08, 2021, 12:06:46 PM
I haven't had doctrinal disputes in D&D, but I have had them in Harn. My Agrikan priest character in a Rethem campaign secretly belonged to a splinter sect that was separate from the main Agrikan church.

I think it's possible in D&D as well. The D&D rules-as-written specify that the "Commune" spell doesn't necessarily directly contact the deity - possibly only an agent. 5th edition rules are explicit that the answer can be "unknown". A divine agent doesn't necessarily have completely knowledge of the deity - i.e. even an angel or demon might not know the bigger picture, and doesn't know the mind of their deity. In a given setting if the gods aren't hands-on intervening and speaking, then commune might just get mundane answers and not answer doctrinal questions.

In earlier editions, there was a limit to doctrinal differences because "Know Alignment" would tell if a person was doing wrong for their alignment, but that was cut later. If Know Alignment is around, then different sects can at least know if they have slid away from Goodness (or whatever their intended alignment is).

It helps that Harn is lower-magic than D&D typically is, but D&D can still be relatively lower magic if the DM constrains how many higher-level NPCs and PCs there are.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on June 08, 2021, 01:07:50 PM
I haven't had doctrinal disputes in D&D, but I have had them in Harn. My Agrikan priest character in a Rethem campaign secretly belonged to a splinter sect that was separate from the main Agrikan church.

I think it's possible in D&D as well. The D&D rules-as-written specify that the "Commune" spell doesn't necessarily directly contact the deity - possibly only an agent. 5th edition rules are explicit that the answer can be "unknown". A divine agent doesn't necessarily have completely knowledge of the deity - i.e. even an angel or demon might not know the bigger picture, and doesn't know the mind of their deity. In a given setting if the gods aren't hands-on intervening and speaking, then commune might just get mundane answers and not answer doctrinal questions.

In earlier editions, there was a limit to doctrinal differences because "Know Alignment" would tell if a person was doing wrong for their alignment, but that was cut later. If Know Alignment is around, then different sects can at least know if they have slid away from Goodness (or whatever their intended alignment is).

It helps that Harn is lower-magic than D&D typically is, but D&D can still be relatively lower magic if the DM constrains how many higher-level NPCs and PCs there are.

In Ravenloft the line of communication between the deity and the priest is not as clear. Know alignment only detect chaos and law in Ravenloft. Lots of spells like that are impacted in order to mitigate how they can impact horror adventures.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Chris24601 on June 08, 2021, 01:22:05 PM
However, as Terry Pratchet points out, this logic leads to the bizarre disturbing situation where good but guilt-ridden people go to hell, jerks who picket funerals go to heaven, and therefore it's vitally important to shoot missionaries on sight. I'm still trying to figure out that problem because that just doesn't sit well with me ethically.
I came up with a “novel” approach to that conundrum; Instead of a relatively mundane “Prime Material Plane” with fantastic otherworlds, I operate on the idea that my “Prime Material” IS the Otherworld akin to Narnia or Faerie that mortal (often modern) protagonists would travel to in fiction.

So my Mortal World includes all the fantastic terrain and critters you’d normally only encounter in the D&D planes (by way of a supernatural Cataclysm) and the actual afterlife and realms of the astral gods and primal spirits are completely unreachable by any PC species (one of the contingent requirements for a Raise Dead ritual is that the soul still has to linger in the Mortal World/not yet moved on).

As such, everything past the Mortal World has to be taken on faith. There are at least three different religions (three are all I cover for the section of the default setting I cover) based on the astral gods who only agree on the broadest points and the completely separate monotheistic Old Faith which itself has different interpretations akin to the Orthodox/Roman Catholic split depending on whether you’re dealing with one of the Remnant, Revival or Promisory communities.

There’s even a viable atheist movement, particularly strong among Arcanists, who argue the “gods” are nothing but rogue AI’s running inside the Arcane Web (basically that the gods are “sufficiently advanced technology”).

That allows sufficient wiggle room for the missionaries to not be stoned on sight and hope that regardless of whether the good might feel guilty and the wicked justified that they will wind up in the right place.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Pat on June 08, 2021, 03:16:16 PM
In general, you should not look to real-world religion at all when you design D&D theology and religion.
I disagree with this rather strongly, because real world religions are our basic frame of reference. They're also far richer than any fantasy religions, so incorporating elements from them can make religion in a campaign feel more real and tangible. The problem with purely made-up religions is they almost always feel fake and superficial.

Though I agree with the general thrust, that gods that are verifiably real are qualitatively different from gods in the real world, and that has some implications that should be considered.

Rather than addressing that in detail right now, I'm going to make a tangent and talk about a published campaign setting that deals with some of those issues in an interesting way.

What follows is spoilers for Valus.

In Destan's setting, the gods are real. They grant powers. And they live within the Sun, or more properly, the Sun is gateway that gives access to the divine realm, where the gods continually wage war against each other. This leads to clerical power waxing and waning. Big spells also require the direct approval of the god, and come with consequences. If you're raised from the dead, you'll be marked, and required to do something for the god.

So far, fairly standard. But the tagline of the setting is "A World Born without Love". There's a long backstory, but essentially the creator god lost her capacity for love when she was forced to kill her children. The regular gods are her new children, and inherited this trait. They are continually vying for power, and don't care for mortals at all, except in a what can you do for me sense.

This isn't widely know. Most people worship the god with reverence, and feel loved. The same is true for clerics -- until they learn how to cast spells like commune. At which point, they learn the truth.

Think about the implications. The high priests of the setting know the truth, but they didn't learn until late in their career. I assume a few might be devastated and retire in seclusion or go mad, but what would most people do if they learn the thing they spent the last 40 of their life on was a lie? The center of their faith might be hollowed out and they might feel empty, but most just go on. This works mechanically because power and spells aren't about belief or love, but about forms.

Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Shasarak on June 08, 2021, 04:44:32 PM
In general, you should not look to real-world religion at all when you design D&D theology and religion.  There would never be a Martin Luther of Pelor, because the Church of Pelor is in regular and direct communion with Pelor and Pelor's celestial hierarchy of agents.

Ah, you sweet summer child.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: jhkim on June 08, 2021, 05:12:11 PM
In general, you should not look to real-world religion at all when you design D&D theology and religion.
I disagree with this rather strongly, because real world religions are our basic frame of reference. They're also far richer than any fantasy religions, so incorporating elements from them can make religion in a campaign feel more real and tangible. The problem with purely made-up religions is they almost always feel fake and superficial.

Though I agree with the general thrust, that gods that are verifiably real are qualitatively different from gods in the real world, and that has some implications that should be considered.

Rather than addressing that in detail right now, I'm going to make a tangent and talk about a published campaign setting that deals with some of those issues in an interesting way.

What follows is spoilers for Valus.

I'm not familiar with Valus - thanks for the intro. I do note that it is advertised as having variant rules for clerics, paladins, and clerical magic.

https://www.diffworlds.com/valus.htm

I agree that it can be interesting to use real-world religions - but I think robertliguori is saying it doesn't fit well with the D&D rules as written. I think using variant rules can make things more workable. There was an excellent historical setting series for AD&D2E including Vikings, Charlemagne's Paladins, Celts, A Mighty Fortress, Glory of Rome, Age of Heroes, and The Crusades. I have three of these, and as I recall, they all suggest significant rules changes for clerics.

The Harn setting has a number of rival sects even within the worship of a single god like Agrik. These were inspired especially by historical religions like Celtic, Norse, and Roman. There were some interesting developments especially by the Harn Religion Team. (One of my Harn GMs was a member.)

https://www.lythia.com/hrt/
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Pat on June 08, 2021, 06:38:39 PM
In general, you should not look to real-world religion at all when you design D&D theology and religion.
I disagree with this rather strongly, because real world religions are our basic frame of reference. They're also far richer than any fantasy religions, so incorporating elements from them can make religion in a campaign feel more real and tangible. The problem with purely made-up religions is they almost always feel fake and superficial.

Though I agree with the general thrust, that gods that are verifiably real are qualitatively different from gods in the real world, and that has some implications that should be considered.

Rather than addressing that in detail right now, I'm going to make a tangent and talk about a published campaign setting that deals with some of those issues in an interesting way.

What follows is spoilers for Valus.

I'm not familiar with Valus - thanks for the intro. I do note that it is advertised as having variant rules for clerics, paladins, and clerical magic.
I told you that, literally in the next paragraph. Their power varies over time, to represent the gods warring with each other. And casting certain spells can involve a duty and a mark. Valus doesn't diverge a lot from the d20 system baseline, but does make a number of small changes to the rules, primarily adding new consequences or supporting the backstory. It's a fairly minimalist approach; the rules changes tend to be the minimum necessary to emphasize the themes of the setting.

If you're implying the changes are needed to fit the the alignment system, there really aren't any beyond a few guidelines, like the emphasis on form over true belief that I mentioned. It's less than the changes I suggested for a subjective alignment system.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: robertliguori on June 08, 2021, 11:55:01 PM
With regards to imperfect gods, I think that "No opinion." is pretty clear.  If Pelor cares about the degree of politicization on his church and wants to crack down on things like selling indulgences, he'll say so through various channels he has open, the Catholic-analogue priests will start losing power, and Martin Luther-analogue will gain new converts since their prayers work.  If Pelor approves of a strongly-integrated-and-political-church, he'll say so, Martin-Luther-analogue will get dinged for being a schismatic, and his prayers will stop working.  And if Pelor just wants the sun to shine, mortals to be healed and protected, and the beasts of darkness to be defended against and has no opinion on the politics of the churches of one continent, then he can say that, both the establishment and Martin-Luther-Analogue will be told to not get distracted on either worldly matters or reforming the church overmuch, and whichever of them doesn't shrug and get back to opening hospitals and sponsoring low-level PCs to raid dark dungeons will start losing power.

Again, the fact that the gods have multiple avenues to tell dissident priests to knock that shit off renders real-world religion a really bad metaphor for D&D religion.  You'll only get actual doctrinal wars if the god is provoking them himself for some reason, incredibly incompetent in how he manages his hierarchy of planar ally candidates and heralds, or if one or more sides are actually maliciously misrepresenting what they are seeing and hearing (which can be addressed by getting a few neutral third parties to also investigate).

---

The Valus case is interesting, but it also reveals the extent of what you need to change.  In D&D, good and evil are absolute concepts of the universe.  Orcus does not make undeath evil; undeath is evil, which is why it's a domain of evil gods and fiends. Destan's gods need to live in a non-stock planar area, because if they have turned their backs on mortals as anything other than ritual prayer batteries, then they'd get kicked out of the upper planes fairly quickly, and this would be noted and observed.  Hell, I don't know anything about the setting, but we can see that it's dropped the Great Wheel (and its later analogues), which raises questions as to if the gods of that world have fiendish or celestial servants, and what happens when the non-divine caster classes examine them.

As a deep setting lore issue, that sounds like an interesting twist, but not something that can really be supported in a default D&D setting, because there are too many other sources of wisdom other than the church.  Are there dragons who remember the original-flavor chief god and original pantheon, and can clearly see the difference? Are there continual issues with cults piling up, who take low-level clerical rituals that can be easily learned but get associated with made-up divinities, or just the cult leader themself?  And if the gods are both warring and uncaring, what happens when the war reaches a point where they decide that the prayer and ritual they'd get from terrified, obedient humans outstrips the slow, calcifying drip of Mother Church, and they show up and start smiting and demanding blood sacrifices?

---

I also feel that I should bring up one of my custom 'gods' that got extremely popular among my players.  The 'god' was a fallen(-ish) Solar celestial for whom the weight of the Grand Cosmic Plan got to be too much, went AWOL to the Prime, and just started doing as much good as he could with what was right in front of him, explicitly not caring for any kind of divine pact, balance of good and evil, or what opportunities he was allowing the forces of evil to sneak in from him deserting his place in the celestial order.  I left it ambiguous if it was his descent that kicked off the various world-threatening events of the campaign or if he was responding to them and buying the players time to level up and deal with the issues, but even with that potential issue, the players decided unanimously that a being whose response to the Problem of Evil was "I'm smiting as hard as I can! Did you have any suggestions? Or could I perhaps please deputize you to deal with the invading orc army over there?" was more honest, more courageous, and closer to what they saw as the actual essence of Good, and so they started proselytizing for and setting up churches to the solar, initially ironically, but eventually in earnest, leading to a rather moving conversation with a previously pantheistic paladin declaring that he'd lost his faith, but found something better.

---

Also, since its fluff doesn't get a lot of love here, I will say that one thing I like about 4E from a player perspective is that there is a concept called divine investiture.  The idea is that you get put onto the path of being a divine spellcasting class via either a ritual by a church, or just getting chosen by the divinity directly.  That is the bond you need to take divine-source class levels.  But it's all you need; once you get a divine investiture, it can't be withdrawn, and the gods can't micromanage your cleric's magic.  You can turn against the entire ethos of the god you've been invested with, and keep all your power; there was a branch of divine class members called Avengers whose job it was to work for the church and hunt down heretics.

It enabled actual doctrinal disputes to be more of a thing, since the 4E gods were also fairly distant, and it also meant that PCs could act in what they perceived the best way for their divine caster to act, without worrying about Asshole GMs turning them into substandard fighters because Drama.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Eirikrautha on June 09, 2021, 04:17:29 PM
The real crux is whether every published character and creature needs to be given an official alignment. What I really *don't* want is for alignment to be a straightjacket - i.e. an author has a cool character concept, but they get cut or edited because they don't fit the alignment system. On the other hand, if characters are published without regard for whether they fit alignment, then I think the assignments will be highly arbitrary - and the issue might as well be left to GMs to assign alignment based on their views and tastes.

Bigtime citation needed here.  I need to see a character concept (or three) that don't fit into the alignment system.  The system is so broad (and therefore flexible) that just about any personality can be wedged in there to a satisfactory degree.  You are, once again, engaging in the either-or fallacy: either alignment is a straight-jacket, or it's totally arbitrary.  No, there is the possibility that it works just fine for 95% of the cases and is just a little off for a handful of other exceptions, but not enough off to matter.  Which is how it usually works when used.  So I need examples of these "totally unique" character ideas.

The clearest case where alignment doesn't work well is when you have two sides who both consider themselves to be good, and the other side evil.

For example, I ran a short campaign that was set in 1600s era England, when there were massive tensions between Catholics and Protestants. Is it *possible* to use alignments in such a setting? Sure, it's possible. But I don't think it adds anything, and if anything muddles how to handle the conflicts. What is the alignment of someone who believes in the divine right of kings and restoring James to the throne versus someone who champions democracy? What about a Presbyterian and a Catholic?

Other settings are historically inspired, like HarnWorld. For example, I played in a game where our characters were all missionaries for the worship of Ilvir. We had different values than those who worship Larani, the more traditional good goddess. But to us, individuality and creativity were more important than the chivalry and conformity of the Laranians. We were the equivalent of a strange sect like the Society of Universal Friends or Mormons. And many were repulsed by us, but we gained some followers. Were we good? Were the Laranians who opposed us evil? Were we both neutral despite considering ourselves good?

Or in my Vinland campaign, there were conflicts between the Norse and their Algonquian allies, and the encroaching Haudenosaunee. The Norse considered themselves good, but they still went on raids as a matter of course, to collect good and slaves. And the Haudenosaunee were much the same.

While it is possible to attach alignments, I don't see that it improves the game compared to not using alignment.

So I ask for a character concept (in D&D, obviously), and you respond with Catholics and Protestants?  Or Harn?  That's like being asked for a good druid concept for D&D and responding with a reference to chaos priests in WH40K.  Who cares if alignment doesn't cover every real word situation?  It covers the situations that matter, characters in Dungeons and Dragons (perhaps you've heard of it?).  About which, I'm still waiting on examples of character concepts that cannot fit into the alignment system.  (BTW, Catholic vs. Protestant is so obviously LG vs CG that even an atheist could figure it out...)
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Chris24601 on June 09, 2021, 05:53:17 PM
So I ask for a character concept (in D&D, obviously), and you respond with Catholics and Protestants?  Or Harn?  That's like being asked for a good druid concept for D&D and responding with a reference to chaos priests in WH40K.  Who cares if alignment doesn't cover every real word situation?  It covers the situations that matter, characters in Dungeons and Dragons (perhaps you've heard of it?).  About which, I'm still waiting on examples of character concepts that cannot fit into the alignment system.  (BTW, Catholic vs. Protestant is so obviously LG vs CG that even an atheist could figure it out...)
Except that some of the Protestants had even more rigid dogma than the Catholics (Hell, half* of Luther’s 95 thesis basically amounted to “The Church is not rigorously enforcing X rule that my insane scrupuloucity demands be enforced”). So CG is NOT obvious to some who’ve actually studied this as part of courses on apologetics.

Also, you are aware that D&D has long been used to roleplay in various historical settings, yes? During the TSR-era how to use the system for various historical periods and places were the subject of multiple Dragon Magazine articles. The idea that D&D exclusively means LotR knockoffs is something you’ll only find coming from WotC’s mouthpieces.

The fact is, jhkim brought up a perfectly valid campaign type that D&D has long been used for where the D&D alignment system would decidedly not be a good addition and even counterproductive. You’re just shift goalposts now because he knocked that one cleanly between the posts.

* since you seem excessively literal, I feel the need to point out that I am using this in the subjective sense of “more than just many, but not all, because I don’t actually feel like going to reference them for an exact count just for an internet discussion of morality in elfgames.”
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Toran Ironfinder on June 09, 2021, 06:00:47 PM
Robert's made a good point here. In fact, the word 'faith' in a religious context probably is not the same as what we would consider it, since it is a fact in these settings (except for maybe Eberron) that the god is out there. And if there is a doctrinal dispute, there are spells that can be used to resolve it.

This is an interesting conundrum; I may need to contemplate it for a while myself.
In Classic Play: The Book of the Planes (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/1673/The-Book-of-the-Planes) by Mongoose, they mention something about maybe the GM could have gods be flawed and not know the answer to doctrinal disputes. (emphasis mine):

Quote
Part of the charm of a plane-hopping game is encountering truly bizarre phenomena, philosophies and entities, and being able to deal with cosmological questions like the meaning of life and death directly, on a practical level. The downside of this is that there is always one player who nitpicks or finds fault with explanations. Be prepared for questions like ‘why is there farming (or mining, or whatever) when there’s an infinite plane of food (or minerals, or whatever)?’, ‘how can there be different versions of the same religion when a cleric can just pop into the god’s home plane and ask for clarification?’, or ‘why do people live here when there is that portal to a much nicer plane that we just came through?’ Even the best Games Master can get tripped up sometimes, especially in strange environments where a lot of assumptions no longer apply.
Quote
Stealing the player’s ideas: Whenever any objection is raised, people will try to rationalise it – ‘people don’t mine the plane of Earth because it is too dangerous’, ‘the god allows different versions of the same faith because he’s undecided himself’ and so on. Listen to your players and do not be afraid to borrow their solutions

I don't like the typical D&D approach to religion precisely because of its ahistoricity (and because different writers write different things and can't agree on theology). I prefer to write religion that is based on actual religious psychology. The Eberron approach where divine magic comes from belief is extremely useful to me. By positing that spells are colored by the belief of the caster then you can set up religious schisms where both sides believe they are right because their "god" told them and can even summon "angels" to fight for them. Naturally, both sides will assume that the other side is consorting with demons.

Technically D&D already operates on "belief makes reality" according to Planescape, but Eberron is the first setting to actually put that into practice.

However, as Terry Pratchet points out, this logic leads to the bizarre disturbing situation where good but guilt-ridden people go to hell, jerks who picket funerals go to heaven, and therefore it's vitally important to shoot missionaries on sight. I'm still trying to figure out that problem because that just doesn't sit well with me ethically.

Modern Relativism is an outgrowth of problems for ethics growing out of materialism, which is not an assumption of DnD fictional worlds. Materialism cannot coexist with universal ethical prescriptions, said prescriptions cannot be true within a materialist system, because material/energy/reactions/whatever cannot bring them into existence. Existentialism, non-reductive materialism, etc., are attempted solutions, though I tend to consider them either arbitrary in terms of systems such as existentialism, or incoherent in the cases such of non-reductive materialism.

Secondarily, moderns in the west are heirs to perfect being theology, which is incompatible by definition with polytheism, the conception of a god in such systems is very different from Christian, Jewish or Islamic worldviews. If using real world religions, at a minimum, monotheistic beliefs would need to be excluded, though you could read up on Roman, Greek, etc., which will be distinct from their mythologies in many respects.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: jhkim on June 09, 2021, 06:26:33 PM
The clearest case where alignment doesn't work well is when you have two sides who both consider themselves to be good, and the other side evil.

For example, I ran a short campaign that was set in 1600s era England, when there were massive tensions between Catholics and Protestants. Is it *possible* to use alignments in such a setting? Sure, it's possible. But I don't think it adds anything, and if anything muddles how to handle the conflicts. What is the alignment of someone who believes in the divine right of kings and restoring James to the throne versus someone who champions democracy? What about a Presbyterian and a Catholic?

So I ask for a character concept (in D&D, obviously), and you respond with Catholics and Protestants?  Or Harn?  That's like being asked for a good druid concept for D&D and responding with a reference to chaos priests in WH40K.  Who cares if alignment doesn't cover every real word situation?  It covers the situations that matter, characters in Dungeons and Dragons (perhaps you've heard of it?).  About which, I'm still waiting on examples of character concepts that cannot fit into the alignment system.  (BTW, Catholic vs. Protestant is so obviously LG vs CG that even an atheist could figure it out...)

D&D isn't limited to the Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk. It also has real world settings with Protestants and Catholics - like these:

(https://www.drivethrurpg.com/images/44/16916.jpg)

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16916/HR4-A-Mighty-Fortress-Campaign-Sourcebook-2e

(https://www.drivethrurpg.com/images/44/17513.jpg)

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17513/The-Gothic-Earth-Gazetteer-2e

Your claim was that alignment was so broad that it can handle anything, but now it sounds like you're saying that handling anything means only handling fantasy worlds that are designed for D&D with the D&D alignment system in mind. My point is that this is inherently limiting. I have nothing against Greyhawk or the Forgotten Realms - but I also like other settings. For example, the Harn setting isn't limited to a single system. I've played games set in Harn using HarnMaster but also using GURPS and Burning Wheel.

As for Catholics being lawful and Protestants chaotic -- I'd posit a Gothic Earth game where one PC is a Catholic Irish Fenian who supports rebellion against English law (but respects the Catholic church), while another PC is an Anglican priest who works within English law. Which is lawful and which is chaotic?

I'm not saying that alignment is broken - but I think that games can be interesting and different if one drops the alignment system, and that this isn't the same thing as soulless SJWism.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Eirikrautha on June 09, 2021, 06:44:27 PM
So I ask for a character concept (in D&D, obviously), and you respond with Catholics and Protestants?  Or Harn?  That's like being asked for a good druid concept for D&D and responding with a reference to chaos priests in WH40K.  Who cares if alignment doesn't cover every real word situation?  It covers the situations that matter, characters in Dungeons and Dragons (perhaps you've heard of it?).  About which, I'm still waiting on examples of character concepts that cannot fit into the alignment system.  (BTW, Catholic vs. Protestant is so obviously LG vs CG that even an atheist could figure it out...)
Except that some of the Protestants had even more rigid dogma than the Catholics (Hell, half* of Luther’s 95 thesis basically amounted to “The Church is not rigorously enforcing X rule that my insane scrupuloucity demands be enforced”). So CG is NOT obvious to some who’ve actually studied this as part of courses on apologetics.

Also, you are aware that D&D has long been used to roleplay in various historical settings, yes? During the TSR-era how to use the system for various historical periods and places were the subject of multiple Dragon Magazine articles. The idea that D&D exclusively means LotR knockoffs is something you’ll only find coming from WotC’s mouthpieces.

The fact is, jhkim brought up a perfectly valid campaign type that D&D has long been used for where the D&D alignment system would decidedly not be a good addition and even counterproductive. You’re just shift goalposts now because he knocked that one cleanly between the posts.

* since you seem excessively literal, I feel the need to point out that I am using this in the subjective sense of “more than just many, but not all, because I don’t actually feel like going to reference them for an exact count just for an internet discussion of morality in elfgames.”
Thank goodness a disinterested party came by to help support jhkim.  Oh, wait, we've already established you don't like the mechanics of OD&D (because of some personal "trauma") and also dislike alignment mechanics.  So it must take some rigorous evidence to persuade you to agree with him... *eye roll*

No goalposts were shifted.  The thread is about Ravenloft and D&D.  Pundit criticized the removal of alignment from a D&D setting and got pushback from the usual suspects. Jhkim, not Pundit or me, brought up non-D&D settings (because he is incapable of answering questions without deflection).  I don't care what other settings you personally try to use D&D mechanics for, because the subject is D&D and games designed for its mechanics.  Now, provide some examples of character concepts in a D&D game that can't be represent by alignment.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Eirikrautha on June 09, 2021, 06:59:19 PM
Your claim was that alignment was so broad that it can handle anything, but now it sounds like you're saying that handling anything means only handling fantasy worlds that are designed for D&D with the D&D alignment system in mind. My point is that this is inherently limiting.
All mechanical systems create limitations.  That's not even an argument.  By using hit points you are limiting the ways you can represent damage and threats.  That's not a limitation, it's a feature of every system. 

And we're not just talking about fantasy settings.  We're talking D&D mechanics and settings designed for D&D mechanics.  That's the point.  Ravenloft is designed for PbtA or Fate or GURPS.  It IS designed for D&D mechanics.  That's the point.  If you have to go beyond a character playable with D&D mechanics to prove your point, it's not proven.

I'm not saying that alignment is broken - but I think that games can be interesting and different if one drops the alignment system, and that this isn't the same thing as soulless SJWism.

If alignment is being dropped for mechanical reasons, you might have an argument.  What indications do you have that it is?  We have quite a bit of circumstantial evidence that it isn't (especially considering the other changes made in Ravenloft).  Show me where the designers have mentioned that reason, because there's a nice chunk of interviews where they talk about changing the setting for "inclusivity" and woke.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Toran Ironfinder on June 09, 2021, 07:15:55 PM
The clearest case where alignment doesn't work well is when you have two sides who both consider themselves to be good, and the other side evil.

For example, I ran a short campaign that was set in 1600s era England, when there were massive tensions between Catholics and Protestants. Is it *possible* to use alignments in such a setting? Sure, it's possible. But I don't think it adds anything, and if anything muddles how to handle the conflicts. What is the alignment of someone who believes in the divine right of kings and restoring James to the throne versus someone who champions democracy? What about a Presbyterian and a Catholic?

So I ask for a character concept (in D&D, obviously), and you respond with Catholics and Protestants?  Or Harn?  That's like being asked for a good druid concept for D&D and responding with a reference to chaos priests in WH40K.  Who cares if alignment doesn't cover every real word situation?  It covers the situations that matter, characters in Dungeons and Dragons (perhaps you've heard of it?).  About which, I'm still waiting on examples of character concepts that cannot fit into the alignment system.  (BTW, Catholic vs. Protestant is so obviously LG vs CG that even an atheist could figure it out...)

D&D isn't limited to the Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk. It also has real world settings with Protestants and Catholics - like these:

(https://www.drivethrurpg.com/images/44/16916.jpg)

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16916/HR4-A-Mighty-Fortress-Campaign-Sourcebook-2e

(https://www.drivethrurpg.com/images/44/17513.jpg)

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17513/The-Gothic-Earth-Gazetteer-2e

Your claim was that alignment was so broad that it can handle anything, but now it sounds like you're saying that handling anything means only handling fantasy worlds that are designed for D&D with the D&D alignment system in mind. My point is that this is inherently limiting. I have nothing against Greyhawk or the Forgotten Realms - but I also like other settings. For example, the Harn setting isn't limited to a single system. I've played games set in Harn using HarnMaster but also using GURPS and Burning Wheel.

As for Catholics being lawful and Protestants chaotic -- I'd posit a Gothic Earth game where one PC is a Catholic Irish Fenian who supports rebellion against English law (but respects the Catholic church), while another PC is an Anglican priest who works within English law. Which is lawful and which is chaotic?

I'm not saying that alignment is broken - but I think that games can be interesting and different if one drops the alignment system, and that this isn't the same thing as soulless SJWism.

Arguing alignment is world dependent seems to digress from the question of ravenloft, as I noted earlier, DND back in the day seemed to include worldbuilding elements in the class system, which is why the classes in historic settings required amending. Many of the classic DnD settings, including ravenloft and Dragonlance setting, seem to require it. The problem isn't whether it is needed generically.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Shasarak on June 09, 2021, 07:47:41 PM
Also, you are aware that D&D has long been used to roleplay in various historical settings, yes? During the TSR-era how to use the system for various historical periods and places were the subject of multiple Dragon Magazine articles. The idea that D&D exclusively means LotR knockoffs is something you’ll only find coming from WotC’s mouthpieces.

The fact is, jhkim brought up a perfectly valid campaign type that D&D has long been used for where the D&D alignment system would decidedly not be a good addition and even counterproductive. You’re just shift goalposts now because he knocked that one cleanly between the posts.

There is no evidence to suggest that a worshiper of Pelor Alpha would have to be any different alignment to a worshiper of Pelor Beta.

Infact if historical religions prove anything it is that religions can be split along completely secular lines.  What would Pelors answer be to the question of clergy wearing blue hats compared to yellow hats?  Would a yellow hatted Pelorite be a different alignment to a blue hatted Pelorite?
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: jhkim on June 09, 2021, 09:41:21 PM
I'm not saying that alignment is broken - but I think that games can be interesting and different if one drops the alignment system, and that this isn't the same thing as soulless SJWism.

Arguing alignment is world dependent seems to digress from the question of ravenloft, as I noted earlier, DND back in the day seemed to include worldbuilding elements in the class system, which is why the classes in historic settings required amending. Many of the classic DnD settings, including ravenloft and Dragonlance setting, seem to require it. The problem isn't whether it is needed generically.

OK - if we want to focus on Ravenloft. Thus far, I've run the original Ravenloft modules multiple times, and I've also run my own non-D&D gothic horror games -- but I've never run a game set in the demi-plane Ravenloft setting, as I dislike the demi-plane concept. But let's say I get over my dislike, and I run a game set in Ravenloft, and I don't use alignment in my games.

How do you think that a game that uses alignment would be different from my game?

In my non-alignment-using game, I would learn towards running subplots of temptation and corruption, as I discussed in the thread "Temptation and Corruption in Horror Games" (https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-roleplaying-games-rpgs-discussion/temptation-and-corruption-in-horror-games/). I also think this is in line with the 5E Ravenloft book. For example, here is a section from their chapter on creating domains (page 40),

Quote
Corrupt Beyond Redemption

Darklords aren't misunderstood souls condemned through no fault of their own. If a person's potential for evil is particularly great, the Dark Powers might indirectly nurture further transgression, but they don't force individuals to undertake actions against their will. When an evildoer's wickedness ripens, the Dark Powers engulf them forever.

When creating your Darklord, consider the depth of their greatest evil and what made it more significant, abominable, or poetic than more common forms of villainy. The following elements all might be aspects of this corruption:

Evil Acts. The Dark Powers consider an act to be evil if it is intentional, unnecessary, and successful, and most importantly, if it causes significant harm. Accidents, self-defense, deeds necessary for survival, and forced or coerced actions do not qualify. Early in the character's creation, consider what evils your Darklord performed, and revisit these crimes as you develop the villain's other details.

Those Harmed. The people the Darklord harmed need to feel real. Give them names. Imbue them with agency, and don't define them as victims or props. The people who survived the Darklord's evil might be part of a Darklord's history or allies who join the players' characters, or might hold the key to righting the Darklord's wrongs. For each character, consider whether they were important to the Darklord and how that relationship changed.

Irredeemable. Once the Dark Powers take an evil person, that individual's fate is sealed. Before the final corruption, a person can atone--but only if they take genuine responsibility, heal the harm caused, and reform to prevent future harm. Once an evildoer becomes a Darklord, it is far too late. Consider whether your Darklord had a chance to redeem themself and the decision that led to their current fate.

As far as this goes, this sounds fine to me. On the other hand, my distaste for the demi-plane setting is mostly that it is inherently hopeless. Even if the characters do defeat a Darklord, it's not clear that anything is improved. A new Darklord will just arise or the old one restored.

I think my approach would be that each domain could potentially be freed from the demi-plane if the Darklord is defeated in a proper way -- such that justice is served and another Darklord isn't created. Then the people of the domain are freed, but the PCs are swallowed by the mists and brought to another domain. Over the course of the campaign, there would be a suggestion that even the Dark Powers themselves might be defeated and/or escape from the demi-plane is possible. Alternately, I might take a nod from a Dreamlands campaign, and have that the characters think they are dreaming.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Toran Ironfinder on June 09, 2021, 10:53:15 PM
Not a DnD expert, though as I understand it alignment is objective and descriptive, it is not a measure of the PCs view of themselves, but an attempt to objectively describe the characters actions by the DM, thus its not merely what is written on the page. Actions that shift the characters actions have in-game consequences, such as clerics violating their ethos, and losing their ability to cast spells unless they atoned. As I understand it, evil in Ravenloft led to rolling on a chart that had similar degenerative consequences, turning into a monster. Paladins likewise could lose their abilities, if their alignment shifted in play. That is, in many DND games the characters alignment has an impact on their abilities and their place in the world, in dragonlance, alignment influenced what objects you could use, as I understand it. Sort of like WEG's Star Wars game, too many DSPs, and you are an NPC villain.

If you want to go sans alignment, sure, fine, but to do what you are doing with Ravenloft means you have something different from Canon Ravenloft because of the way alignment interacts with rules. The problem with changing Drow etc. is one of the world's metaphysical/cultural/ historical continuity. Whatever you have isn't Ravenloft anymore, which is OK for your own game, but I think its a problem for the Publisher. That is, it's not merely a temptation by dark powers thst causes degeneration, but also responses to one's own willingness to take the easy route to solving a problem. The good evil alignment is baked into the system in the campaign world, and in the general DnD cosmology.

Also the Lord's of the demiplanes, again in my understanding, can't be defeated, they can be redeemed, but Ravenloft is a type of punishment for their evil deeds. That is, you really aren't doing Ravenloft anymore, you are still homebrewing, but using the campaign setting as a starting point. Again, for your own setting it isn't an issue, it is an issue for a publisher, as changing continuity drastically leads to a low quality product.  if I were creating a setting, I would eliminate Neutral entirely, and use a DSP approach to evil and a reputation system (murder hobos should face consequences from civil authorities), but I don't think that works in most of the DnD primes as written, and I would consider it unwise to do that for the next edition of the realms, for example.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: jhkim on June 10, 2021, 01:11:59 AM
If you want to go sans alignment, sure, fine, but to do what you are doing with Ravenloft means you have something different from Canon Ravenloft because of the way alignment interacts with rules. The problem with changing Drow etc. is one of the world's metaphysical/cultural/ historical continuity. Whatever you have isn't Ravenloft anymore, which is OK for your own game, but I think its a problem for the Publisher.

My main question is, how different is what I'd do without alignment as someone who plays Ravenloft with alignment? I've always generally ignored alignment in my D&D games, so I expect I'd do the same with Ravenloft.

Other than the trivial "well, then you don't fill in the alignment box on the character sheet", how is actual play different? If someone were playing in a canonical Ravenloft game and came over to my game, what would they notice?
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Toran Ironfinder on June 10, 2021, 03:24:01 AM
Well it would change the mechanic of degeneration rolls for one thing; clerics and others losing abilities for violating their ethos on another; a Paladin stops behaving lawfully, forever loses his Paladin abilities unless it was caused by magical means, similar things were true as I recall for Rangers. Some magical devices will cease to work. Alignment, afterall, doesn't necessarily always follow what is on the sheet, that is a meaningless point, if that is all it is, then the thing is being used wrongly. Alignment is a description of the character's practice, and defines something of how that practice affects his relationships with higher powers. As I'm not a DnD player, I couldn't go beyond those points, other than to suggest, its like trying to suggest we can play a Star Wars RPG without something like DSPs to provide a mechanic for falling to the Dark Side. I've read a copy of the handbook, it seems to function similarly for some important character classes. IN both cases you have a worldbuilding element that has been included in the ruleset.

Lets say someone wanted to play Dragonlance, but didn't like Kender, so they eliminated that race from existence. Its Dragonlancesque; Dragonlance with a personal twist, but to say it is Dragonlance would have people shaking their heads. If WOTC made that move, and claimed they were selling the New Dragonlance game (it turns out, Kender were a figment of everyone's collective imaginations), you would have people suggesting that passing off the new product as Dragonlance was dishonest, and they would be right, its somewhat fundamental to the setting. The type of changes you are suggesting is similar. Ditto for eliminating spell preparation/memorization. Some people want to play Ravenloft, not a Ravenloftesque setting.  Your approach of using shades of gray, rather than the everything is evil vibe of Ravenloft is a shift from Ravenloft to Ravenloftesque, like it or not. Despair is central to the setting, find a way to escape Ravenloft, yes, but the idea it can be fixed, again, you are no longer playing Ravenloft, you are playing a Ravenloftesque setting. Defeating a Dreadlord is again another shift from Ravenloft to Ravenloftesque, the Dread Lords are their to be punished and contained, unless and until they change (such as with Lord Soth).  You will lose something significant in the qualia, now if you don't like that qualia, and prefer a Ravenloftesque game, as you basically stated, and your group goes along with it, and that isn't a problem for your group, great, it is your game. It something you all should discuss first, but hey if it works for your group, great. It may have other uses, a lot of people don't allow evil PCs in a game, that would be my preference both as a GM and a player.

 But it would seem to me that it would obviously be viewed as problematic by Ravenloft fans if those types of changes were made in a campaign setting; longtime fans of the game want the real thing; Dragonlance fans like Kender to some degree in their game or they would play something else. Seems to me, the Vets know the specific the qualia of the specific settings well enough to understand when they are being handed a counterfeit. 
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on June 10, 2021, 07:58:16 AM
If you want to go sans alignment, sure, fine, but to do what you are doing with Ravenloft means you have something different from Canon Ravenloft because of the way alignment interacts with rules. The problem with changing Drow etc. is one of the world's metaphysical/cultural/ historical continuity. Whatever you have isn't Ravenloft anymore, which is OK for your own game, but I think its a problem for the Publisher.

My main question is, how different is what I'd do without alignment as someone who plays Ravenloft with alignment? I've always generally ignored alignment in my D&D games, so I expect I'd do the same with Ravenloft.

Other than the trivial "well, then you don't fill in the alignment box on the character sheet", how is actual play different? If someone were playing in a canonical Ravenloft game and came over to my game, what would they notice?

One way it would be changed specific to Ravenloft is, at least I believe by the Red Boxed Set, the way powers checks work, the probability of attracting the dark powers attention factors in the alignment of victims (so there is a difference between torturing a good NPC and an evil character, or breaking a vow to a good god versus an evil one). This wasn't the case in the black boxed set. But it became the standard. Most other differences would be similar to those you would have in a normal D&D game: magic items keyed to alignment, spells that detect alignment (but again in Ravenloft only law and chaos can be detected), etc. I don't think Ravenloft is uniquely dependent on alignment compared to other settings. But it would still be a change. And I think if you took it a step further and didn't try to have a sense of what constitutes good and evil in the game, managing something like powers could be hard, and the classic horror tone could be hard to hit (that doesn't require alignment but you do need a sense that good and evil exists for something like powers checks to work)
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: HappyDaze on June 10, 2021, 08:44:14 AM
Well it would change the mechanic of degeneration rolls for one thing; clerics and others losing abilities for violating their ethos on another; a Paladin stops behaving lawfully, forever loses his Paladin abilities unless it was caused by magical means, similar things were true as I recall for Rangers. Some magical devices will cease to work. Alignment, afterall, doesn't necessarily always follow what is on the sheet, that is a meaningless point, if that is all it is, then the thing is being used wrongly. Alignment is a description of the character's practice, and defines something of how that practice affects his relationships with higher powers. As I'm not a DnD player, I couldn't go beyond those points, other than to suggest, its like trying to suggest we can play a Star Wars RPG without something like DSPs to provide a mechanic for falling to the Dark Side. I've read a copy of the handbook, it seems to function similarly for some important character classes. IN both cases you have a worldbuilding element that has been included in the ruleset.

Lets say someone wanted to play Dragonlance, but didn't like Kender, so they eliminated that race from existence. Its Dragonlancesque; Dragonlance with a personal twist, but to say it is Dragonlance would have people shaking their heads. If WOTC made that move, and claimed they were selling the New Dragonlance game (it turns out, Kender were a figment of everyone's collective imaginations), you would have people suggesting that passing off the new product as Dragonlance was dishonest, and they would be right, its somewhat fundamental to the setting. The type of changes you are suggesting is similar. Ditto for eliminating spell preparation/memorization. Some people want to play Ravenloft, not a Ravenloftesque setting.  Your approach of using shades of gray, rather than the everything is evil vibe of Ravenloft is a shift from Ravenloft to Ravenloftesque, like it or not. Despair is central to the setting, find a way to escape Ravenloft, yes, but the idea it can be fixed, again, you are no longer playing Ravenloft, you are playing a Ravenloftesque setting. Defeating a Dreadlord is again another shift from Ravenloft to Ravenloftesque, the Dread Lords are their to be punished and contained, unless and until they change (such as with Lord Soth).  You will lose something significant in the qualia, now if you don't like that qualia, and prefer a Ravenloftesque game, as you basically stated, and your group goes along with it, and that isn't a problem for your group, great, it is your game. It something you all should discuss first, but hey if it works for your group, great. It may have other uses, a lot of people don't allow evil PCs in a game, that would be my preference both as a GM and a player.

 But it would seem to me that it would obviously be viewed as problematic by Ravenloft fans if those types of changes were made in a campaign setting; longtime fans of the game want the real thing; Dragonlance fans like Kender to some degree in their game or they would play something else. Seems to me, the Vets know the specific the qualia of the specific settings well enough to understand when they are being handed a counterfeit.
Your assumptions on how clerics & paladins interact with alignment and how the Dark Side is handled in Star Wars shows that you haven't really looked at how games have been doing it for the last decade or so. If the Raveloft product looks like changes out of the blue, go back and see what D&D has been doing since (at least) 2008 (4e) and 2014 (5e) as well as what Star Wars has done since 2013 (FFG). Alignment was still there, but not like you suggest, and the Dark Side is no longer quite what you might expect.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Toran Ironfinder on June 10, 2021, 11:42:28 AM
I've seen the FFG Star Warsesque product, it really isn't star wars anymore, and I won't be playing it as a result. But, Disney's custodianshjp of the force is dishonest in much the same way, though this had been a problem since the prequels, people seem to think the darkside and the "lightside" are balanced, actually Lucas viewed the darkside as an infection in the force, and it's existence was the imbalance and never used the phrase lightside. I would expect this was explained when Disney took over the property, but it could be simply poor interpretationsal skills.


This particular problem has been true of discussions I've heard about recent editions, there were similar complaints.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Omega on June 10, 2021, 11:46:34 AM
D&D isn't limited to the Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk. It also has real world settings with Protestants and Catholics - like these:

As for Catholics being lawful and Protestants chaotic -- I'd posit a Gothic Earth game where one PC is a Catholic Irish Fenian who supports rebellion against English law (but respects the Catholic church), while another PC is an Anglican priest who works within English law. Which is lawful and which is chaotic?

I'm not saying that alignment is broken - but I think that games can be interesting and different if one drops the alignment system, and that this isn't the same thing as soulless SJWism.

1: Exactly. And the little fact that Alignment in D&D is not set in stone. Its what your character starts at and from there could end up anywhere.

2: In your example The PC is probably something like CG (Or CN or even CE depending on how violent or indescriminant their actions are.) Their respect for the church is irrelevant unless their actions lean more to following the church more and rebellion less. Then could be anything from LG to NG to whatever.

3: Alignment works fine long as everyone is aware its not set in stone and possibly not what they think it is. So say the priest above actually sits in the middle between rebellion and doctrine then maybe they start as NG. Or LG with an N leaning. Which is how you were supposed to notate alignments in AD&D and probably 2e.

But over the course of play the priest starts to get more and more rebellion supporter so over time their alignment starts to drift into N and possibly even C territory. Theres alot of RP potential in fighting the slide. Or clawing ones way out of the hole they dug themselves into. Or even in digging that hole and leaping in.

Alignment used well works. But like everything else, used badly, it fails, and potentially fails miserably.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Omega on June 10, 2021, 12:04:33 PM
Arguing alignment is world dependent seems to digress from the question of ravenloft, as I noted earlier, DND back in the day seemed to include worldbuilding elements in the class system, which is why the classes in historic settings required amending. Many of the classic DnD settings, including ravenloft and Dragonlance setting, seem to require it. The problem isn't whether it is needed generically.

Dragonlance did not amend alignment. They just added a tracker to the system for ease of keeping notes on where a character was. TSR I believe even put out an alignment tracker wheel way back. Ravenloft did not either far as know. But with that been a while.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: HappyDaze on June 10, 2021, 12:12:53 PM
I've seen the FFG Star Warsesque product, it really isn't star wars anymore, and I won't be playing it as a result. But, Disney's custodianshjp of the force is dishonest in much the same way, though this had been a problem since the prequels, people seem to think the darkside and the "lightside" are balanced, actually Lucas viewed the darkside as an infection in the force, and it's existence was the imbalance and never used the phrase lightside. I would expect this was explained when Disney took over the property, but it could be simply poor interpretationsal skills.


This particular problem has been true of discussions I've heard about recent editions, there were similar complaints.
There are a lot of people that bought & played FFG's Star Wars that would disagree with you. It may not be your Star Wars as you choose to remember it, but it's still Star Wars to many.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: jhkim on June 10, 2021, 12:40:14 PM
My main question is, how different is what I'd do without alignment as someone who plays Ravenloft with alignment? I've always generally ignored alignment in my D&D games, so I expect I'd do the same with Ravenloft.

Other than the trivial "well, then you don't fill in the alignment box on the character sheet", how is actual play different? If someone were playing in a canonical Ravenloft game and came over to my game, what would they notice?

One way it would be changed specific to Ravenloft is, at least I believe by the Red Boxed Set, the way powers checks work, the probability of attracting the dark powers attention factors in the alignment of victims (so there is a difference between torturing a good NPC and an evil character, or breaking a vow to a good god versus an evil one). This wasn't the case in the black boxed set. But it became the standard. Most other differences would be similar to those you would have in a normal D&D game: magic items keyed to alignment, spells that detect alignment (but again in Ravenloft only law and chaos can be detected), etc. I don't think Ravenloft is uniquely dependent on alignment compared to other settings. But it would still be a change. And I think if you took it a step further and didn't try to have a sense of what constitutes good and evil in the game, managing something like powers could be hard, and the classic horror tone could be hard to hit (that doesn't require alignment but you do need a sense that good and evil exists for something like powers checks to work)

The key part is the bolded section, which I think is a fundamental category error. As a parallel, many RPGs have specific personality mechanics where each PC has mechanically-assigned traits like "Greedy". Sometimes, proponents of these mechanics will say things like "Well, if you play in a game without these mechanics, then all characters are lifeless and have no personality." I find that in practice, this is simply not the case. Characters having personality is not the same thing as personality mechanics.

The same thing is true with alignment. Not having alignment mechanics has nothing to do with whether there is good and evil in a game. And that's explicitly not the case in 5E Ravenloft. For example, did you read the 5E section on Darklord corruption that I posted? Here it is again:

Quote
Corrupt Beyond Redemption

Darklords aren't misunderstood souls condemned through no fault of their own. If a person's potential for evil is particularly great, the Dark Powers might indirectly nurture further transgression, but they don't force individuals to undertake actions against their will. When an evildoer's wickedness ripens, the Dark Powers engulf them forever.

When creating your Darklord, consider the depth of their greatest evil and what made it more significant, abominable, or poetic than more common forms of villainy. The following elements all might be aspects of this corruption:

Evil Acts. The Dark Powers consider an act to be evil if it is intentional, unnecessary, and successful, and most importantly, if it causes significant harm. Accidents, self-defense, deeds necessary for survival, and forced or coerced actions do not qualify. Early in the character's creation, consider what evils your Darklord performed, and revisit these crimes as you develop the villain's other details.

Those Harmed. The people the Darklord harmed need to feel real. Give them names. Imbue them with agency, and don't define them as victims or props. The people who survived the Darklord's evil might be part of a Darklord's history or allies who join the players' characters, or might hold the key to righting the Darklord's wrongs. For each character, consider whether they were important to the Darklord and how that relationship changed.

Irredeemable. Once the Dark Powers take an evil person, that individual's fate is sealed. Before the final corruption, a person can atone--but only if they take genuine responsibility, heal the harm caused, and reform to prevent future harm. Once an evildoer becomes a Darklord, it is far too late. Consider whether your Darklord had a chance to redeem themself and the decision that led to their current fate.

In practice, I've played plenty of fantasy games and horror games that don't use alignment. Also, when I wasn't DM, I've played in some D&D games where alignment was technically in use. I found that the mechanics rarely came up. The few cases I recall were:

1) In theory, Know Alignment could be used to short-circuit mysteries by just casting on all the suspects to see who was evil - but DMs would find ways around this or simply not run mysteries.

2) In earlier editions, there was possibility that the DM could impose XP penalties if someone didn't play their alignment, but that never came up in my games and has been dropped as part of alignment being descriptive rather than a straightjacket.

3) Magic items keyed to alignment were rare in my experience, and it just meant a slight reshuffling of loot. I found this sort of item was more of a big deal in a game without alignment. For example, if the characters got a holy relic that could only be used by someone pure of heart, it was much more interesting.

I haven't played with Dark Powers checks, but I'm also not sure how much it would be affected. For example, you cited "there is a difference between torturing a good NPC and an evil character".

In practice, if the PCs tortured an NPC, would you really look on the character sheet to see what that NPCs designated alignment is to determine whether the PCs were doing wrong? This seems like the sort of thing that I would generally judge without mechanics.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on June 10, 2021, 12:53:17 PM
Robert's made a good point here. In fact, the word 'faith' in a religious context probably is not the same as what we would consider it, since it is a fact in these settings (except for maybe Eberron) that the god is out there. And if there is a doctrinal dispute, there are spells that can be used to resolve it.

This is an interesting conundrum; I may need to contemplate it for a while myself.
In Classic Play: The Book of the Planes (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/1673/The-Book-of-the-Planes) by Mongoose, they mention something about maybe the GM could have gods be flawed and not know the answer to doctrinal disputes. (emphasis mine):

Quote
Part of the charm of a plane-hopping game is encountering truly bizarre phenomena, philosophies and entities, and being able to deal with cosmological questions like the meaning of life and death directly, on a practical level. The downside of this is that there is always one player who nitpicks or finds fault with explanations. Be prepared for questions like ‘why is there farming (or mining, or whatever) when there’s an infinite plane of food (or minerals, or whatever)?’, ‘how can there be different versions of the same religion when a cleric can just pop into the god’s home plane and ask for clarification?’, or ‘why do people live here when there is that portal to a much nicer plane that we just came through?’ Even the best Games Master can get tripped up sometimes, especially in strange environments where a lot of assumptions no longer apply.
Quote
Stealing the player’s ideas: Whenever any objection is raised, people will try to rationalise it – ‘people don’t mine the plane of Earth because it is too dangerous’, ‘the god allows different versions of the same faith because he’s undecided himself’ and so on. Listen to your players and do not be afraid to borrow their solutions

I don't like the typical D&D approach to religion precisely because of its ahistoricity (and because different writers write different things and can't agree on theology). I prefer to write religion that is based on actual religious psychology. The Eberron approach where divine magic comes from belief is extremely useful to me. By positing that spells are colored by the belief of the caster then you can set up religious schisms where both sides believe they are right because their "god" told them and can even summon "angels" to fight for them. Naturally, both sides will assume that the other side is consorting with demons.

Technically D&D already operates on "belief makes reality" according to Planescape, but Eberron is the first setting to actually put that into practice.

However, as Terry Pratchet points out, this logic leads to the bizarre disturbing situation where good but guilt-ridden people go to hell, jerks who picket funerals go to heaven, and therefore it's vitally important to shoot missionaries on sight. I'm still trying to figure out that problem because that just doesn't sit well with me ethically.

Modern Relativism is an outgrowth of problems for ethics growing out of materialism, which is not an assumption of DnD fictional worlds. Materialism cannot coexist with universal ethical prescriptions, said prescriptions cannot be true within a materialist system, because material/energy/reactions/whatever cannot bring them into existence. Existentialism, non-reductive materialism, etc., are attempted solutions, though I tend to consider them either arbitrary in terms of systems such as existentialism, or incoherent in the cases such of non-reductive materialism.

Secondarily, moderns in the west are heirs to perfect being theology, which is incompatible by definition with polytheism, the conception of a god in such systems is very different from Christian, Jewish or Islamic worldviews. If using real world religions, at a minimum, monotheistic beliefs would need to be excluded, though you could read up on Roman, Greek, etc., which will be distinct from their mythologies in many respects.
I’m reading theoi.com right now. There’s a personification of vice and immorality.  https://www.theoi.com/Daimon/Kakia.html

I know the ancient pagans actively debated philosophy and ethics and stuff. What does that mean for their deities and any setting where their deities are demonstrably real entities? The Euthyphro dilemma still applies.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Toran Ironfinder on June 10, 2021, 12:56:03 PM
I've seen the FFG Star Warsesque product, it really isn't star wars anymore, and I won't be playing it as a result. But, Disney's custodianshjp of the force is dishonest in much the same way, though this had been a problem since the prequels, people seem to think the darkside and the "lightside" are balanced, actually Lucas viewed the darkside as an infection in the force, and it's existence was the imbalance and never used the phrase lightside. I would expect this was explained when Disney took over the property, but it could be simply poor interpretationsal skills.


This particular problem has been true of discussions I've heard about recent editions, there were similar complaints.
There are a lot of people that bought & played FFG's Star Wars that would disagree with you. It may not be your Star Wars as you choose to remember it, but it's still Star Wars to many.
Actually the post seems to be the integrity of the custodianship of intellectual properties. The phrase you use represents subjectivist pseudointellectual nonsense in the academy I was thinking about looking for a PBP game to get away from, disheartening to see it here, and I may need to rethink things. It is not "Star Wars as I choose to remember it," the metaphysics of things like the force are defined by a creator or author (in this case Lucas), deviations or changes from that vision are simply bad interpretation. Of course, moderns tend to be horrible interpreters of literature and prose, our English departments have been infected by Continental philosophy since the 70s, and I guess it is filtering down further and further. The Pundit seems to be implying that these same problems have impacted gaming.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Toran Ironfinder on June 10, 2021, 12:57:37 PM
My main question is, how different is what I'd do without alignment as someone who plays Ravenloft with alignment? I've always generally ignored alignment in my D&D games, so I expect I'd do the same with Ravenloft.

Other than the trivial "well, then you don't fill in the alignment box on the character sheet", how is actual play different? If someone were playing in a canonical Ravenloft game and came over to my game, what would they notice?

One way it would be changed specific to Ravenloft is, at least I believe by the Red Boxed Set, the way powers checks work, the probability of attracting the dark powers attention factors in the alignment of victims (so there is a difference between torturing a good NPC and an evil character, or breaking a vow to a good god versus an evil one). This wasn't the case in the black boxed set. But it became the standard. Most other differences would be similar to those you would have in a normal D&D game: magic items keyed to alignment, spells that detect alignment (but again in Ravenloft only law and chaos can be detected), etc. I don't think Ravenloft is uniquely dependent on alignment compared to other settings. But it would still be a change. And I think if you took it a step further and didn't try to have a sense of what constitutes good and evil in the game, managing something like powers could be hard, and the classic horror tone could be hard to hit (that doesn't require alignment but you do need a sense that good and evil exists for something like powers checks to work)

The key part is the bolded section, which I think is a fundamental category error. As a parallel, many RPGs have specific personality mechanics where each PC has mechanically-assigned traits like "Greedy". Sometimes, proponents of these mechanics will say things like "Well, if you play in a game without these mechanics, then all characters are lifeless and have no personality." I find that in practice, this is simply not the case. Characters having personality is not the same thing as personality mechanics.

The same thing is true with alignment. Not having alignment mechanics has nothing to do with whether there is good and evil in a game. And that's explicitly not the case in 5E Ravenloft. For example, did you read the 5E section on Darklord corruption that I posted? Here it is again:

Quote
Corrupt Beyond Redemption

Darklords aren't misunderstood souls condemned through no fault of their own. If a person's potential for evil is particularly great, the Dark Powers might indirectly nurture further transgression, but they don't force individuals to undertake actions against their will. When an evildoer's wickedness ripens, the Dark Powers engulf them forever.

When creating your Darklord, consider the depth of their greatest evil and what made it more significant, abominable, or poetic than more common forms of villainy. The following elements all might be aspects of this corruption:

Evil Acts. The Dark Powers consider an act to be evil if it is intentional, unnecessary, and successful, and most importantly, if it causes significant harm. Accidents, self-defense, deeds necessary for survival, and forced or coerced actions do not qualify. Early in the character's creation, consider what evils your Darklord performed, and revisit these crimes as you develop the villain's other details.

Those Harmed. The people the Darklord harmed need to feel real. Give them names. Imbue them with agency, and don't define them as victims or props. The people who survived the Darklord's evil might be part of a Darklord's history or allies who join the players' characters, or might hold the key to righting the Darklord's wrongs. For each character, consider whether they were important to the Darklord and how that relationship changed.

Irredeemable. Once the Dark Powers take an evil person, that individual's fate is sealed. Before the final corruption, a person can atone--but only if they take genuine responsibility, heal the harm caused, and reform to prevent future harm. Once an evildoer becomes a Darklord, it is far too late. Consider whether your Darklord had a chance to redeem themself and the decision that led to their current fate.

In practice, I've played plenty of fantasy games and horror games that don't use alignment. Also, when I wasn't DM, I've played in some D&D games where alignment was technically in use. I found that the mechanics rarely came up. The few cases I recall were:

1) In theory, Know Alignment could be used to short-circuit mysteries by just casting on all the suspects to see who was evil - but DMs would find ways around this or simply not run mysteries.

2) In earlier editions, there was possibility that the DM could impose XP penalties if someone didn't play their alignment, but that never came up in my games and has been dropped as part of alignment being descriptive rather than a straightjacket.

3) Magic items keyed to alignment were rare in my experience, and it just meant a slight reshuffling of loot. I found this sort of item was more of a big deal in a game without alignment. For example, if the characters got a holy relic that could only be used by someone pure of heart, it was much more interesting.

I haven't played with Dark Powers checks, but I'm also not sure how much it would be affected. For example, you cited "there is a difference between torturing a good NPC and an evil character".

In practice, if the PCs tortured an NPC, would you really look on the character sheet to see what that NPCs designated alignment is to determine whether the PCs were doing wrong? This seems like the sort of thing that I would generally judge without mechanics.

If I understand the original post in this thread, it seems to me using 5e is the wrong benchmark, the RPG Pundit appears to be suggesting that 5e Ravenloft itself does a poor job of maintaining the fictional world's metaphysical assumptions.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: HappyDaze on June 10, 2021, 01:09:45 PM
I've seen the FFG Star Warsesque product, it really isn't star wars anymore, and I won't be playing it as a result. But, Disney's custodianshjp of the force is dishonest in much the same way, though this had been a problem since the prequels, people seem to think the darkside and the "lightside" are balanced, actually Lucas viewed the darkside as an infection in the force, and it's existence was the imbalance and never used the phrase lightside. I would expect this was explained when Disney took over the property, but it could be simply poor interpretationsal skills.


This particular problem has been true of discussions I've heard about recent editions, there were similar complaints.
There are a lot of people that bought & played FFG's Star Wars that would disagree with you. It may not be your Star Wars as you choose to remember it, but it's still Star Wars to many.
Actually the post seems to be the integrity of the custodianship of intellectual properties. The phrase you use represents subjectivist pseudointellectual nonsense in the academy I was thinking about looking for a PBP game to get away from, disheartening to see it here, and I may need to rethink things. It is not "Star Wars as I choose to remember it," the metaphysics of things like the force are defined by a creator or author (in this case Lucas), deviations or changes from that vision are simply bad interpretation. Of course, moderns tend to be horrible interpreters of literature and prose, our English departments have been infected by Continental philosophy since the 70s, and I guess it is filtering down further and further. The Pundit seems to be implying that these same problems have impacted gaming.
Lucas himself changed his material and then went on to approve of others doing the same. That's something those controlling a property (film, RPG, whatever) have. It is not bad interpretation. Your views of what they have done is a better example of bad interpretation. As you assumed all of the answers were in the original materials and dismissed everything that came later. You don't have to like it (I don't like most of post 2015 Star Wars), but you can't be taken seriously if you dismiss it as not being Star Wars. In the same way,  the current Ravenloft book is most certainly Ravenloft even if you don't like it.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Toran Ironfinder on June 10, 2021, 01:31:14 PM
Robert's made a good point here. In fact, the word 'faith' in a religious context probably is not the same as what we would consider it, since it is a fact in these settings (except for maybe Eberron) that the god is out there. And if there is a doctrinal dispute, there are spells that can be used to resolve it.

This is an interesting conundrum; I may need to contemplate it for a while myself.
In Classic Play: The Book of the Planes (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/1673/The-Book-of-the-Planes) by Mongoose, they mention something about maybe the GM could have gods be flawed and not know the answer to doctrinal disputes. (emphasis mine):

Quote
Part of the charm of a plane-hopping game is encountering truly bizarre phenomena, philosophies and entities, and being able to deal with cosmological questions like the meaning of life and death directly, on a practical level. The downside of this is that there is always one player who nitpicks or finds fault with explanations. Be prepared for questions like ‘why is there farming (or mining, or whatever) when there’s an infinite plane of food (or minerals, or whatever)?’, ‘how can there be different versions of the same religion when a cleric can just pop into the god’s home plane and ask for clarification?’, or ‘why do people live here when there is that portal to a much nicer plane that we just came through?’ Even the best Games Master can get tripped up sometimes, especially in strange environments where a lot of assumptions no longer apply.
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Stealing the player’s ideas: Whenever any objection is raised, people will try to rationalise it – ‘people don’t mine the plane of Earth because it is too dangerous’, ‘the god allows different versions of the same faith because he’s undecided himself’ and so on. Listen to your players and do not be afraid to borrow their solutions

I don't like the typical D&D approach to religion precisely because of its ahistoricity (and because different writers write different things and can't agree on theology). I prefer to write religion that is based on actual religious psychology. The Eberron approach where divine magic comes from belief is extremely useful to me. By positing that spells are colored by the belief of the caster then you can set up religious schisms where both sides believe they are right because their "god" told them and can even summon "angels" to fight for them. Naturally, both sides will assume that the other side is consorting with demons.

Technically D&D already operates on "belief makes reality" according to Planescape, but Eberron is the first setting to actually put that into practice.

However, as Terry Pratchet points out, this logic leads to the bizarre disturbing situation where good but guilt-ridden people go to hell, jerks who picket funerals go to heaven, and therefore it's vitally important to shoot missionaries on sight. I'm still trying to figure out that problem because that just doesn't sit well with me ethically.

Modern Relativism is an outgrowth of problems for ethics growing out of materialism, which is not an assumption of DnD fictional worlds. Materialism cannot coexist with universal ethical prescriptions, said prescriptions cannot be true within a materialist system, because material/energy/reactions/whatever cannot bring them into existence. Existentialism, non-reductive materialism, etc., are attempted solutions, though I tend to consider them either arbitrary in terms of systems such as existentialism, or incoherent in the cases such of non-reductive materialism.

Secondarily, moderns in the west are heirs to perfect being theology, which is incompatible by definition with polytheism, the conception of a god in such systems is very different from Christian, Jewish or Islamic worldviews. If using real world religions, at a minimum, monotheistic beliefs would need to be excluded, though you could read up on Roman, Greek, etc., which will be distinct from their mythologies in many respects.
I’m reading theoi.com right now. There’s a personification of vice and immorality.  https://www.theoi.com/Daimon/Kakia.html

I know the ancient pagans actively debated philosophy and ethics and stuff. What does that mean for their deities and any setting where their deities are demonstrably real entities? The Euthyphro dilemma still applies.

Actually the Euphyro dilemma applies to polytheistic religions, but not really to any monotheistic religion that adheres to Perfect Being Theology. The modern application of that principle to monotheism is due to a failure to grasp the implications of said Perfect Being Theology and Divine Necessity, but that is a point only grasped by thought and meditation, and not germane for a gaming board, but I think it demonstrates the type of thing to which I am referring: Monotheism and polytheism differ far more essentially from one another than merely a discussion of the number of deities, (with the exception of something like Aristotle's unnamed Deity which is the final cause), the comparison between the two can lead to subtle misinterpretations. What is germane would be a basic point, for example, you cannot have two maximally great beings, to use one phrase for discussing that point, so all the various deities cannot be perfect beings.

Also, I would never get information involving philosophy of religion from a website, really I wouldn't use websites for anything in philosophy. Start with something generic (A Companion to Philosophy  of Religion edited by Taliaferro, Draper and Quinn), or a basic handbook on distinctions of worldview (The Universe Next Door or God is not One). Philosophy starts with the Greeks, but the discussions they had are fairly different than what you would read today, for example, Greeks had some ethical debates, but they tended to focus on the nature of the virtues, but they never questioned the truth value of the virtues, and they took for granted the identification of most of the virtues. Similarly, most of the philosophers debated the metaphysics of their deities, but many key points in debate today were taken for granted by the Greeks. The Romans in contrast tended to exegete and apply Stoic philosophy rather than a homegrown set of ideals I would suggest reading works on Greek and Roman culture and history as a starting point here (and Greco-Roman because we are their heirs, and therefore we will tend to understand their world a bit better than other polytheistic societies).
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Toran Ironfinder on June 10, 2021, 01:33:21 PM
I've seen the FFG Star Warsesque product, it really isn't star wars anymore, and I won't be playing it as a result. But, Disney's custodianshjp of the force is dishonest in much the same way, though this had been a problem since the prequels, people seem to think the darkside and the "lightside" are balanced, actually Lucas viewed the darkside as an infection in the force, and it's existence was the imbalance and never used the phrase lightside. I would expect this was explained when Disney took over the property, but it could be simply poor interpretationsal skills.


This particular problem has been true of discussions I've heard about recent editions, there were similar complaints.
There are a lot of people that bought & played FFG's Star Wars that would disagree with you. It may not be your Star Wars as you choose to remember it, but it's still Star Wars to many.
Actually the post seems to be the integrity of the custodianship of intellectual properties. The phrase you use represents subjectivist pseudointellectual nonsense in the academy I was thinking about looking for a PBP game to get away from, disheartening to see it here, and I may need to rethink things. It is not "Star Wars as I choose to remember it," the metaphysics of things like the force are defined by a creator or author (in this case Lucas), deviations or changes from that vision are simply bad interpretation. Of course, moderns tend to be horrible interpreters of literature and prose, our English departments have been infected by Continental philosophy since the 70s, and I guess it is filtering down further and further. The Pundit seems to be implying that these same problems have impacted gaming.
Lucas himself changed his material and then went on to approve of others doing the same. That's something those controlling a property (film, RPG, whatever) have. It is not bad interpretation. Your views of what they have done is a better example of bad interpretation. As you assumed all of the answers were in the original materials and dismissed everything that came later. You don't have to like it (I don't like most of post 2015 Star Wars), but you can't be taken seriously if you dismiss it as not being Star Wars. In the same way,  the current Ravenloft book is most certainly Ravenloft even if you don't like it.

Lucas did approve some work others did, yes, and there are some issues of convolution in the EU (though even back then, G level Canon trumped everything else automatically), but that is not what I am discussing, I'm discussing core metaphysical concepts within the setting. Another way of phrasing it would be, Disney and FFG's Star Wars is incoherent (which is always bad); some exegesis and application are possible, but you can't change the core metaphysical paradigms and remain with a coherent unified product. When you change those paradigms, what you get is something different from what you had before, and I'm trying to explain that without getting too technical. Lucas has his faults (I would never suggest Joseph Campbell as a guide to understanding myth, for example), but he does seem to be coherent within his own assumptions (outside of the problem of making an absolute statement denying the existence of absolutes, that is).

 As to interpretation, I use the phrase because I assume in Disney's case, at least, it is due to a lack of skill in understanding the source material, because it fits similar errors in interpretation I found on WOTC D20 board back in the day, and a few other locations; a lot of people genuinely thought any discussion of balance in the force implied some equal measure of Dark and Light, as I put it, they interpreted Star Wars through the lenses of Dragonlance, when Lucas in various other media explicitly gave a distinctively different vision, rooted in gnostic rather than Chinese dualism. The thing is, they thought that was Lucas's intention in the setting (hence a discussion of interpretational skill); they eisegeted a Chinese dualism into the setting, but did not realize it was Eisegesis. This is a common modern problem and would appear to be the best explanation for Disney's custodianship.  That is, changes in Star Wars, IMO, are related to a lack of skill, rather than some intentional incoherency, though admittedly that doesn't explain changes in things like lightspeed.

Ravenloft is a bit different, I'm going on second hand writers here, aI thumped through through a campaign setting to understand some things going on during the end stages of the Satanic Panic, I own a disc with basic handbooks I bought on sale in the early 90s, but my only DnD experience is limited to playing with cousins who within 10 minutes wanted to roleplay raping slave women in a temple, I quit immediately at the time and didn't look back until some conversations in college; I've played a few video games and read a few novels (sometimes without even realizing at first they were DnD). No expert here, my point is, it seems to me the discussions of older players are referring to the same kind of incoherence noted above, which is an issue of product quality, whoever owns the name in legal terms. If the world loses coherency due to changes, it means the company is doing poor quality work, which is my point beyond anything to do with rights to material in a legal sense. I'm using terminology that tries to explain the changes in feel they are expressing, but my point isn't primarily about labeling something, its to try to dumb things down and avoid a discussion that is too deep. Changes to a setting, again, using the example of retconning out Kender, create problems for suspension of disbelief, its an issue in evaluating a products quality, and I think the RPG pundits claims here can be understood as saying these changes mean 5E Ravenloft is a low quality product, due to the creation of an internally incoherent world.

I hope that explains the point better.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on June 10, 2021, 02:40:42 PM
I've seen the FFG Star Warsesque product, it really isn't star wars anymore, and I won't be playing it as a result. But, Disney's custodianshjp of the force is dishonest in much the same way, though this had been a problem since the prequels, people seem to think the darkside and the "lightside" are balanced, actually Lucas viewed the darkside as an infection in the force, and it's existence was the imbalance and never used the phrase lightside. I would expect this was explained when Disney took over the property, but it could be simply poor interpretationsal skills.


This particular problem has been true of discussions I've heard about recent editions, there were similar complaints.
There are a lot of people that bought & played FFG's Star Wars that would disagree with you. It may not be your Star Wars as you choose to remember it, but it's still Star Wars to many.
Actually the post seems to be the integrity of the custodianship of intellectual properties. The phrase you use represents subjectivist pseudointellectual nonsense in the academy I was thinking about looking for a PBP game to get away from, disheartening to see it here, and I may need to rethink things. It is not "Star Wars as I choose to remember it," the metaphysics of things like the force are defined by a creator or author (in this case Lucas), deviations or changes from that vision are simply bad interpretation. Of course, moderns tend to be horrible interpreters of literature and prose, our English departments have been infected by Continental philosophy since the 70s, and I guess it is filtering down further and further. The Pundit seems to be implying that these same problems have impacted gaming.
Lucas himself changed his material and then went on to approve of others doing the same. That's something those controlling a property (film, RPG, whatever) have. It is not bad interpretation. Your views of what they have done is a better example of bad interpretation. As you assumed all of the answers were in the original materials and dismissed everything that came later. You don't have to like it (I don't like most of post 2015 Star Wars), but you can't be taken seriously if you dismiss it as not being Star Wars. In the same way,  the current Ravenloft book is most certainly Ravenloft even if you don't like it.

Not sure we can every really say "this is or is not Ravenloft": it is something people will have different opinions on. I mean this isn't WOTC's first crack at Ravenloft. They failed in their 3E adventure really badly (to the point that I think few Ravenloft fans at the time who I knew considered it canon---perhaps that has changed). I would say this is a little more like Nu-Who. Some old school fans are just not going to see it as being part of the show they watched for decades because there are significant differences. I don' think this is an either or thing. But a good number of older fans regarded it as continuous. Still I think there is clearly a difference between the original version of a thing and later re-boots. And whether a later re-boot is considered a proper continuation is really only something time will tell. The original Munsters is for many, the only Munsters. The Munsters Today is largely forgotten by most people. A new company owning the IP to something, doesn't automatically confer legitimacy to it in the eyes of people who are fans. I think the healthiest approach to this isn't to say it is all automatically still legitimate, nor is it to dismiss anything new out of hand because it wasn't part of the original; it is to realize there are going to be different points of view, different camps, over time it will be clearer and clearer how large those camps are; and that is perfectly fine. Star Trek was perfectly fine, despite some people only seeing original series and original cast as proper star trek, and others seeing Next Generation and other spin offs as legitimate star trek. There is also a key detail here with Ravenloft that is important where neither the writers of the original module, the writers of the original setting boxed set, people on the original design team, control the creative direction of the new version. That is also going to matter when shaping a fan's opinions.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Shasarak on June 10, 2021, 05:56:56 PM
Also, you are aware that D&D has long been used to roleplay in various historical settings, yes? During the TSR-era how to use the system for various historical periods and places were the subject of multiple Dragon Magazine articles. The idea that D&D exclusively means LotR knockoffs is something you’ll only find coming from WotC’s mouthpieces.

The fact is, jhkim brought up a perfectly valid campaign type that D&D has long been used for where the D&D alignment system would decidedly not be a good addition and even counterproductive. You’re just shift goalposts now because he knocked that one cleanly between the posts.

There is no evidence to suggest that a worshiper of Pelor Alpha would have to be any different alignment to a worshiper of Pelor Beta.

Infact if historical religions prove anything it is that religions can be split along completely secular lines.  What would Pelors answer be to the question of clergy wearing blue hats compared to yellow hats?  Would a yellow hatted Pelorite be a different alignment to a blue hatted Pelorite?

Interesting to see the anti alignment crowd avoiding explaining why Pelor Alpha must be a different alignment to Pelor Beta.

Understandable of course.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Omega on June 11, 2021, 10:54:19 AM
Not sure we can every really say "this is or is not Ravenloft": it is something people will have different opinions on. I mean this isn't WOTC's first crack at Ravenloft. They failed in their 3E adventure really badly (to the point that I think few Ravenloft fans at the time who I knew considered it canon---perhaps that has changed).

This and TSR changed Ravenloft massively with the boxed set. And in all honesty Ravenloft boxed set, and especially the expansions, is only superficially Ravenloft and is more its own beast. They could have named it Domains of Dread or Dimension of Horror and same end result.

And of course Masque of the Red Death deviates even more to the point there is practically nothing "Ravenloft" in it.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on June 11, 2021, 01:12:56 PM
Not sure we can every really say "this is or is not Ravenloft": it is something people will have different opinions on. I mean this isn't WOTC's first crack at Ravenloft. They failed in their 3E adventure really badly (to the point that I think few Ravenloft fans at the time who I knew considered it canon---perhaps that has changed).

This and TSR changed Ravenloft massively with the boxed set. And in all honesty Ravenloft boxed set, and especially the expansions, is only superficially Ravenloft and is more its own beast. They could have named it Domains of Dread or Dimension of Horror and same end result.

And of course Masque of the Red Death deviates even more to the point there is practically nothing "Ravenloft" in it.

I think this gets at what I was saying. For me Ravenloft will always be the 90s Ravenloft line, and the black box will always be definitive Ravenloft. But I came into the hobby in 86, never really encountered the Ravenloft module until after I found the setting (at which point I got it because it was still available at my local hobby shop). I still remember the module fans sort of scratching their heads at my interest in the setting. And my reaction was to try to at least understand where they were coming from. The same thing happened to me, when the setting was revised for 3E by Sword and Sorcery. For me, was something totally different from the black box, red box and domains of dread book. Now the new Ravenloft is even further removed for me.

Still my personal view is the original module was an adventure. It wasn't really intended as a setting. And the black box basically took the core location of that adventure, the core idea of how to handle an NPC like Strahd, and some of the concepts, and built it into a setting of its own. Barovia is at the heart of that setting, but it is a different vision from Hickman (though I do think there were a number of through lines and I think they were doing it out of love for the module). For me, it was that setting that landed. And it landed well because I was able to run ongoing campaigns for years and years in it, which only got better as they released Van Richten books and modules.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on June 11, 2021, 01:17:50 PM
Not sure we can every really say "this is or is not Ravenloft": it is something people will have different opinions on. I mean this isn't WOTC's first crack at Ravenloft. They failed in their 3E adventure really badly (to the point that I think few Ravenloft fans at the time who I knew considered it canon---perhaps that has changed).



And of course Masque of the Red Death deviates even more to the point there is practically nothing "Ravenloft" in it.

I will defend Masque of the Red Death. Definitely not for everyone. Definitely a tough sell for sure. And one that seems to get a lot more love now than when I first got the boxed set (I don't remember that many people in my area being into it at all). It was taking the idea of the dark powers and porting them into our world (that is at least how I read it). It has been a while since I read the boxed set and I no longer have mine, so I am going by memory. But it was a really interesting setting. I think the first boxed set they put out worked well (as did the adventures in it). I do feel that stuff like the guide to Transylvania was way way too dry (plenty of people liked it, but I remember struggling to get excited about running a session in Transylvania when I read that: it was informative but I remember thinking I might as well just get a history book on the region). I had some fun though with Masque of the Red Death. I wasn't able to run it all the time like I did with Ravenloft (Masque was too niche for most players, and it tended to be used at our table more like Call of Cthulhu: something you took out  for a series of adventures or for one shots). I also had a lot of fun running Masque as a comedy a number of times (just for on the fly sessions when a normal game fell through, I would apply sit com logic to scenarios and just have fun).
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Pat on June 11, 2021, 01:23:56 PM
Not sure we can every really say "this is or is not Ravenloft": it is something people will have different opinions on. I mean this isn't WOTC's first crack at Ravenloft. They failed in their 3E adventure really badly (to the point that I think few Ravenloft fans at the time who I knew considered it canon---perhaps that has changed).

This and TSR changed Ravenloft massively with the boxed set. And in all honesty Ravenloft boxed set, and especially the expansions, is only superficially Ravenloft and is more its own beast. They could have named it Domains of Dread or Dimension of Horror and same end result.

And of course Masque of the Red Death deviates even more to the point there is practically nothing "Ravenloft" in it.

I think this gets at what I was saying. For me Ravenloft will always be the 90s Ravenloft line, and the black box will always be definitive Ravenloft. But I came into the hobby in 86, never really encountered the Ravenloft module until after I found the setting (at which point I got it because it was still available at my local hobby shop). I still remember the module fans sort of scratching their heads at my interest in the setting. And my reaction was to try to at least understand where they were coming from. The same thing happened to me, when the setting was revised for 3E by Sword and Sorcery. For me, was something totally different from the black box, red box and domains of dread book. Now the new Ravenloft is even further removed for me.

Still my personal view is the original module was an adventure. It wasn't really intended as a setting. And the black box basically took the core location of that adventure, the core idea of how to handle an NPC like Strahd, and some of the concepts, and built it into a setting of its own. Barovia is at the heart of that setting, but it is a different vision from Hickman (though I do think there were a number of through lines and I think they were doing it out of love for the module). For me, it was that setting that landed. And it landed well because I was able to run ongoing campaigns for years and years in it, which only got better as they released Van Richten books and modules.
I can see both your points of view. The module was decent, but it was basically Castle Dracula, the module. No wider world beyond a loose connection to something like a faux-Transylvania was implied. And despite the gothic trappings and the dynamic aspects, it was also very D&D. In fact, it was a very deadly dungeon crawl.

The Domains of Dread were very much something new, and Castle Ravenloft and Strahd were a relatively minor corner. Naming the entire setting after the single castle was more a marketing move than anything that made sense within the context of the setting. So yes, there are two different Ravenlofts.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: HappyDaze on June 11, 2021, 01:25:54 PM
So yes, there are two different Ravenlofts.
Why only two?
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Pat on June 11, 2021, 01:27:24 PM
So yes, there are two different Ravenlofts.
Why only two?
Not sure what point you're trying to make.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: HappyDaze on June 11, 2021, 02:15:50 PM
So yes, there are two different Ravenlofts.
Why only two?
Not sure what point you're trying to make.
Which Ravenloft is the 3e version a part of? What about the 5e version? Are there three or four or more Ravenlofts, or is there only One True Ravenloft (with the rest being Soulless Worlds according to the OP)?
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Pat on June 11, 2021, 02:29:35 PM
So yes, there are two different Ravenlofts.
Why only two?
Not sure what point you're trying to make.
Which Ravenloft is the 3e version a part of? What about the 5e version? Are there three or four or more Ravenlofts, or is there only One True Ravenloft (with the rest being Soulless Worlds according to the OP)?
That doesn't seem to have anything to do with anything I said. (I was talking about the difference between the module, and the box set.) If you have an issue with what the OP said, you should probably talk to the OP.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: HappyDaze on June 11, 2021, 03:22:13 PM
So yes, there are two different Ravenlofts.
Why only two?
Not sure what point you're trying to make.
Which Ravenloft is the 3e version a part of? What about the 5e version? Are there three or four or more Ravenlofts, or is there only One True Ravenloft (with the rest being Soulless Worlds according to the OP)?
That doesn't seem to have anything to do with anything I said. (I was talking about the difference between the module, and the box set.) If you have an issue with what the OP said, you should probably talk to the OP.
You said there were two products that presented two Ravenlofts. I was asking if you felt the four (or more) products presented four (or more) Ravenlofts or if you felt that some of the newer ones presented something that was not Ravenloft. If you felt the latter, I'd go on to ask you where you see the difference between the first two products you mentioned and those you did not.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: ThatChrisGuy on June 11, 2021, 03:53:20 PM
Which Ravenloft is the 3e version a part of? What about the 5e version? Are there three or four or more Ravenlofts, or is there only One True Ravenloft (with the rest being Soulless Worlds according to the OP)?

The Ravenloft product line in each edition is different enough from the others to be an alternate world version of some "Platonic ideal" Ravenloft.  Best thing to do is pick the edition you like and roll with it.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Pat on June 11, 2021, 04:57:09 PM
So yes, there are two different Ravenlofts.
Why only two?
Not sure what point you're trying to make.
Which Ravenloft is the 3e version a part of? What about the 5e version? Are there three or four or more Ravenlofts, or is there only One True Ravenloft (with the rest being Soulless Worlds according to the OP)?
That doesn't seem to have anything to do with anything I said. (I was talking about the difference between the module, and the box set.) If you have an issue with what the OP said, you should probably talk to the OP.
You said there were two products that presented two Ravenlofts. I was asking if you felt the four (or more) products presented four (or more) Ravenlofts or if you felt that some of the newer ones presented something that was not Ravenloft. If you felt the latter, I'd go on to ask you where you see the difference between the first two products you mentioned and those you did not.
I was talking about the difference between the original module, which basically covered a minor variation on Castle Dracula and nothing more, and the expansion into a full fledged setting, which added the concept of the Dark Powers, and the many Darklords and their domains, then connected them all together with the Mists, made escape impossible, changed rules, and so on. They're completely different. And while the realm of Strahd does fit into domains of dread, it's not a natural outgrowth of the original module. As far as I know, all the other versions run with the basic assumptions of the box set, and none of them go back to the module alone, so your questions still seem bizarre.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Omega on June 12, 2021, 06:05:46 PM

I will defend Masque of the Red Death. Definitely not for everyone. Definitely a tough sell for sure.

And one that seems to get a lot more love now than when I first got the boxed set (I don't remember that many people in my area being into it at all).

It was taking the idea of the dark powers and porting them into our world (that is at least how I read it).

1: I'd say Masque is in many ways far superior to Ravenloft (Domains of Dread).

2: It came out at an odd time and there was competition from TORG and its Orrorsh setting and WOD had a victorian setting as well. But did it better than TORG and WOD.

3: I think it resonates with players who also gravitate to Call of Cthulhu type settings. Those where the PCs are all too human and so very very vulnerable. Survival in Masque is a little easier though if the PCs live long enough.

4: It sis not port the dark powers to Earth. Masque had no such thing and instead there was the mysterious Red Death, a force of evil and corruption that made even casting magic a risky thing. Just reading certain tomes could cause someone to flip out and do who knows what. If I recall right it was nothing tangible in the normal sense. More akin to a worldwide curse or a semi-sentient curse.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on June 12, 2021, 11:02:04 PM

I will defend Masque of the Red Death. Definitely not for everyone. Definitely a tough sell for sure.

And one that seems to get a lot more love now than when I first got the boxed set (I don't remember that many people in my area being into it at all).

It was taking the idea of the dark powers and porting them into our world (that is at least how I read it).

1: I'd say Masque is in many ways far superior to Ravenloft (Domains of Dread).

2: It came out at an odd time and there was competition from TORG and its Orrorsh setting and WOD had a victorian setting as well. But did it better than TORG and WOD.

3: I think it resonates with players who also gravitate to Call of Cthulhu type settings. Those where the PCs are all too human and so very very vulnerable. Survival in Masque is a little easier though if the PCs live long enough.

4: It sis not port the dark powers to Earth. Masque had no such thing and instead there was the mysterious Red Death, a force of evil and corruption that made even casting magic a risky thing. Just reading certain tomes could cause someone to flip out and do who knows what. If I recall right it was nothing tangible in the normal sense. More akin to a worldwide curse or a semi-sentient curse.

1: It has been a long time since I read that boxed set (and unfortunately I don't have it any longer). It definitely did some interesting things. And I think it is a solid setting. Personally I did prefer Ravenloft, but that is because the setting clicked with me. Gothic Earth was a cool setting (at least as they laid out in that boxed set)

2: I don't know, I liked Orrorsh as well. I think Masque of the Red Death had the advantage of being a global setting, whereas Orrorsh was a much more limited area. But it was pretty cool. I never ran it though, only ran Masque of the Red Death, so I can't comment on the GM side for Orrorsh.

3: I think that is definitely true

4: I realize it isn't literally called the dark powers. But my memory is the Red Death was extremely similar (not identical, just similar enough that I tended to think of it as the dark powers invading earth in some way). It has been ages though since I've read the boxed set
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on June 13, 2021, 09:04:03 AM
Genuine gothic horror just doesn’t appeal to people anymore.

Although you can certainly argue how well it implemented, the initial appeal of the Demiplane of Dread is that it was essentially about byronic heroes/gothic villains trapped in their own personal hells with a bunch of other innocent people dragged along for the ride (who may or may not be shades in purgatory anyway). The PCs were interlopers and risked becoming exactly those sorts of byronic/gothic tragedies.

It doesn’t fit with the surreal Wonderland-esque freakshow that modern D&D has become. That might be appropriate for Planescape, but not a genre where deception and xenophobia are vital.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Pat on June 13, 2021, 09:33:37 AM
Genuine gothic horror just doesn’t appeal to people anymore.

Although you can certainly argue how well it implemented, the initial appeal of the Demiplane of Dread is that it was essentially about byronic heroes/gothic villains trapped in their own personal hells with a bunch of other innocent people dragged along for the ride (who may or may not be shades in purgatory anyway). The PCs were interlopers and risked becoming exactly those sorts of byronic/gothic tragedies.
That's an excellent summary of how Ravenloft is presented. The problem is, it's built on the D&D's chassis, so it inevitably becomes a game of D&D with a few gothic tropes. The exploration of personal horror and temptation isn't really suited to a group game with levels and an endless need for new monsters.

IMO, Ravenloft works best when it's D&D nature is central, and the gothic elements are used as an accent. The original module isn't a bad example. While it brings in a doomed villain and a backstory, it doesn't forget that the villain is there for the PCs to kill, or the dungeon full of monsters and loot.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: SHARK on June 13, 2021, 09:56:44 AM
Genuine gothic horror just doesn’t appeal to people anymore.

Although you can certainly argue how well it implemented, the initial appeal of the Demiplane of Dread is that it was essentially about byronic heroes/gothic villains trapped in their own personal hells with a bunch of other innocent people dragged along for the ride (who may or may not be shades in purgatory anyway). The PCs were interlopers and risked becoming exactly those sorts of byronic/gothic tragedies.

It doesn’t fit with the surreal Wonderland-esque freakshow that modern D&D has become. That might be appropriate for Planescape, but not a genre where deception and xenophobia are vital.

Greetings!

Very interesting and salient commentary, BoxCrayonTales! I agree. A campaign milieu that deeply embraces attitudes and common world views of deception and xenophobia is precisely interesting, fun, and distinctive--because so much of our own society--theoretically at least--applauds and expects the entire opposite, of everyone at all times. It is very sad and unfortunate that more and more people seem to also maniacally insist and demand that fantasy game campaigns must also conform absolutely to our own real-world cultural standards.

It really does testify to how deeply impoverished and uncultured so many people are today in regards to being truly creative, and educated in history, mythology, classic literature, and just the glories and joys of the imagination.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: jhkim on June 13, 2021, 12:03:36 PM
Genuine gothic horror just doesn’t appeal to people anymore.

Although you can certainly argue how well it implemented, the initial appeal of the Demiplane of Dread is that it was essentially about byronic heroes/gothic villains trapped in their own personal hells with a bunch of other innocent people dragged along for the ride (who may or may not be shades in purgatory anyway). The PCs were interlopers and risked becoming exactly those sorts of byronic/gothic tragedies.
That's an excellent summary of how Ravenloft is presented. The problem is, it's built on the D&D's chassis, so it inevitably becomes a game of D&D with a few gothic tropes. The exploration of personal horror and temptation isn't really suited to a group game with levels and an endless need for new monsters.

IMO, Ravenloft works best when it's D&D nature is central, and the gothic elements are used as an accent. The original module isn't a bad example. While it brings in a doomed villain and a backstory, it doesn't forget that the villain is there for the PCs to kill, or the dungeon full of monsters and loot.

I loved the original module and the first sequel, and I think there is a sweet spot in between introspective personal horror and purely cosmetic horror trappings on standard D&D. When I've run the modules, it has always highlighted some personal plotlines of PCs more than my usual D&D games.

I think it's true that genuine gothic horror (as in the original horror novels of the 18th and 19th centuries) lacks appeal today - but it's also true that the "gothic villains trapped in their own personal hells" of 2E Ravenloft isn't genuine gothic horror. Dracula wasn't trapped in some other reality separate from the real world and being punished for his sins. He was a monster threatening modern London, and had to be destroyed.

The concepts of the demi-plane and mists were a modern invention that was imposed on gothic horror for D&D, and is unprecedented in any of the original genre. I think it was mostly invented as a way to mix some gothic elements into a more typical D&D game. While the original two modules were not railroaded, the demi-plane modules were heavily railroaded as a way to fit in gothic elements.

The question is, what does one see as the core of Ravenloft: given different roots including (1) the inspirational horror fiction, (2) the original Ravenloft modules, (3) the original Ravenloft demi-plane setting and modules. There's no right answer to that question, obviously. But it may color how people see a reboot of Ravenloft.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Omega on June 13, 2021, 01:53:07 PM
4: I realize it isn't literally called the dark powers. But my memory is the Red Death was extremely similar (not identical, just similar enough that I tended to think of it as the dark powers invading earth in some way). It has been ages though since I've read the boxed set

Unless they changed it at some point the dark powers were more like jailers and wardens and the pervasive evil of the lands was the doing of the domain lords. Exactly what the dark powers really did I do not recall. Did they actually offer deals like in Curse of Strahd? or were these deals reall just domain ord offerings to tempt adventurers?
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on June 13, 2021, 02:22:59 PM
4: I realize it isn't literally called the dark powers. But my memory is the Red Death was extremely similar (not identical, just similar enough that I tended to think of it as the dark powers invading earth in some way). It has been ages though since I've read the boxed set

Unless they changed it at some point the dark powers were more like jailers and wardens and the pervasive evil of the lands was the doing of the domain lords. Exactly what the dark powers really did I do not recall. Did they actually offer deals like in Curse of Strahd? or were these deals reall just domain ord offerings to tempt adventurers?

The dark powers were a vague force in Ravenloft. They were deliberately left to be mysterious. I think they are based on Strahd's pact with Death in his background, but they kind of took that and elaborated it into a vague, god-like power (or powers) that responds to evil, corrupting people as they commit more evil acts, and rewarding evil beings who have strong force of will with a domain of their own. There is a whole procedure in the Ravenloft books called powers checks which is the mechanical representation of the dark powers influence on people. The dark powers also alter things like how magic works (though some of this is also just a product of Ravenloft being on the ethereal border. Strahd's background says he made a pact with death, and this pact was sealed with the murder of his brother and him driving Tatyana to suicide (it gets elaborated on in various sources but at this point I think there are probably conflicting concepts around it). But Strahd is the first domain lord, he is a somewhat unique case, and there is potential for different interpretations of his pact with death. In the game itself, as laid out in the black box and red box, the dark powers don't literally offer you a deal or anything. They just respond to certain acts of evil. So say you commit an emotionally charged murder, that might warrant a powers check. It is a percentile roll, usually between 1-2 percent but often up to 10% (and later versions had different probabilities and dealt with things called ultimate acts of evil that alter how it works a bit). But basically if the check fails you get a punishment and a reward. The reward is an enticement, often a kind of power or monstrous ability. The punishment is supposed to be your evil becoming more visible in some way: powers checks are a progressive change that lead you to become more of a monster  (the chapter on powers checks is called The Reshaping of Characters for this reason). You don't literally need to become a werewolf or vampire by the end of it, though you can, but the end state is you become an NPC and, a Domain Lord. The further you advance the more you lose control.

What I felt they were doing with red death was taking this baseline idea, being vague about it, but implying the dark powers had somehow invaded earth (where it would have manifested differently than in Ravenloft, which is a bunch of fabricated lands in the ethereal border surrounded by mists). I don't think that was a definitive explanation. I think they left the red death mysterious just like they left the dark powers mysterious (no one knows what the dark powers really are or why they are doing what they are doing). But I felt like they intended it so this could be a viable pet theory about the red death.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on June 13, 2021, 02:40:25 PM
Genuine gothic horror just doesn’t appeal to people anymore.

Although you can certainly argue how well it implemented, the initial appeal of the Demiplane of Dread is that it was essentially about byronic heroes/gothic villains trapped in their own personal hells with a bunch of other innocent people dragged along for the ride (who may or may not be shades in purgatory anyway). The PCs were interlopers and risked becoming exactly those sorts of byronic/gothic tragedies.
That's an excellent summary of how Ravenloft is presented. The problem is, it's built on the D&D's chassis, so it inevitably becomes a game of D&D with a few gothic tropes. The exploration of personal horror and temptation isn't really suited to a group game with levels and an endless need for new monsters.

IMO, Ravenloft works best when it's D&D nature is central, and the gothic elements are used as an accent. The original module isn't a bad example. While it brings in a doomed villain and a backstory, it doesn't forget that the villain is there for the PCs to kill, or the dungeon full of monsters and loot.

I always found Ravenloft worked fine for gothic and classic horror. Also we should probably have some kind of starting point for what Gothic Horror is here. Just going by wikipedia this is opening entry:

Quote
Gothic fiction, sometimes called Gothic horror in the 20th century, is a genre of literature and film that covers horror, death and at times romance. It is said to derive from the English author Horace Walpole's 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto, later subtitled "A Gothic Story". Early contributors included Clara Reeve, Ann Radcliffe, William Thomas Beckford and Matthew Lewis. It tends to stress emotion and a pleasurable terror that expands the Romantic literature of the time. The common "pleasures" were the sublime, which indescribably "takes us beyond ourselves."[1] Such extreme Romanticism was popular throughout Europe, especially among English and German-language authors.[2] Its 19th-century success peaked with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and work by E. T. A. Hoffmann, Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Dickens, and in poetry with Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Also prominent was the later Dracula by Bram Stoker. The name Gothic spread from the Goths to mean "German".[3] It also draws in Gothic architecture of the European Middle Ages, where many of the stories occur. Twentieth-century contributors include Daphne du Maurier, Stephen King, Shirley Jackson, Anne Rice and Toni Morrison.

and this is the list of tropes included in the article:
Quote
Virginal maiden – young, beautiful, pure, innocent, kind, virtuous and sensitive – usually starts with a mysterious past and is later revealed as the daughter of an aristocratic or noble family.
Matilda in The Castle of Otranto is determined to give up Theodore, the love of her life, for her cousin's sake. Matilda always puts others before herself, and always believes the best in others.
Adeline in The Romance of the Forest encounters "her wicked Marquis, having secretly immured Number One (his first wife), [who] has now a new and beautiful wife, whose character, alas! does not bear inspection."[108] As the review states, the virginal maiden character is above inspection as her personality is flawless. Hers is a virtuous character whose piety and unflinching optimism cause all to fall in love with her.
Older, foolish woman
Hippolita in The Castle of Otranto is depicted as the obedient wife of her tyrant husband, who "would not only acquiesce with patience to divorce, but would obey, if it was his pleasure, in endeavouring to persuade Isabelle to give him her hand."[109] This shows how weak women are portrayed as completely submissive, and in Hippolita's case, even support polygamy at the expense of her own marriage.[110]
Madame LaMotte in The Romance of the Forest naively assumes that her husband is having an affair with Adeline. Instead of addressing the situation directly, she foolishly lets her ignorance turn into pettiness and mistreatment of Adeline.
Hero
Theodore in The Castle of Otranto is witty and successfully challenges the tyrant, saving the virginal maid without expectations.
Theodore in The Romance of the Forest saves Adeline multiple times, is virtuous, courageous and brave, and self-sacrificial.
Tyrant/villain/Predatory male
Manfred in The Castle of Otranto unjustly accuses Theodore of murdering Conrad. Theodore tries to pass the blame onto others, and lies about his motives for attempting to divorce his wife and marry his late son's fiancé.
The Marquis in The Romance of the Forest tries to seduce Adeline though he is already married, to rape Adeline blackmail Monsieur LaMotte.
Vathek, Ninth Caliph of the Abassides, who ascended to the throne at an early age, has pleasing and majestic figure, but when angry, his gaze become so terrible that "the wretch on whom it was fixed instantly fell backwards and sometimes expired". He is addicted to women and pleasures of the flesh, and so has ordered five palaces to be built: the five palaces of the senses. Although he is an eccentric man, learned in the ways of science, physics, and astrology, he loves his people. His main greed, however, is thirst for knowledge. He wants to know everything. This is what has led him on the road to damnation.[111]
Bandits/ruffians appear in several Gothic novels, including The Romance of the Forest, where they kidnap Adeline from her father.
Clergy are always weak, usually evil.
Father Jerome in The Castle of Otranto, though not evil, is certainly weak, as he gives up his son when he is born and leaves his lover.
Ambrosio in The Monk is evil and weak, stooping to the lowest levels of corruption, including rape and incest.
The Mother Superior in The Romance of the Forest, Adeline, flees from this convent because the sisters are not allowed to see sunlight. *Highly oppressive environment.
The setting
The plot is usually set in a castle, abbey, monastery or other, usually religious edifice. It is acknowledged that the building has secrets of its own. This gloomy and frightening scene is what the audience has already come to expect. The importance of the setting was noted in a London review of The Castle of Otranto, "He describes the country towards Otranto as desolate and bare, extensive downs covered with thyme, with occasionally the dwarf holly, the rosa marina, and lavender, stretch around like wild moorlands.... Mr. Williams describes the celebrated Castle of Otranto as 'an imposing object of considerable size... [which] has a dignified and chivalric air'.... A fitter scene for his romance he probably could not have chosen." Similarly, De Vore states, "The setting is greatly influential in Gothic novels. It not only evokes the atmosphere of horror and dread, but also portrays the deterioration of its world. The decaying, ruined scenery implies that at one time there was a thriving world. At one time the abbey, castle, or landscape was something treasured and appreciated. Now, all that lasts is the decaying shell of a once thriving dwelling."[112] So without the decrepit backdrop to initiate the events, the Gothic novel would not exist.
Elements found especially in American Gothic fiction include:

Night journeys are seen throughout Gothic literature. They can occur in almost any setting, but in American literature are more commonly seen in the wilderness, forest or other area devoid of people.
Evil characters are also seen in Gothic literature and especially American Gothic. Depending on the setting or the period from which the work comes, the evil characters may be Native Americans, trappers, gold miners, etc.
American Gothic novels also tend to deal with "madness" in one or more of the characters and carry that theme through the novel. In his novel Edgar Huntly or Memoirs of a Sleepwalker, Charles Brockden Brown introduces two characters who slowly become deranged as the novel progresses.
Miraculous survivals are elements within American Gothic literature in which a character or characters somehow manages to survive some feat that should have led to their demise.
In American Gothic novels it is also typical for one or more characters to have some sort of supernatural powers. In Brown's Edgar Huntly or Memoirs of a Sleepwalker, the main character, Huntly, is able to face and kill not one, but two panthers.
An element of fear is another feature of American Gothic literature, typically connected to the unknown and generally seen throughout the novel. This can also be connected to a feeling of despair that overcomes characters within the novel. This element can lead characters to commit heinous crimes. In the case of Brown's character Edgar Huntly, he experiences it when he contemplates eating himself, eats an uncooked panther, and drinks his own sweat. The element of fear in a female Gothic is commonly portrayed through terror and supernatural fears, while male Gothic uses horror and physical fear and gore to arouse fear in the reader.
Psychological overlay is an element connected with how characters in an American Gothic novel are affected by things like the night and their surroundings. An example would be if a character was in a maze-like area and a connection was made to the maze that their minds represented.

Not sure how accurate that is. I always just went by what I saw in the gothic stories I read and in the classic horror movies I watched. Obviously Ravenloft is a game, and is set in a fantasy world (though I think they captured a lot of the dreaminess and emotion of gothic horror in how they approached making a setting). The setting also came equipped with lots of tools for making the horror work better (including changing spells, and altering certain character class features, but also monster customization, making monsters more powerful, giving domain lords and the dark powers power). I never really had much trouble getting Ravenloft to be gothic horror. D&D might not be as lethal as some horror games, but as a consequence it has some truly powerful and strange monsters, and something like level drain can put the fear of god into players. Characters do get more powerful though, so that does change things (but those early levels can be very lethal: had a player taken out by a splinter in one of the book of crypts adventures)
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: tenbones on June 13, 2021, 08:03:51 PM
Genuine gothic horror just doesn’t appeal to people anymore.

Although you can certainly argue how well it implemented, the initial appeal of the Demiplane of Dread is that it was essentially about byronic heroes/gothic villains trapped in their own personal hells with a bunch of other innocent people dragged along for the ride (who may or may not be shades in purgatory anyway). The PCs were interlopers and risked becoming exactly those sorts of byronic/gothic tragedies.

It doesn’t fit with the surreal Wonderland-esque freakshow that modern D&D has become. That might be appropriate for Planescape, but not a genre where deception and xenophobia are vital.

I agree.

What D&D is turning Ravenloft into isn't going to do it any favors either. But I'd contend that D&D is at odds with all of its settings which is why they're bending over backwards to reframe many aspects of the setting and the game to fit their political interests over the traditional aspects of the settings and the larger game.

Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Pat on June 14, 2021, 12:42:17 AM

Not sure how accurate that is. I always just went by what I saw in the gothic stories I read and in the classic horror movies I watched. Obviously Ravenloft is a game, and is set in a fantasy world (though I think they captured a lot of the dreaminess and emotion of gothic horror in how they approached making a setting). The setting also came equipped with lots of tools for making the horror work better (including changing spells, and altering certain character class features, but also monster customization, making monsters more powerful, giving domain lords and the dark powers power). I never really had much trouble getting Ravenloft to be gothic horror. D&D might not be as lethal as some horror games, but as a consequence it has some truly powerful and strange monsters, and something like level drain can put the fear of god into players. Characters do get more powerful though, so that does change things (but those early levels can be very lethal: had a player taken out by a splinter in one of the book of crypts adventures)
Gothic horror isn't about a band of characters who go from location to location, slaughtering hordes of monsters along the way. It's about personal horror and inner conflicts. The characters in such stories typically come to tragic ends, or suffer dramatic transformations. These two structures are fundamentally at odds.

That's why I say that Ravenloft is D&D with some of the trappings of gothic horror, because it largely misses the heart of gothic stories. The goal is to use the superficial trappings, like haunted castles, stormy weather, and strange accents, in copious amounts to help get the players into the mood. Then use NPCs to evoke the more personal elements, like transformations, mysteries, romance, innocence vs. depravity, and tragedy. But the PCs and their players will be at best one removed, because even the player facing elements like corruption by the Dark Powers, will take place over the course of a campaign rather than a single story (adventure).

I find it works best to recognize that Ravenloft is, at heart, D&D. Don't try to replicate stories of gothic horror, because it's the wrong medium. Instead, take D&D adventure structures, and wrap them in gothic trappings.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on June 14, 2021, 03:00:11 AM

Not sure how accurate that is. I always just went by what I saw in the gothic stories I read and in the classic horror movies I watched. Obviously Ravenloft is a game, and is set in a fantasy world (though I think they captured a lot of the dreaminess and emotion of gothic horror in how they approached making a setting). The setting also came equipped with lots of tools for making the horror work better (including changing spells, and altering certain character class features, but also monster customization, making monsters more powerful, giving domain lords and the dark powers power). I never really had much trouble getting Ravenloft to be gothic horror. D&D might not be as lethal as some horror games, but as a consequence it has some truly powerful and strange monsters, and something like level drain can put the fear of god into players. Characters do get more powerful though, so that does change things (but those early levels can be very lethal: had a player taken out by a splinter in one of the book of crypts adventures)
Gothic horror isn't about a band of characters who go from location to location, slaughtering hordes of monsters along the way. It's about personal horror and inner conflicts. The characters in such stories typically come to tragic ends, or suffer dramatic transformations. These two structures are fundamentally at odds.

That's why I say that Ravenloft is D&D with some of the trappings of gothic horror, because it largely misses the heart of gothic stories. The goal is to use the superficial trappings, like haunted castles, stormy weather, and strange accents, in copious amounts to help get the players into the mood. Then use NPCs to evoke the more personal elements, like transformations, mysteries, romance, innocence vs. depravity, and tragedy. But the PCs and their players will be at best one removed, because even the player facing elements like corruption by the Dark Powers, will take place over the course of a campaign rather than a single story (adventure).

I find it works best to recognize that Ravenloft is, at heart, D&D. Don't try to replicate stories of gothic horror, because it's the wrong medium. Instead, take D&D adventure structures, and wrap them in gothic trappings.

Ravenloft wasn't really about slaughtering hordes of monsters. I found it worked best with scenarios focused on one monster. And Gothic horror is also about contending with monsters. Dracula is a good example (also an example featuring a group of characters, not just a single character). And yes there is the element of personal tragedy, which is what the horrors check is for. But they needed to translate gothic horror into something gameable too. So it often played a lot like the hammer horror gothic films. Which I think worked. I can only speak for myself, but I found Ravenloft worked best when it was not leaning into being D&D but actively eschewing D&Disms. Again this is something you see very much in the black boxed set (rather than say DoD, which does lean more into the fantasy elements). I quite liked how it played when you did things like limit the magic items, downplay dungeon crawls, and focus on bringing gothic and classic horror to the table. You can still include plenty of things that are gameable in the D&D system. Gothic horror features plenty of castles, tombs, ruins and other places to explore; it features plenty of vampires to stake through the heart---that stuff all works in the D&D system. Ravenloft just gave it enough tweaks so it worked in a gothic mode. Maybe not for everyone. But for me it definitely played very well that way
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on June 14, 2021, 03:10:14 AM

Not sure how accurate that is. I always just went by what I saw in the gothic stories I read and in the classic horror movies I watched. Obviously Ravenloft is a game, and is set in a fantasy world (though I think they captured a lot of the dreaminess and emotion of gothic horror in how they approached making a setting). The setting also came equipped with lots of tools for making the horror work better (including changing spells, and altering certain character class features, but also monster customization, making monsters more powerful, giving domain lords and the dark powers power). I never really had much trouble getting Ravenloft to be gothic horror. D&D might not be as lethal as some horror games, but as a consequence it has some truly powerful and strange monsters, and something like level drain can put the fear of god into players. Characters do get more powerful though, so that does change things (but those early levels can be very lethal: had a player taken out by a splinter in one of the book of crypts adventures)
It's about personal horror and inner conflicts


Is it? I am not so sure. I posted the wikipedia definition. Again perhaps that isn't accurate. But I did read a lot of gothic horror, and the overview seems pretty sound. I am no academic though, just a fan of horror. I think there is a lot more that is at the core of gothic horror than personal horror and inner conflict. I mean, yes those things can exist in gothic horror stories. But inner conflict is something that exists often in literature. It is very easy to explore that in literature. Much harder to explore inner conflict in a game. I think something like powers checks can get close. But you are probably not going to reliably have inner conflict and personal horror in a typical RPG (whether it is D&D or not). But they do lay out what they mean by gothic horror and classic horror in the black box, and I think they achieve those things with it. Maybe that is not the current academic definition of gothic horror, or maybe they missed something about gothic horror you think is important. For me it always captured stories like Shelley's, Stoker's, Le Fanu's and Walpole's well. And it definitely got all the trappings of the classic universal and hammer movies I thought. I think the personal horror and inner conflict you talk about is something that is present in the setting but often through the Domain lords.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on June 14, 2021, 03:16:19 AM


That's why I say that Ravenloft is D&D with some of the trappings of gothic horror, because it largely misses the heart of gothic stories. The goal is to use the superficial trappings, like haunted castles, stormy weather, and strange accents, in copious amounts to help get the players into the mood. Then use NPCs to evoke the more personal elements, like transformations, mysteries, romance, innocence vs. depravity, and tragedy. But the PCs and their players will be at best one removed, because even the player facing elements like corruption by the Dark Powers, will take place over the course of a campaign rather than a single story (adventure).



The problem with this approach is it would limit you to one shots if you are trying to get corruption in a single adventure. And it isn't like all gothic horror protagonists must be corrupted and warped. Again I think what you are pointing to is the difficulty of getting players to replicate things you see in literature. That isn't a gothic horror game problem so much as it is an issue of RPGS are a different medium. You are going to have a hard time emulating and forcing in fictional elements like that on a regular basis (and I am not sure doing so is desirable). I think a much better approach is the one Ravenloft took, where you have a setting that is clearly modeled on Gothic stories, and you have mechanics like Powers checks and curses that reflect the transformation and corruption you see in the genre. I don't see why it needs to all take place over a single adventure, and I don't see why it needs to be a guarantee it will take place. It is there, and comes up enough to be interesting  I think. Powers checks is one of the more successful mechanics like that I've encountered. It also worked great because it could be a tool for building monsters and threats in the setting. And again I think gameability is an important consideration here.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on June 14, 2021, 03:21:14 AM
Genuine gothic horror just doesn’t appeal to people anymore.

Although you can certainly argue how well it implemented, the initial appeal of the Demiplane of Dread is that it was essentially about byronic heroes/gothic villains trapped in their own personal hells with a bunch of other innocent people dragged along for the ride (who may or may not be shades in purgatory anyway). The PCs were interlopers and risked becoming exactly those sorts of byronic/gothic tragedies.

It doesn’t fit with the surreal Wonderland-esque freakshow that modern D&D has become. That might be appropriate for Planescape, but not a genre where deception and xenophobia are vital.

It is worth pointing out, when Ravenloft was released, "genuine gothic horror doesn't appeal to people anymore" was true at that time as well. The black box railed against a lot of modern horror, and strongly advocated for classic horror techniques. I think sometimes when something seems out of fashion, that can actually be the perfect moment to introduce it because it's actually refreshing. I loved horror when I first encountered Ravenloft, and I liked lots of different horror genres, including a lot of the modern stuff the black box didn't like, but Ravenloft definitely stood out as unique to me. I think a good comparison is how Fright Night was a bit refreshing in the mid-80s, because it was going back to those classic hammer style films in the age of Jason and Freddy. It sort of wore how square it was as a badge of honor
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Pat on June 14, 2021, 07:33:58 AM

Not sure how accurate that is. I always just went by what I saw in the gothic stories I read and in the classic horror movies I watched. Obviously Ravenloft is a game, and is set in a fantasy world (though I think they captured a lot of the dreaminess and emotion of gothic horror in how they approached making a setting). The setting also came equipped with lots of tools for making the horror work better (including changing spells, and altering certain character class features, but also monster customization, making monsters more powerful, giving domain lords and the dark powers power). I never really had much trouble getting Ravenloft to be gothic horror. D&D might not be as lethal as some horror games, but as a consequence it has some truly powerful and strange monsters, and something like level drain can put the fear of god into players. Characters do get more powerful though, so that does change things (but those early levels can be very lethal: had a player taken out by a splinter in one of the book of crypts adventures)
Gothic horror isn't about a band of characters who go from location to location, slaughtering hordes of monsters along the way. It's about personal horror and inner conflicts. The characters in such stories typically come to tragic ends, or suffer dramatic transformations. These two structures are fundamentally at odds.

That's why I say that Ravenloft is D&D with some of the trappings of gothic horror, because it largely misses the heart of gothic stories. The goal is to use the superficial trappings, like haunted castles, stormy weather, and strange accents, in copious amounts to help get the players into the mood. Then use NPCs to evoke the more personal elements, like transformations, mysteries, romance, innocence vs. depravity, and tragedy. But the PCs and their players will be at best one removed, because even the player facing elements like corruption by the Dark Powers, will take place over the course of a campaign rather than a single story (adventure).

I find it works best to recognize that Ravenloft is, at heart, D&D. Don't try to replicate stories of gothic horror, because it's the wrong medium. Instead, take D&D adventure structures, and wrap them in gothic trappings.

Ravenloft wasn't really about slaughtering hordes of monsters.
It absolutely is. How many monsters will a party of Ravenloft adventurers kill over the course of a 1-9 level campaign? Even if you use more of a mystery-structure for most adventures, which as I mentioned is the standard of the genre, instead of a clear-every-room structure you're assuming from traditional D&D, that's still a giant pile of things that are dead or destroyed. I think you're seeing the trappings, saying "oh this is gothic horror", and missing the massive differences in structure. Which is exactly what you should be trying induce in your players, but it's not the most useful perspective for a DM.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Pat on June 14, 2021, 07:40:13 AM

Not sure how accurate that is. I always just went by what I saw in the gothic stories I read and in the classic horror movies I watched. Obviously Ravenloft is a game, and is set in a fantasy world (though I think they captured a lot of the dreaminess and emotion of gothic horror in how they approached making a setting). The setting also came equipped with lots of tools for making the horror work better (including changing spells, and altering certain character class features, but also monster customization, making monsters more powerful, giving domain lords and the dark powers power). I never really had much trouble getting Ravenloft to be gothic horror. D&D might not be as lethal as some horror games, but as a consequence it has some truly powerful and strange monsters, and something like level drain can put the fear of god into players. Characters do get more powerful though, so that does change things (but those early levels can be very lethal: had a player taken out by a splinter in one of the book of crypts adventures)
It's about personal horror and inner conflicts


Is it? I am not so sure. I posted the wikipedia definition.
Nothing in what I said contradicts the Wikipedia definition, as you seem to be implying. Gothic horror is about wildly tormented protaganists who have to deal with changes that wrack their very being. It's part of the melodrama, transformation, romance, tragedy, and more. Think of the monster's struggle in Frankenstein, or Dracula arriving like a disease or corruption.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Ghostmaker on June 14, 2021, 08:20:17 AM
I just noticed something in Curse of Strahd (5E).

On p36, 'A Vistana's Tale', the NPC in question tells the story of a mighty wizard who contested with Strahd but was felled. Later on, the PCs might discover said wizard is still alive, but driven mad by Strahd and/or the Dark Powers. This is an addition from the original Ravenloft 2E adventure.

So why is this an issue? Well, in a truly spectacular example of what tropers call 'worfing', the maddened wizard is Mordenkainen. Yeah, that Mordenkainen. The guy who does shots with Elminster in Ed Greenwood's kitchen.

No, no, no, what the fuck, WotC. We already know Strahd is a badass, why are you fucking up Greyhawk's preeminent archmage? That's just fucking insulting.

Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: RandyB on June 14, 2021, 08:29:41 AM
I just noticed something in Curse of Strahd (5E).

On p36, 'A Vistana's Tale', the NPC in question tells the story of a mighty wizard who contested with Strahd but was felled. Later on, the PCs might discover said wizard is still alive, but driven mad by Strahd and/or the Dark Powers. This is an addition from the original Ravenloft 2E adventure.

So why is this an issue? Well, in a truly spectacular example of what tropers call 'worfing', the maddened wizard is Mordenkainen. Yeah, that Mordenkainen. The guy who does shots with Elminster in Ed Greenwood's kitchen.

No, no, no, what the fuck, WotC. We already know Strahd is a badass, why are you fucking up Greyhawk's preeminent archmage? That's just fucking insulting.



Why?

To take shots at (in no particular order):

Pre-WOTC D&D
Gary Gygax
Greyhawk
Fans of the above

And to exert dominance over D&D past, present, and future. "Those Midwestern rubes won't dare to invade the creative space rightly owned by the True Fen."
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on June 14, 2021, 08:35:23 AM

Not sure how accurate that is. I always just went by what I saw in the gothic stories I read and in the classic horror movies I watched. Obviously Ravenloft is a game, and is set in a fantasy world (though I think they captured a lot of the dreaminess and emotion of gothic horror in how they approached making a setting). The setting also came equipped with lots of tools for making the horror work better (including changing spells, and altering certain character class features, but also monster customization, making monsters more powerful, giving domain lords and the dark powers power). I never really had much trouble getting Ravenloft to be gothic horror. D&D might not be as lethal as some horror games, but as a consequence it has some truly powerful and strange monsters, and something like level drain can put the fear of god into players. Characters do get more powerful though, so that does change things (but those early levels can be very lethal: had a player taken out by a splinter in one of the book of crypts adventures)
It's about personal horror and inner conflicts


Is it? I am not so sure. I posted the wikipedia definition.
Nothing in what I said contradicts the Wikipedia definition, as you seem to be implying. Gothic horror is about wildly tormented protaganists who have to deal with changes that wrack their very being. It's part of the melodrama, transformation, romance, tragedy, and more. Think of the monster's struggle in Frankenstein, or Dracula arriving like a disease or corruption.

I didn't say it did. I just think you are overemphasizing personal horror and internal conflict as essential. Maybe I don't understand what you mean by personal horror.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on June 14, 2021, 08:40:54 AM

Not sure how accurate that is. I always just went by what I saw in the gothic stories I read and in the classic horror movies I watched. Obviously Ravenloft is a game, and is set in a fantasy world (though I think they captured a lot of the dreaminess and emotion of gothic horror in how they approached making a setting). The setting also came equipped with lots of tools for making the horror work better (including changing spells, and altering certain character class features, but also monster customization, making monsters more powerful, giving domain lords and the dark powers power). I never really had much trouble getting Ravenloft to be gothic horror. D&D might not be as lethal as some horror games, but as a consequence it has some truly powerful and strange monsters, and something like level drain can put the fear of god into players. Characters do get more powerful though, so that does change things (but those early levels can be very lethal: had a player taken out by a splinter in one of the book of crypts adventures)
Gothic horror isn't about a band of characters who go from location to location, slaughtering hordes of monsters along the way. It's about personal horror and inner conflicts. The characters in such stories typically come to tragic ends, or suffer dramatic transformations. These two structures are fundamentally at odds.

That's why I say that Ravenloft is D&D with some of the trappings of gothic horror, because it largely misses the heart of gothic stories. The goal is to use the superficial trappings, like haunted castles, stormy weather, and strange accents, in copious amounts to help get the players into the mood. Then use NPCs to evoke the more personal elements, like transformations, mysteries, romance, innocence vs. depravity, and tragedy. But the PCs and their players will be at best one removed, because even the player facing elements like corruption by the Dark Powers, will take place over the course of a campaign rather than a single story (adventure).

I find it works best to recognize that Ravenloft is, at heart, D&D. Don't try to replicate stories of gothic horror, because it's the wrong medium. Instead, take D&D adventure structures, and wrap them in gothic trappings.

Ravenloft wasn't really about slaughtering hordes of monsters.
It absolutely is. How many monsters will a party of Ravenloft adventurers kill over the course of a 1-9 level campaign? Even if you use more of a mystery-structure for most adventures, which as I mentioned is the standard of the genre, instead of a clear-every-room structure you're assuming from traditional D&D, that's still a giant pile of things that are dead or destroyed. I think you're seeing the trappings, saying "oh this is gothic horror", and missing the massive differences in structure. Which is exactly what you should be trying induce in your players, but it's not the most useful perspective for a DM.

Porting the structure of literature into the structure of an RPG is always a problem. Are you looking for a more narrative RPG approach? You can have as many encounters as you want in a campaign. As GM you don't have to do wandering encounters. And the game encourages planned encounters any ways to keep atmosphere. So it would be entirely possible to make sure your essentially encountering one monster as the main villain and have any encounters occurring during the adventure be related to that. And they don't all end in the players killing something. It is a setting that works with players gaining less XP and advancing slowly. Yes, you can also have a more standard amount of encounters. But I don't think that detracts from the gothic horror. At least it never felt less gothic to me due to those kinds of things.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Ghostmaker on June 14, 2021, 08:54:44 AM
I just noticed something in Curse of Strahd (5E).

On p36, 'A Vistana's Tale', the NPC in question tells the story of a mighty wizard who contested with Strahd but was felled. Later on, the PCs might discover said wizard is still alive, but driven mad by Strahd and/or the Dark Powers. This is an addition from the original Ravenloft 2E adventure.

So why is this an issue? Well, in a truly spectacular example of what tropers call 'worfing', the maddened wizard is Mordenkainen. Yeah, that Mordenkainen. The guy who does shots with Elminster in Ed Greenwood's kitchen.

No, no, no, what the fuck, WotC. We already know Strahd is a badass, why are you fucking up Greyhawk's preeminent archmage? That's just fucking insulting.



Why?

To take shots at (in no particular order):

Pre-WOTC D&D
Gary Gygax
Greyhawk
Fans of the above

And to exert dominance over D&D past, present, and future. "Those Midwestern rubes won't dare to invade the creative space rightly owned by the True Fen."
Probably, but it's just so pathetic. I wonder if they realize a DM can look at that, go 'nah' and just excise it from his game entirely.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: RandyB on June 14, 2021, 09:08:41 AM
I just noticed something in Curse of Strahd (5E).

On p36, 'A Vistana's Tale', the NPC in question tells the story of a mighty wizard who contested with Strahd but was felled. Later on, the PCs might discover said wizard is still alive, but driven mad by Strahd and/or the Dark Powers. This is an addition from the original Ravenloft 2E adventure.

So why is this an issue? Well, in a truly spectacular example of what tropers call 'worfing', the maddened wizard is Mordenkainen. Yeah, that Mordenkainen. The guy who does shots with Elminster in Ed Greenwood's kitchen.

No, no, no, what the fuck, WotC. We already know Strahd is a badass, why are you fucking up Greyhawk's preeminent archmage? That's just fucking insulting.



Why?

To take shots at (in no particular order):

Pre-WOTC D&D
Gary Gygax
Greyhawk
Fans of the above

And to exert dominance over D&D past, present, and future. "Those Midwestern rubes won't dare to invade the creative space rightly owned by the True Fen."
Probably, but it's just so pathetic. I wonder if they realize a DM can look at that, go 'nah' and just excise it from his game entirely.

They don't care. They are conditioning the current and next generations of brand consumers to take what's published as unalterable canon.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on June 14, 2021, 09:15:18 AM

Not sure how accurate that is. I always just went by what I saw in the gothic stories I read and in the classic horror movies I watched. Obviously Ravenloft is a game, and is set in a fantasy world (though I think they captured a lot of the dreaminess and emotion of gothic horror in how they approached making a setting). The setting also came equipped with lots of tools for making the horror work better (including changing spells, and altering certain character class features, but also monster customization, making monsters more powerful, giving domain lords and the dark powers power). I never really had much trouble getting Ravenloft to be gothic horror. D&D might not be as lethal as some horror games, but as a consequence it has some truly powerful and strange monsters, and something like level drain can put the fear of god into players. Characters do get more powerful though, so that does change things (but those early levels can be very lethal: had a player taken out by a splinter in one of the book of crypts adventures)
It's about personal horror and inner conflicts


Is it? I am not so sure. I posted the wikipedia definition.
Nothing in what I said contradicts the Wikipedia definition, as you seem to be implying.

My point was I don't see it mentioning those things. Again, maybe I missed it, maybe I don't understand what you mean by personal horror. Maybe the page itself isn't a good one (like I said I am not an academic, I've read gothic fiction, but it isn't like I've read books of analysis on it). Just in terms of reading the stories, watching the classic horror movies, the setting feels like it hit the right notes to me
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Pat on June 14, 2021, 02:04:15 PM
^ Was that an accidental repeat post?


I didn't say it did. I just think you are overemphasizing personal horror and internal conflict as essential. Maybe I don't understand what you mean by personal horror.
The heart of gothic stories is melodrama. It's not a genre of clinical detachment, but of overwrought emotions. Virtually everything about gothic horror is aimed at emphasizing the emotional elements. Even mundane things like the weather and the lighting conditions are used to help set the mood. But it's fundamentally centered on the emotional journeys of the main characters. That's why secrets, transformation, betrayal, self-doubt, grand actions, and tragedy are so central. It's about setting up and then wringing the most out of the characters' tribulations. It's the domains of dread, not the domains of bayesian risk assessment.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Pat on June 14, 2021, 02:19:51 PM
Porting the structure of literature into the structure of an RPG is always a problem.
Absolutely.

Are you looking for a more narrative RPG approach?
Are you looking for tickets to Munich?

(The answer's no, but literally nothing I said suggested I was looking for a more narrative approach, so your question seems really random and out of the blue.)

You can have as many encounters as you want in a campaign. As GM you don't have to do wandering encounters. And the game encourages planned encounters any ways to keep atmosphere. So it would be entirely possible to make sure your essentially encountering one monster as the main villain and have any encounters occurring during the adventure be related to that. And they don't all end in the players killing something. It is a setting that works with players gaining less XP and advancing slowly. Yes, you can also have a more standard amount of encounters. But I don't think that detracts from the gothic horror. At least it never felt less gothic to me due to those kinds of things.
Why not use the system from Call of Cthulhu?

You're fighting the structure of the game itself. D&D is a game of levels, with piles of hit points followed by a sharp line between perfectly okay and dead, huge increases in power, advancing threats, spells that can be cast in the middle of great melees and blast armies, and a limited skill system. Yes, you could run a pure murder mystery with no combat encounters until a final showdown with the villain, but that's not how any of the published adventures work. And even if you do, you're still largely missing the central transformation and emotional journeys of the protagonists.

That's why I'm emphasizing that Ravenloft is D&D with some gothic trappings, not a gothic RPG that happens to use D&D as a game system. In general, you need to play to D&D's strengths. While that doesn't necessarily mean a dungeon -- though it's worth noting that the ur-Ravenloft adventure I6 literally has a dungeon, and even the above-ground rooms are treated as a variant on a dungeon crawl -- it will typically involve multiple combat encounters, a sense of serial continuity where the party stays together usually under the guise of monster hunting and grows massively in competence, and most of the emotional freight will be shunted to one-off NPCs.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Chris24601 on June 14, 2021, 02:26:04 PM
^ Was that an accidental repeat post?


I didn't say it did. I just think you are overemphasizing personal horror and internal conflict as essential. Maybe I don't understand what you mean by personal horror.
The heart of gothic stories is melodrama. It's not a genre of clinical detachment, but of overwrought emotions. Virtually everything about gothic horror is aimed at emphasizing the emotional elements. Even mundane things like the weather and the lighting conditions are used to help set the mood. But it's fundamentally centered on the emotional journeys of the main characters. That's why secrets, transformation, betrayal, self-doubt, grand actions, and tragedy are so central. It's about setting up and then wringing the most out of the characters' tribulations. It's the domains of dread, not the domains of bayesian risk assessment.
You know, I think this ultimately explains why, despite the developers’ best efforts, Vampire the Masquerade has always run better as “trenchcoats & katanas” than as the “game of personal horror” they keep trying to make it; including canceling the series for the “personal horror; this time we mean it” of Requiem that fizzled and the current abomination that is V5 that gutted the system again to try and add Requiem elements and enforced “Bella Swanning” (the term I’ve heard used for V5’s Touchstone system that requires you to tie your character’s convictions to particular mortals and suffer potential loss of Humanity if they fail to live up to the mental picture you have of them, basically requiring you to stalk them and micromanage their lives to keep them from changing too much lest you fall to The Beast).

The problem being that whenever you devolve the elements of gothic/personal horror down to mechanics, you’re forcing the players into a degree of clinical detachment from their PCs and so any horror you might have been able to generate falls by the wayside with the call of “make a Conscience check.”

The result is people try to use the mechanics for something else and the playerbase coalesced around “trenchcoats & katanas” and “supernatural political thriller” as the most viable genres and every dev since has warred to drag the game back to their original vision of how it “should” be played only to be undone as the players stick to older editions or slap enough house rules onto the current one to make their preferred genres viable.

It’s actually rather bemusing to me that the Dark Lords of the World of Darkness are sort of caught in a Hell of their own making where they constantly struggle to make the world bend to their wills only to be undone by overwrought fans of the prior editions refusing to capitulate.

Second aside; between the demi-plane nature of Strahd’s realm that sort of incurs onto regular reality, the deal with Death, way more monsters to kill and bands of heroes questing to defeat them, Ravenloft almost feels like it’s got more spiritual roots in the Castlevania video games than Bram Stoker’s novel.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Pat on June 14, 2021, 02:48:43 PM
The heart of gothic stories is melodrama. It's not a genre of clinical detachment, but of overwrought emotions. Virtually everything about gothic horror is aimed at emphasizing the emotional elements. Even mundane things like the weather and the lighting conditions are used to help set the mood. But it's fundamentally centered on the emotional journeys of the main characters. That's why secrets, transformation, betrayal, self-doubt, grand actions, and tragedy are so central. It's about setting up and then wringing the most out of the characters' tribulations. It's the domains of dread, not the domains of bayesian risk assessment.
You know, I think this ultimately explains why, despite the developers’ best efforts, Vampire the Masquerade has always run better as “trenchcoats & katanas” than as the “game of personal horror” they keep trying to make it; including canceling the series for the “personal horror; this time we mean it” of Requiem that fizzled and the current abomination that is V5 that gutted the system again to try and add Requiem elements and enforced “Bella Swanning” (the term I’ve heard used for V5’s Touchstone system that requires you to tie your character’s convictions to particular mortals and suffer potential loss of Humanity if they fail to live up to the mental picture you have of them, basically requiring you to stalk them and micromanage their lives to keep them from changing too much lest you fall to The Beast).
You don't see that as much in D&D, because D&D has kind of become its own genre. People's see six stats and hit points, and think of dungeons and video games, so they're less like to confuse it with the high fantasy or sword & sorcery in other media. But is has cropped up at various points. For instance, 2nd edition had a heavy emphasis in the fluff on high fantasy and being heroes. But that contrasted with the rules, which were fundamentally the same brutal system as 1e. As a result, some new players came in expecting to play epic heroes with plot immunity and grand destinies out of the starting gate, and died to a random orc.

This seems to happen more in other genres, like gothic horror or urban fantasy. People default back to their expectations based on other media, and there's a period of struggle. Those that keep beating their head against the rules tend to become frustrated, while those who adapt and run games that the rules support, even if they lose some of the key elements of the genre they're supposedly playing, have more fun. The katanas and trenchcoat crowd are a good example.

That's why I think recognizing that Ravenloft is D&D with some gothic trappings, not a gothic horror RPG and only secondarily D&D, is important. You can stumble upon a version that works for you, which I suspect is the case with Bedrockbrendan, but I think some degree of conscious awareness helps avoid the many pitfalls.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on June 14, 2021, 03:05:04 PM
^ Was that an accidental repeat post?


I didn't say it did. I just think you are overemphasizing personal horror and internal conflict as essential. Maybe I don't understand what you mean by personal horror.
The heart of gothic stories is melodrama. It's not a genre of clinical detachment, but of overwrought emotions. Virtually everything about gothic horror is aimed at emphasizing the emotional elements. Even mundane things like the weather and the lighting conditions are used to help set the mood. But it's fundamentally centered on the emotional journeys of the main characters. That's why secrets, transformation, betrayal, self-doubt, grand actions, and tragedy are so central. It's about setting up and then wringing the most out of the characters' tribulations. It's the domains of dread, not the domains of bayesian risk assessment.

I was posting late so not sure if I accidentally reposted or repeated myself. Thanks for the clarification here. I agree melodrama is part of it. There is definitely an emotional weight to good gothic horror stories, or at least a lot of them. Again here I think I just don't see how you force that in an RPG. You can certainly make adventures that have emotional weight to them, but you can't force a player to go on an emotional melodramatic journey. That said, I find it tends to arise pretty naturally among player characters in a setting like Ravenloft (where you have curses, where you have horror checks and you have the potential for things going in that direction). But most of the melodrama is in the backstories of the villains, which I think is okay. At least for me, that works pretty well. The heart of a given adventure for me in Ravenloft is the villain.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on June 14, 2021, 03:07:05 PM
Porting the structure of literature into the structure of an RPG is always a problem.
Absolutely.

Are you looking for a more narrative RPG approach?
Are you looking for tickets to Munich?

(The answer's no, but literally nothing I said suggested I was looking for a more narrative approach, so your question seems really random and out of the blue.)



I was just asking because it sounded like you wanted more gothic literary structures in the game based on what you were saying. I was just having trouble seeing how the things you identified would be ported in on the player side without some kind of more indie style design (wasn't meant as a swipe, I just didn't know if that was the school of thought you were coming from).
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on June 14, 2021, 03:11:24 PM
^ Was that an accidental repeat post?


I didn't say it did. I just think you are overemphasizing personal horror and internal conflict as essential. Maybe I don't understand what you mean by personal horror.
The heart of gothic stories is melodrama. It's not a genre of clinical detachment, but of overwrought emotions. Virtually everything about gothic horror is aimed at emphasizing the emotional elements. Even mundane things like the weather and the lighting conditions are used to help set the mood. But it's fundamentally centered on the emotional journeys of the main characters. That's why secrets, transformation, betrayal, self-doubt, grand actions, and tragedy are so central. It's about setting up and then wringing the most out of the characters' tribulations. It's the domains of dread, not the domains of bayesian risk assessment.
You know, I think this ultimately explains why, despite the developers’ best efforts, Vampire the Masquerade has always run better as “trenchcoats & katanas” than as the “game of personal horror” they keep trying to make it; including canceling the series for the “personal horror; this time we mean it” of Requiem that fizzled and the current abomination that is V5 that gutted the system again to try and add Requiem elements and enforced “Bella Swanning” (the term I’ve heard used for V5’s Touchstone system that requires you to tie your character’s convictions to particular mortals and suffer potential loss of Humanity if they fail to live up to the mental picture you have of them, basically requiring you to stalk them and micromanage their lives to keep them from changing too much lest you fall to The Beast).

The problem being that whenever you devolve the elements of gothic/personal horror down to mechanics, you’re forcing the players into a degree of clinical detachment from their PCs and so any horror you might have been able to generate falls by the wayside with the call of “make a Conscience check.”

The result is people try to use the mechanics for something else and the playerbase coalesced around “trenchcoats & katanas” and “supernatural political thriller” as the most viable genres and every dev since has warred to drag the game back to their original vision of how it “should” be played only to be undone as the players stick to older editions or slap enough house rules onto the current one to make their preferred genres viable.

It’s actually rather bemusing to me that the Dark Lords of the World of Darkness are sort of caught in a Hell of their own making where they constantly struggle to make the world bend to their wills only to be undone by overwrought fans of the prior editions refusing to capitulate.

Second aside; between the demi-plane nature of Strahd’s realm that sort of incurs onto regular reality, the deal with Death, way more monsters to kill and bands of heroes questing to defeat them, Ravenloft almost feels like it’s got more spiritual roots in the Castlevania video games than Bram Stoker’s novel.
Yeah, totally. That's one of the reasons why I left the World of Darkness fandom a decade ago. I was one of those fanatics who would defend the morality mechanic against those I perceived as wanting to play murderhobos. It took me a while to realize that the way RPGs are typically designed necessarily requires violent conflict and that any mechanic which gets in the way of that is a bad mechanic.

If you want a game to explore personal horror or sappy melodrama, then you have to design the rules from the ground up to support that sort of thing. You can't just bolt half-baked personality mechanics onto a standard combat-focused simulationist ruleset like the White Wolf games always did/do. That's why I found the humanity mechanic in Feed so refreshing. Rather than punishing players for playing RPGs the way that they're designed, it works like a lightside/darkside mechanic. There's actual temptation to losing your humanity and becoming more vampiric. "Humanity" is also more qualified and important here, as all character traits are actually divided between the two categories. The problem, as always, is that you need the players to be emotionally invested in roleplaying the struggle or otherwise you'll be playing b-movie monsters terrorizing innocent victims (which is explicitly provided as a setting option, conveniently enough).

The heart of gothic stories is melodrama. It's not a genre of clinical detachment, but of overwrought emotions. Virtually everything about gothic horror is aimed at emphasizing the emotional elements. Even mundane things like the weather and the lighting conditions are used to help set the mood. But it's fundamentally centered on the emotional journeys of the main characters. That's why secrets, transformation, betrayal, self-doubt, grand actions, and tragedy are so central. It's about setting up and then wringing the most out of the characters' tribulations. It's the domains of dread, not the domains of bayesian risk assessment.
You know, I think this ultimately explains why, despite the developers’ best efforts, Vampire the Masquerade has always run better as “trenchcoats & katanas” than as the “game of personal horror” they keep trying to make it; including canceling the series for the “personal horror; this time we mean it” of Requiem that fizzled and the current abomination that is V5 that gutted the system again to try and add Requiem elements and enforced “Bella Swanning” (the term I’ve heard used for V5’s Touchstone system that requires you to tie your character’s convictions to particular mortals and suffer potential loss of Humanity if they fail to live up to the mental picture you have of them, basically requiring you to stalk them and micromanage their lives to keep them from changing too much lest you fall to The Beast).
You don't see that as much in D&D, because D&D has kind of become its own genre. People's see six stats and hit points, and think of dungeons and video games, so they're less like to confuse it with the high fantasy or sword & sorcery in other media. But is has cropped up at various points. For instance, 2nd edition had a heavy emphasis in the fluff on high fantasy and being heroes. But that contrasted with the rules, which were fundamentally the same brutal system as 1e. As a result, some new players came in expecting to play epic heroes with plot immunity and grand destinies out of the starting gate, and died to a random orc.

This seems to happen more in other genres, like gothic horror or urban fantasy. People default back to their expectations based on other media, and there's a period of struggle. Those that keep beating their head against the rules tend to become frustrated, while those who adapt and run games that the rules support, even if they lose some of the key elements of the genre they're supposedly playing, have more fun. The katanas and trenchcoat crowd are a good example.

That's why I think recognizing that Ravenloft is D&D with some gothic trappings, not a gothic horror RPG and only secondarily D&D, is important. You can stumble upon a version that works for you, which I suspect is the case with Bedrockbrendan, but I think some degree of conscious awareness helps avoid the many pitfalls.
We could avoid a lot of these problems if the designers actually knew what they were doing. These problems arise from a fundamental mismatch between the designers' intentions and how the games actually work. Rather than trying to force a square peg into a round hole ad nauseum, it might make more sense to design games around the intended genre. Maybe take a page from Amazing Engine and allow players to create Meta-PCs that can be moved between different game settings even if the setting-specific rules work very differently.

Traditional RPGs may simply not be a good fit for drama and psychological genres. D&D has a bad enough time with moral dilemmas and meaningful temptation using only the existing rules. In a world with "objective" morality where you channel the power of your demonstrably real god, you can't have moral grey areas or moral dilemmas. You can't have meaningful temptation because you always know that the bad choice is bad for you. If a paladin falls, then it's because either the player or the GM is a dick... or both.

The trolley problem breaks in down under D&D logic because the objective morality that D&D operates is horrifying and borderline cosmic horror when you stop to think thru the logical implications. The most good thing that you can do in D&D is convert as much of the universe as you can to good, and then utterly annihilate the universe to prevent evil from gaining more power.

That's not heroic fantasy. That's the plot of the grimdark series Prince of Nothing.

At this point, I'm struggling to think of a reason to actually play D&D. I can get basically the exact same experience, or a vastly superior experience, by playing dungeoncrawler video games or watching youtube shows based on D&D.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on June 14, 2021, 03:16:19 PM

Why not use the system from Call of Cthulhu?

You're fighting the structure of the game itself. D&D is a game of levels, with piles of hit points followed by a sharp line between perfectly okay and dead, huge increases in power, advancing threats, spells that can be cast in the middle of great melees and blast armies, and a limited skill system. Yes, you could run a pure murder mystery with no combat encounters until a final showdown with the villain, but that's not how any of the published adventures work. And even if you do, you're still largely missing the central transformation and emotional journeys of the protagonists.

That's why I'm emphasizing that Ravenloft is D&D with some gothic trappings, not a gothic RPG that happens to use D&D as a game system. In general, you need to play to D&D's strengths. While that doesn't necessarily mean a dungeon -- though it's worth noting that the ur-Ravenloft adventure I6 literally has a dungeon, and even the above-ground rooms are treated as a variant on a dungeon crawl -- it will typically involve multiple combat encounters, a sense of serial continuity where the party stays together usually under the guise of monster hunting and grows massively in competence, and most of the emotional freight will be shunted to one-off NPCs.

I think it might potentially be more scary if you took a Cthulhu approach. Definitely retaining the D&D system, gave it a different feel. I still liked that and felt it was a nice blend of D&D and Gothic Horror. I think it could have been done more like Cthulhu (heck I made a game more like that myself so I see your point). But I don't see how making a powered down, more lethal game, would bring in the other elements you are talking about. I do see how it makes the game scarier and less likely to focus on combat.

I can only speak for myself, but I ran Ravenloft with monster hunts and minimal encounters. There certainly might be other encounters with deadly creatures here and there but more int he style of a horror movie than D&D slaughtering monsters till you get to a bad guy. And had tons of session with little to no combat as the players solved the mystery. I mean yes if you run I6, that has a big dungeon. I never ran Ravenloft adventures in my campaigns with massive dungeons. Again if it didn't work for you, it didn't. For me the D&D elements were never a big problem (I think they gave the game enough juice and areas to go in, that it enabled longer term campaigns, but still blended in those gothic horror and classic horror elements nicely). I just don't see how shifting to Cthulhu or changing the system leads to the player characters undergoing the transformational journey you are looking for (unless you are thinking of insanity mechanics, but again, Ravenloft kind of had that with the horror check and the powers checks do transform you over time if you engage in evil actions). They did introduce stuff like madness mechanics later to the setting but I thought those didn't work very well and didn't really add to the experience of play much (just gave you another subsystem to bog things down). I liked the simplicity of fear and horror, curses and powers checks---and I liked that the bad guys in an adventure were essentially a reflection of how domain lords operate (the domain lords are sort of the blue print for things)
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Chris24601 on June 14, 2021, 03:25:36 PM
That's why I think recognizing that Ravenloft is D&D with some gothic trappings, not a gothic horror RPG and only secondarily D&D, is important. You can stumble upon a version that works for you, which I suspect is the case with Bedrockbrendan, but I think some degree of conscious awareness helps avoid the many pitfalls.
Agreed. Ravenloft works better as "Castlevania the RPG" than as "Bram Stoker's Dracula the RPG."

Hell, I've even seen YouTube videos come up on my feed of how to play as the main protagonists of the Netflix version (which is way better than it has any right to be as an adaptation of a video game) and I'd bet it wouldn't even be hard since the main trio basically follow the Fighter/Mage/Thief trope in terms of team composition*).

* Trevor is the thief (relies more on speed and dirty tricks, uses a short sword, whip, throwing knives, etc., knows monster weak-points and how to exploit them; would probably be a Fighter/Rogue multi-class in 5e), Sypha is the Mage (specializes in elemental magic, though in the games its stated several times that she's a Holy Magician so would probably be a Cleric with an elemental domain in 5e) and Alucard is the Fighter (strongest of the group, uses a magic sword and later a shield... in 5e he's probably a Mage-Knight subclass since he's got a few supernatural tricks of his own that are technically more OP Dhampir racial abilities, but for a game would fit better using the subclass features).
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Pat on June 14, 2021, 03:25:48 PM
Again here I think I just don't see how you force that in an RPG. You can certainly make adventures that have emotional weight to them, but you can't force a player to go on an emotional melodramatic journey.
You don't, that's one of the things I've been emphasizing because it's a clear difference from the source material. In Ravenloft adventures, NPCs, particularly one-off NPCs, carry most of that emotional weight. It robs it of the central place it takes in gothic horror, but allows it to still occur, albeit at a greater emotional distance.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on June 14, 2021, 03:29:50 PM
Again here I think I just don't see how you force that in an RPG. You can certainly make adventures that have emotional weight to them, but you can't force a player to go on an emotional melodramatic journey.
You don't, that's one of the things I've been emphasizing because it's a clear difference from the source material. In Ravenloft adventures, NPCs, particularly one-off NPCs, carry most of that emotional weight. It robs it of the central place it takes in gothic horror, but allows it to still occur, albeit at a greater emotional distance.

I get what you're saying but what I don't understand is how you propose those elements get introduced. I mean if you want the emotional aspects of gothic horror to be experienced by the players and not by the villains, what do you think they could have done differently to achieve that? This doesn't seem a problem keyed to the leveling system. It seems an issue with, if this is a traditional RPG, it is only really going to come up if the players decide to go on those kinds of emotionally transformative journey's every session (or you could do it in the 90s storytelling way, with quite a bit of railroad, which plenty of Ravenloft releases did, but I don't like that approach: much bigger fan of the monster hunt, Van Richten book approach to play)
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Pat on June 14, 2021, 03:36:55 PM
Again here I think I just don't see how you force that in an RPG. You can certainly make adventures that have emotional weight to them, but you can't force a player to go on an emotional melodramatic journey.
You don't, that's one of the things I've been emphasizing because it's a clear difference from the source material. In Ravenloft adventures, NPCs, particularly one-off NPCs, carry most of that emotional weight. It robs it of the central place it takes in gothic horror, but allows it to still occur, albeit at a greater emotional distance.

I get what you're saying but what I don't understand is how you propose those elements get introduced. I mean if you want the emotional aspects of gothic horror to be experienced by the players and not by the villains....
I literally just said "you don't".

Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Pat on June 14, 2021, 03:47:33 PM
I can only speak for myself, but I ran Ravenloft with monster hunts and minimal encounters. There certainly might be other encounters with deadly creatures here and there but more int he style of a horror movie than D&D slaughtering monsters till you get to a bad guy. And had tons of session with little to no combat as the players solved the mystery. I mean yes if you run I6, that has a big dungeon. I never ran Ravenloft adventures in my campaigns with massive dungeons. Again if it didn't work for you, it didn't. For me the D&D elements were never a big problem (I think they gave the game enough juice and areas to go in, that it enabled longer term campaigns, but still blended in those gothic horror and classic horror elements nicely). I just don't see how shifting to Cthulhu or changing the system leads to the player characters undergoing the transformational journey you are looking for (unless you are thinking of insanity mechanics, but again, Ravenloft kind of had that with the horror check and the powers checks do transform you over time if you engage in evil actions). They did introduce stuff like madness mechanics later to the setting but I thought those didn't work very well and didn't really add to the experience of play much (just gave you another subsystem to bog things down). I liked the simplicity of fear and horror, curses and powers checks---and I liked that the bad guys in an adventure were essentially a reflection of how domain lords operate (the domain lords are sort of the blue print for things)
I'd be interested to know what you consider a typical adventure outline in Ravenloft. Not looking for a ton of details, just whether you think in terms of location or scene based adventures, the composition of mysteries vs. combat, how much socialization, that kind of thing. Basically, how you fill up the playtime. Because while you seem to be missing a fair amount of what I've been trying to say (that "what I'm looking for" in the quoted section above is another tickets to Munich moment), I do suspect you found a happy medium between D&D and the gothic elements that worked for you and your group. I was never a huge fan of I6 myself (admired some parts, not others), and while my exposure to the other published adventures was minimal, they didn't sound that good.

Agree that some of the mechanics in Ravenloft don't work particularly well. Many of the concepts are good, but the implementation is shaky. The DMs I know who used them well tended to ad hoc them a lot.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Omega on June 14, 2021, 03:51:40 PM
I just noticed something in Curse of Strahd (5E).

On p36, 'A Vistana's Tale', the NPC in question tells the story of a mighty wizard who contested with Strahd but was felled. Later on, the PCs might discover said wizard is still alive, but driven mad by Strahd and/or the Dark Powers. This is an addition from the original Ravenloft 2E adventure.

So why is this an issue? Well, in a truly spectacular example of what tropers call 'worfing', the maddened wizard is Mordenkainen. Yeah, that Mordenkainen. The guy who does shots with Elminster in Ed Greenwood's kitchen.

No, no, no, what the fuck, WotC. We already know Strahd is a badass, why are you fucking up Greyhawk's preeminent archmage? That's just fucking insulting.

I noted this early on. Mordenkainen reduced to a loony old mage out in the wilderness.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Pat on June 14, 2021, 04:03:25 PM
I just noticed something in Curse of Strahd (5E).

On p36, 'A Vistana's Tale', the NPC in question tells the story of a mighty wizard who contested with Strahd but was felled. Later on, the PCs might discover said wizard is still alive, but driven mad by Strahd and/or the Dark Powers. This is an addition from the original Ravenloft 2E adventure.

So why is this an issue? Well, in a truly spectacular example of what tropers call 'worfing', the maddened wizard is Mordenkainen. Yeah, that Mordenkainen. The guy who does shots with Elminster in Ed Greenwood's kitchen.

No, no, no, what the fuck, WotC. We already know Strahd is a badass, why are you fucking up Greyhawk's preeminent archmage? That's just fucking insulting.

I noted this early on. Mordenkainen reduced to a loony old mage out in the wilderness.
Now I want the mad hermit in Keep on the Borderlands to be Mordenkainen, as well.

Nobody's quite sure what happened. The event itself is lost to reality, scrubbed away. But there are echoes in various prophecies, and suspicious details may be whispered by gods who were imprisoned far outside the Great Wheel. The hints suggest it was something about alignment. Something about a 17-way war between law and chaos, between good and evil, and finding the balance between. Whatever happened, the original Mordenkainen was the fulcrum, and it shattered him. His fall was so grand, he fractured across the Primes. In every mad mind, there's a little bit of Mordenkainen, and every completely lunatic is a broken avatar of the lost archmage. It's said that reassembling his fragments would remake the universe, but nobody's quite sure what that means. But megalomaniacs and the mad seek the keys, and reach out to entities across the veil, looking for clues.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: ThatChrisGuy on June 14, 2021, 04:15:51 PM
I just noticed something in Curse of Strahd (5E).

On p36, 'A Vistana's Tale', the NPC in question tells the story of a mighty wizard who contested with Strahd but was felled. Later on, the PCs might discover said wizard is still alive, but driven mad by Strahd and/or the Dark Powers. This is an addition from the original Ravenloft 2E adventure.

So why is this an issue? Well, in a truly spectacular example of what tropers call 'worfing', the maddened wizard is Mordenkainen. Yeah, that Mordenkainen. The guy who does shots with Elminster in Ed Greenwood's kitchen.

No, no, no, what the fuck, WotC. We already know Strahd is a badass, why are you fucking up Greyhawk's preeminent archmage? That's just fucking insulting.

I noted this early on. Mordenkainen reduced to a loony old mage out in the wilderness.
Now I want the mad hermit in Keep on the Borderlands to be Mordenkainen, as well.

Nobody's quite sure what happened. The event itself is lost to reality, scrubbed away. But there are echoes in various prophecies, and suspicious details may be whispered by gods who were imprisoned far outside the Great Wheel. The hints suggest it was something about alignment. Something about a 17-way war between law and chaos, between good and evil, and finding the balance between. Whatever happened, the original Mordenkainen was the fulcrum, and it shattered him. His fall was so grand, he fractured across the Primes. In every mad mind, there's a little bit of Mordenkainen, and every completely lunatic is a broken avatar of the lost archmage. It's said that reassembling his fragments would remake the universe, but nobody's quite sure what that means. But megalomaniacs and the mad seek the keys, and reach out to entities across the veil, looking for clues.

"I'm Mordenkainen and so is my wife!"
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on June 14, 2021, 04:46:08 PM
I can only speak for myself, but I ran Ravenloft with monster hunts and minimal encounters. There certainly might be other encounters with deadly creatures here and there but more int he style of a horror movie than D&D slaughtering monsters till you get to a bad guy. And had tons of session with little to no combat as the players solved the mystery. I mean yes if you run I6, that has a big dungeon. I never ran Ravenloft adventures in my campaigns with massive dungeons. Again if it didn't work for you, it didn't. For me the D&D elements were never a big problem (I think they gave the game enough juice and areas to go in, that it enabled longer term campaigns, but still blended in those gothic horror and classic horror elements nicely). I just don't see how shifting to Cthulhu or changing the system leads to the player characters undergoing the transformational journey you are looking for (unless you are thinking of insanity mechanics, but again, Ravenloft kind of had that with the horror check and the powers checks do transform you over time if you engage in evil actions). They did introduce stuff like madness mechanics later to the setting but I thought those didn't work very well and didn't really add to the experience of play much (just gave you another subsystem to bog things down). I liked the simplicity of fear and horror, curses and powers checks---and I liked that the bad guys in an adventure were essentially a reflection of how domain lords operate (the domain lords are sort of the blue print for things)
I'd be interested to know what you consider a typical adventure outline in Ravenloft. Not looking for a ton of details, just whether you think in terms of location or scene based adventures, the composition of mysteries vs. combat, how much socialization, that kind of thing. Basically, how you fill up the playtime. Because while you seem to be missing a fair amount of what I've been trying to say (that "what I'm looking for" in the quoted section above is another tickets to Munich moment), I do suspect you found a happy medium between D&D and the gothic elements that worked for you and your group. I was never a huge fan of I6 myself (admired some parts, not others), and while my exposure to the other published adventures was minimal, they didn't sound that good.

Agree that some of the mechanics in Ravenloft don't work particularly well. Many of the concepts are good, but the implementation is shaky. The DMs I know who used them well tended to ad hoc them a lot.

I think I was just confused what you were advocating. Apologies. Wasn't trying to be difficult. I thought you were saying that Ravenloft tried to be gothic horror, but failed in your mind, and you felt it could have better achieved it if it took a different direction, but it sounds like you are saying you can't do gothic horror in this kind of RPG so just embrace the D&D side of things. That is fair if that is how you feel about it. Domains of Dread went a little more in that direction because there were fans who feel the way you do, and the new edition supposedly is going much more in that direction. I think for me, because I came to Ravenloft through the Knight of the Black Rose and black box, and was really struck by it (it was the first setting that clicked for me), it kind of just always made intuitive sense. It did take me a while to figure out how to run adventures well because this was the 90s and there was the storytelling railroad thing in the air (which I certainly did as much as anyone at that time).

But in terms of adventure structures I tended to run it monster of the week, with focus on monster hunts, mysteries, etc.  That wasn't the only structure, but it was one of the reliable ways I found to prep. I stated this several times here, but just in case you didn't see those posts, I really started to connect the dots when I ran Feast of Goblyns and got the first Van Richten book (got that one like the day it came out). Feast of Goblyns had a section on 'major wandering encounters' which was basically about treating NPCs as alive in the setting, having their own agendas and moving around not being rooted to particular places (reacting to PCs, that sort of thing). The Van Richten books placed a lot of emphasis on monster hunts and customizing the monsters so they were almost like a puzzle to solve (so you might need to learn about their history if you want to find their weaknesses---and Ravenloft creatures could be pretty hard to kill if you didn't know their weaknesses). Usually when I prepped, I started with the villain and worked from there. In the case of the monster hunt, let's say a werewolf. It might be quite simple: the players are asked to help a village solve a number of local killings and that leads them down a trail of clues, and ultimately to the werewolf (and in that sort of scenario, often figuring out who the werewolf is might be important). This adventure might have zero encounters until the players are attacked by or confront the werewolf. But I could spice things up if needed (I tended to do so by tying those encounters to the werewolf through minions or another villain or bad guy involved in the adventure somehow). Ravenloft gives GMs a lot of flexibility for tailoring encounters, and encounters are meant to really be played up and just happen one after another like a slog (at least not in the early 90s Ravenloft) so I tended to abide by that and found it worked. If they were facing a powerful undead, like a lich, then certainly there would be more room for encounters with stuff like zombies and skeletons. But I'd say on average there was probably 1-2 combats per adventure for me. Sometimes there weren't even combats, they may just resolve the puzzle of the ghost by laying it rest, or they might flee from the villain and decide not to confront them. Filling up time never seemed to be a problem. And of course if the players traveled, all bets might be off, they could certainly have encounters along the road (but again I would not do it like I do in a sandbox campaign where I am rolling randomly and possibly having 0 possibly having 10 encounters depending on what happens with the rolls). I leaned heavily on the idea of the planned encounter in the boxed set. So one really atmospheric encounter where the players can interact with the emerging threat, hedge their bets, potentially make choices that result in a better or worse fight for them against a terrifying creature (rather than a bunch).

As an example I remember running a haunted house (Think it was the house of lament, which I elaborated on from the Darklords book--pretty sure that is the one it was in). There was basically only one real encounter running through the house when they were trapped in it (which was the adventure itself, trying to find a way to destroy the haunting or escape). I think I had a porcelain statue that was stalking the halls trying to kill them. So they explored and tried to evade that one creature. It has been ages so I don't recall too many of the specifics, but I do remember having this one looming threat that occasionally emerged.

I also eschewed things like magic items (Ravenloft was described as not having many in the black box) and shied away from dungeons: most of those kinds of locations in my campaigns were simpler, more practical, like a real world tomb where a lich might be residing. Experience was dolled out more slowly too. So the party had a pretty long period of low level adventures before getting to a point where they were tackling more powerful foes (and by then it was fun because I was able to throw thing like ancient vampires after them).

Now, if I understand your meaning with melodrama and personal horror. That stuff could still come up on the player end in my games. But I think I approached it in one of two ways: introducing it externally, or allowing it to emerge naturally and feeding it when it cropped up as a result of player choice. The former is a little more hamfisted. I would do it with greater caution these days. But I recall for example having a long time NPC who had been with the party for like two years, end up getting captured and turned into a flesh golem, then sent after the party. That had much more of a personal connection than say just having to deal with a flesh golem that was unrelated to the party in any way. Also powers checks and characters getting corrupted over time could lead to that, but as you said, that isn't something that came up reliably every adventure. The percentage chance for a powers check is actually pretty low (usually 1-2 percent, though it could go up to 10 percent for certain actions). But because it comes with a reward and punishment, there were always players who liked to test that rule and would go down the path (which in my experience worked pretty well in terms of capturing that slow transformation of a character). It might not fit perfectly to literary gothic for some folks, but I found it pretty cool to see in action and I became a lot more skilled in managing failed powers checks the more they came up. Overall though, I was content with this stuff being  on the villain side of things.

Not sure if this answers your question well. I ran Ravenloft regularly from 91-92 to about 2003 (I became disenchanted with the d20 version of Ravenloft). So I did play a lot of different styles and approaches in that time. And I often ran the modules (which had problems, but I ran most more than once, and managed to play most of the ones I ran both as written and just cutting them up and using them as I needed: Feast of Goblyns was great for the latter).
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Shasarak on June 14, 2021, 04:51:44 PM
I just noticed something in Curse of Strahd (5E).

On p36, 'A Vistana's Tale', the NPC in question tells the story of a mighty wizard who contested with Strahd but was felled. Later on, the PCs might discover said wizard is still alive, but driven mad by Strahd and/or the Dark Powers. This is an addition from the original Ravenloft 2E adventure.

So why is this an issue? Well, in a truly spectacular example of what tropers call 'worfing', the maddened wizard is Mordenkainen. Yeah, that Mordenkainen. The guy who does shots with Elminster in Ed Greenwood's kitchen.

No, no, no, what the fuck, WotC. We already know Strahd is a badass, why are you fucking up Greyhawk's preeminent archmage? That's just fucking insulting.

Dont worry about it, Elminster has already rescued him.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Shasarak on June 14, 2021, 04:59:49 PM
Again here I think I just don't see how you force that in an RPG. You can certainly make adventures that have emotional weight to them, but you can't force a player to go on an emotional melodramatic journey.
You don't, that's one of the things I've been emphasizing because it's a clear difference from the source material. In Ravenloft adventures, NPCs, particularly one-off NPCs, carry most of that emotional weight. It robs it of the central place it takes in gothic horror, but allows it to still occur, albeit at a greater emotional distance.

I get what you're saying but what I don't understand is how you propose those elements get introduced. I mean if you want the emotional aspects of gothic horror to be experienced by the players and not by the villains....
I literally just said "you don't".

Classic Pat
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Pat on June 14, 2021, 05:49:46 PM
I'd be interested to know what you consider a typical adventure outline in Ravenloft. Not looking for a ton of details, just whether you think in terms of location or scene based adventures, the composition of mysteries vs. combat, how much socialization, that kind of thing. Basically, how you fill up the playtime. Because while you seem to be missing a fair amount of what I've been trying to say (that "what I'm looking for" in the quoted section above is another tickets to Munich moment), I do suspect you found a happy medium between D&D and the gothic elements that worked for you and your group. I was never a huge fan of I6 myself (admired some parts, not others), and while my exposure to the other published adventures was minimal, they didn't sound that good.

Agree that some of the mechanics in Ravenloft don't work particularly well. Many of the concepts are good, but the implementation is shaky. The DMs I know who used them well tended to ad hoc them a lot.

I think I was just confused what you were advocating. Apologies. Wasn't trying to be difficult. I thought you were saying that Ravenloft tried to be gothic horror, but failed in your mind, and you felt it could have better achieved it if it took a different direction, but it sounds like you are saying you can't do gothic horror in this kind of RPG so just embrace the D&D side of things.
That's a lot closer, though my position lacks the futility you're expressing. I'm just arguing that Ravenloft is D&D first, and the gothic horror elements are an overlay. If you come in with expectations set by other media, or even other RPGs (like CoC) with a different design and emphasis, you'll end up frustrated because you'll be missing many of the essential elements. But if you recognize it for what it is, and incorporate the gothic horror elements in ways that don't fight the mechanics and structure of the game, then you can have a fun D&D game with gothic horror flavoring.

But in terms of adventure structures I tended to run it monster of the week, with focus on monster hunts, mysteries, etc.  That wasn't the only structure, but it was one of the reliable ways I found to prep. I stated this several times here, but just in case you didn't see those posts, I really started to connect the dots when I ran Feast of Goblyns and got the first Van Richten book (got that one like the day it came out). Feast of Goblyns had a section on 'major wandering encounters' which was basically about treating NPCs as alive in the setting, having their own agendas and moving around not being rooted to particular places (reacting to PCs, that sort of thing). The Van Richten books placed a lot of emphasis on monster hunts and customizing the monsters so they were almost like a puzzle to solve (so you might need to learn about their history if you want to find their weaknesses---and Ravenloft creatures could be pretty hard to kill if you didn't know their weaknesses). Usually when I prepped, I started with the villain and worked from there. In the case of the monster hunt, let's say a werewolf. It might be quite simple: the players are asked to help a village solve a number of local killings and that leads them down a trail of clues, and ultimately to the werewolf (and in that sort of scenario, often figuring out who the werewolf is might be important). This adventure might have zero encounters until the players are attacked by or confront the werewolf. But I could spice things up if needed (I tended to do so by tying those encounters to the werewolf through minions or another villain or bad guy involved in the adventure somehow). Ravenloft gives GMs a lot of flexibility for tailoring encounters, and encounters are meant to really be played up and just happen one after another like a slog (at least not in the early 90s Ravenloft) so I tended to abide by that and found it worked. If they were facing a powerful undead, like a lich, then certainly there would be more room for encounters with stuff like zombies and skeletons. But I'd say on average there was probably 1-2 combats per adventure for me. Sometimes there weren't even combats, they may just resolve the puzzle of the ghost by laying it rest, or they might flee from the villain and decide not to confront them. Filling up time never seemed to be a problem. And of course if the players traveled, all bets might be off, they could certainly have encounters along the road (but again I would not do it like I do in a sandbox campaign where I am rolling randomly and possibly having 0 possibly having 10 encounters depending on what happens with the rolls). I leaned heavily on the idea of the planned encounter in the boxed set. So one really atmospheric encounter where the players can interact with the emerging threat, hedge their bets, potentially make choices that result in a better or worse fight for them against a terrifying creature (rather than a bunch).

As an example I remember running a haunted house (Think it was the house of lament, which I elaborated on from the Darklords book--pretty sure that is the one it was in). There was basically only one real encounter running through the house when they were trapped in it (which was the adventure itself, trying to find a way to destroy the haunting or escape). I think I had a porcelain statue that was stalking the halls trying to kill them. So they explored and tried to evade that one creature. It has been ages so I don't recall too many of the specifics, but I do remember having this one looming threat that occasionally emerged.

I also eschewed things like magic items (Ravenloft was described as not having many in the black box) and shied away from dungeons: most of those kinds of locations in my campaigns were simpler, more practical, like a real world tomb where a lich might be residing. Experience was dolled out more slowly too. So the party had a pretty long period of low level adventures before getting to a point where they were tackling more powerful foes (and by then it was fun because I was able to throw thing like ancient vampires after them).

Now, if I understand your meaning with melodrama and personal horror. That stuff could still come up on the player end in my games. But I think I approached it in one of two ways: introducing it externally, or allowing it to emerge naturally and feeding it when it cropped up as a result of player choice. The former is a little more hamfisted. I would do it with greater caution these days. But I recall for example having a long time NPC who had been with the party for like two years, end up getting captured and turned into a flesh golem, then sent after the party. That had much more of a personal connection than say just having to deal with a flesh golem that was unrelated to the party in any way. Also powers checks and characters getting corrupted over time could lead to that, but as you said, that isn't something that came up reliably every adventure. The percentage chance for a powers check is actually pretty low (usually 1-2 percent, though it could go up to 10 percent for certain actions). But because it comes with a reward and punishment, there were always players who liked to test that rule and would go down the path (which in my experience worked pretty well in terms of capturing that slow transformation of a character). It might not fit perfectly to literary gothic for some folks, but I found it pretty cool to see in action and I became a lot more skilled in managing failed powers checks the more they came up. Overall though, I was content with this stuff being  on the villain side of things.

Not sure if this answers your question well. I ran Ravenloft regularly from 91-92 to about 2003 (I became disenchanted with the d20 version of Ravenloft). So I did play a lot of different styles and approaches in that time. And I often ran the modules (which had problems, but I ran most more than once, and managed to play most of the ones I ran both as written and just cutting them up and using them as I needed: Feast of Goblyns was great for the latter).
Thanks, and it does give me some idea of your approach. Like I said, I think you're incorporating a lot of what I'm describing without realizing it, or without realizing how you've changed things from the gothic horror tradition, because you're describing a fairly standard D&D campaign with some gothic elements.

To make an aside, one of the things D&D has always been bad at is describing the basic premise of the game. Not the rules, but the way you use the rules to run a game. How you take the mechanics, and turn it into coherent adventures and campaigns. The consequences of the thin line between life and death, the importance of small unit tactics, marching order, weapon length, henchmen, hirelings, and so on. That's one of the reasons why the OSR first emerged, after all. There was an ur-playstyle, exemplified by the Greyhawk and Blackmoor campaigns, that was largely lost over the decades and needed be rediscovered. None of the old school D&D books did a good job describing it. People picked up bits and pieces, but except for those who were directly exposed to that playstyle, not a lot of people were able to pull it together in way that ran smoothly and as intended. The OSR spent a lot of time and blog posts chasing down and explaining that lost playstyle, which is exemplified in things like the Old School Primer or Philotomy's Musings.

One of the best examples of how to turn the rules into an adventure and a campaign comes from a monster-hunter game: the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG. It's very cinematic, and it's only tangentially gothic, and the formalized structure including Big Bads and the Monsters of the Week can feel a little rote, but it's not a bad reference because it shares a lot in common with D&D, and the genre is gothic-adjacent. Sounds like you adopted a similar structure. Villains as living (or not) and dynamic characters who take action based on their motives and the information available to them was less common in the early 90s, but it's just good campaign. So is interweaving recurring elements.

Ravenloft could use a better explanation of how to run a game. What I've been describing is a few general principles in that regard, but I haven't been getting into the details of campaign and adventure design. A good Ravenloft guide book would cover some of them, but place a lot more emphasis on specific details. The puzzles you describe is a good example; I've read the the same Van Richten books, and while they did emphasize customizing monster weaknesses (and strengths), they didn't do a very good job of explaining how to incorporate them into adventures, and primarily left it up to the DM. That's an area I think could be fleshed out. GURPS Mystery might be a good source. It's not directly about puzzles, but puzzles and mysteries are close kin, and it has a lot of advice on how to work it into a campaign. (Though to contrast it with BtVS, GURPS Mystery is a lot less formulaic).

Bringing it back to Ravenloft, there are a number of possible adventure structures. Location-based adventures can work, like the Castles Forlorn, but they require a lot more prep than a traditional dungeon crawl, because it's less about clearing the rooms and more about uncovering what's really going on. But fundamentally, I think a scene-based structure is probably the default. That works well with mystery/puzzle setups, and also with social maneuvering.

That drifted quite a bit, didn't it?
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on June 14, 2021, 06:01:16 PM
I'd be interested to know what you consider a typical adventure outline in Ravenloft. Not looking for a ton of details, just whether you think in terms of location or scene based adventures, the composition of mysteries vs. combat, how much socialization, that kind of thing. Basically, how you fill up the playtime. Because while you seem to be missing a fair amount of what I've been trying to say (that "what I'm looking for" in the quoted section above is another tickets to Munich moment), I do suspect you found a happy medium between D&D and the gothic elements that worked for you and your group. I was never a huge fan of I6 myself (admired some parts, not others), and while my exposure to the other published adventures was minimal, they didn't sound that good.

Agree that some of the mechanics in Ravenloft don't work particularly well. Many of the concepts are good, but the implementation is shaky. The DMs I know who used them well tended to ad hoc them a lot.

I think I was just confused what you were advocating. Apologies. Wasn't trying to be difficult. I thought you were saying that Ravenloft tried to be gothic horror, but failed in your mind, and you felt it could have better achieved it if it took a different direction, but it sounds like you are saying you can't do gothic horror in this kind of RPG so just embrace the D&D side of things.
That's a lot closer, though my position lacks the futility you're expressing. I'm just arguing that Ravenloft is D&D first, and the gothic horror elements are an overlay. If you come in with expectations set by other media, or even other RPGs (like CoC) with a different design and emphasis, you'll end up frustrated because you'll be missing many of the essential elements. But if you recognize it for what it is, and incorporate the gothic horror elements in ways that don't fight the mechanics and structure of the game, then you can have a fun D&D game with gothic horror flavoring.

But in terms of adventure structures I tended to run it monster of the week, with focus on monster hunts, mysteries, etc.  That wasn't the only structure, but it was one of the reliable ways I found to prep. I stated this several times here, but just in case you didn't see those posts, I really started to connect the dots when I ran Feast of Goblyns and got the first Van Richten book (got that one like the day it came out). Feast of Goblyns had a section on 'major wandering encounters' which was basically about treating NPCs as alive in the setting, having their own agendas and moving around not being rooted to particular places (reacting to PCs, that sort of thing). The Van Richten books placed a lot of emphasis on monster hunts and customizing the monsters so they were almost like a puzzle to solve (so you might need to learn about their history if you want to find their weaknesses---and Ravenloft creatures could be pretty hard to kill if you didn't know their weaknesses). Usually when I prepped, I started with the villain and worked from there. In the case of the monster hunt, let's say a werewolf. It might be quite simple: the players are asked to help a village solve a number of local killings and that leads them down a trail of clues, and ultimately to the werewolf (and in that sort of scenario, often figuring out who the werewolf is might be important). This adventure might have zero encounters until the players are attacked by or confront the werewolf. But I could spice things up if needed (I tended to do so by tying those encounters to the werewolf through minions or another villain or bad guy involved in the adventure somehow). Ravenloft gives GMs a lot of flexibility for tailoring encounters, and encounters are meant to really be played up and just happen one after another like a slog (at least not in the early 90s Ravenloft) so I tended to abide by that and found it worked. If they were facing a powerful undead, like a lich, then certainly there would be more room for encounters with stuff like zombies and skeletons. But I'd say on average there was probably 1-2 combats per adventure for me. Sometimes there weren't even combats, they may just resolve the puzzle of the ghost by laying it rest, or they might flee from the villain and decide not to confront them. Filling up time never seemed to be a problem. And of course if the players traveled, all bets might be off, they could certainly have encounters along the road (but again I would not do it like I do in a sandbox campaign where I am rolling randomly and possibly having 0 possibly having 10 encounters depending on what happens with the rolls). I leaned heavily on the idea of the planned encounter in the boxed set. So one really atmospheric encounter where the players can interact with the emerging threat, hedge their bets, potentially make choices that result in a better or worse fight for them against a terrifying creature (rather than a bunch).

As an example I remember running a haunted house (Think it was the house of lament, which I elaborated on from the Darklords book--pretty sure that is the one it was in). There was basically only one real encounter running through the house when they were trapped in it (which was the adventure itself, trying to find a way to destroy the haunting or escape). I think I had a porcelain statue that was stalking the halls trying to kill them. So they explored and tried to evade that one creature. It has been ages so I don't recall too many of the specifics, but I do remember having this one looming threat that occasionally emerged.

I also eschewed things like magic items (Ravenloft was described as not having many in the black box) and shied away from dungeons: most of those kinds of locations in my campaigns were simpler, more practical, like a real world tomb where a lich might be residing. Experience was dolled out more slowly too. So the party had a pretty long period of low level adventures before getting to a point where they were tackling more powerful foes (and by then it was fun because I was able to throw thing like ancient vampires after them).

Now, if I understand your meaning with melodrama and personal horror. That stuff could still come up on the player end in my games. But I think I approached it in one of two ways: introducing it externally, or allowing it to emerge naturally and feeding it when it cropped up as a result of player choice. The former is a little more hamfisted. I would do it with greater caution these days. But I recall for example having a long time NPC who had been with the party for like two years, end up getting captured and turned into a flesh golem, then sent after the party. That had much more of a personal connection than say just having to deal with a flesh golem that was unrelated to the party in any way. Also powers checks and characters getting corrupted over time could lead to that, but as you said, that isn't something that came up reliably every adventure. The percentage chance for a powers check is actually pretty low (usually 1-2 percent, though it could go up to 10 percent for certain actions). But because it comes with a reward and punishment, there were always players who liked to test that rule and would go down the path (which in my experience worked pretty well in terms of capturing that slow transformation of a character). It might not fit perfectly to literary gothic for some folks, but I found it pretty cool to see in action and I became a lot more skilled in managing failed powers checks the more they came up. Overall though, I was content with this stuff being  on the villain side of things.

Not sure if this answers your question well. I ran Ravenloft regularly from 91-92 to about 2003 (I became disenchanted with the d20 version of Ravenloft). So I did play a lot of different styles and approaches in that time. And I often ran the modules (which had problems, but I ran most more than once, and managed to play most of the ones I ran both as written and just cutting them up and using them as I needed: Feast of Goblyns was great for the latter).
Thanks, and it does give me some idea of your approach. Like I said, I think you're incorporating a lot of what I'm describing without realizing it, or without realizing how you've changed things from the gothic horror tradition, because you're describing a fairly standard D&D campaign with some gothic elements.

To make an aside, one of the things D&D has always been bad at is describing the basic premise of the game. Not the rules, but the way you use the rules to run a game. How you take the mechanics, and turn it into coherent adventures and campaigns. The consequences of the thin line between life and death, the importance of small unit tactics, marching order, weapon length, henchmen, hirelings, and so on. That's one of the reasons why the OSR first emerged, after all. There was an ur-playstyle, exemplified by the Greyhawk and Blackmoor campaigns, that was largely lost over the decades and needed be rediscovered. None of the old school D&D books did a good job describing it. People picked up bits and pieces, but except for those who were directly exposed to that playstyle, not a lot of people were able to pull it together in way that ran smoothly and as intended. The OSR spent a lot of time and blog posts chasing down and explaining that lost playstyle, which is exemplified in things like the Old School Primer or Philotomy's Musings.

One of the best examples of how to turn the rules into an adventure and a campaign comes from a monster-hunter game: the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG. It's very cinematic, and it's only tangentially gothic, and the formalized structure including Big Bads and the Monsters of the Week can feel a little rote, but it's not a bad reference because it shares a lot in common with D&D, and the genre is gothic-adjacent. Sounds like you adopted a similar structure. Villains as living (or not) and dynamic characters who take action based on their motives and the information available to them was less common in the early 90s, but it's just good campaign. So is interweaving recurring elements.

Ravenloft could use a better explanation of how to run a game. What I've been describing is a few general principles in that regard, but I haven't been getting into the details of campaign and adventure design. A good Ravenloft guide book would cover some of them, but place a lot more emphasis on specific details. The puzzles you describe is a good example; I've read the the same Van Richten books, and while they did emphasize customizing monster weaknesses (and strengths), they didn't do a very good job of explaining how to incorporate them into adventures, and primarily left it up to the DM. That's an area I think could be fleshed out. GURPS Mystery might be a good source. It's not directly about puzzles, but puzzles and mysteries are close kin, and it has a lot of advice on how to work it into a campaign. (Though to contrast it with BtVS, GURPS Mystery is a lot less formulaic).

Bringing it back to Ravenloft, there are a number of possible adventure structures. Location-based adventures can work, like the Castles Forlorn, but they require a lot more prep than a traditional dungeon crawl, because it's less about clearing the rooms and more about uncovering what's really going on. But fundamentally, I think a scene-based structure is probably the default. That works well with mystery/puzzle setups, and also with social maneuvering.

That drifted quite a bit, didn't it?

Like I said it is about where the balance is. It is still D&D. But what I was talking about when I said I leaned more towards the gothic approach is there were two camps in Ravenloft through the 90s: those who more freely drew on other D&D and fantasy elements: more dungeons, more random encounters, more magic items, etc. Black Box lays out a more gothic approach in my opinion, DoD tries to bring in more fantasy (at least in my view). And there are always people who advocate for more and more fantasy in the Ravenloft setting. I eschewed things like monsters you would find in a typical fantasy world (avoided stuff like orcs and dragons for example). I kept things focused on the monsters, and kept them gothic. That is basically what I mean when I say taking a more gothic approach.

On the Van Richten books, I think it became clear through the examples he gave how you would run a monster hunt. It was something they didn't do a good job clarifying. I will agree with that. 2E in general didn't do a good job clarifying adventure structures and procedures (though part of that with Ravenloft I think is people took radically different approaches depending on the table). I knew people who ran it as a sandbox for instance (which isn't how I would run it even though I do like sandboxes). This is why I usually say between the black box, feast of goblins and the van richten books, you can get a good idea of ways to run it.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on June 14, 2021, 06:07:02 PM
The puzzles you describe is a good example; I've read the the same Van Richten books, and while they did emphasize customizing monster weaknesses (and strengths), they didn't do a very good job of explaining how to incorporate them into adventures, and primarily left it up to the DM.

Did you read the originals or the compilation books?

I think on this front it was pretty clear how to make the weaknesses into puzzles. And I seem to recall there being a lot of advice in general on having their be a mystery to solve, and having researching things like the history of the monster be important, in both the Van Richten books but elsewhere too. I think where they fell short here, is the GM needs to know to somehow make that idea clear to the players (that bit I remember being a little bit of a hurdle for me for some reason: just wondering why the players weren't doing what the people in the examples were doing). But in terms of the adventure structure and building it around a creature with a background, secret or puzzle to defeat them, that was pretty easy to do I thought after I read those books (I haven't read them in a while, so I can't remember if it explicitly tells you what to do there, or if it was just clear from context to me). But definitely the Van Richten books were like a light bulb for me. It was super easy for me to know what to prep, how to prep it, etc. One thing I really liked about the monster hunt approach is it lent itself to an almost kind of mini-sandbox. There is an adventure, you are expected to face this particular threat, but the GM can react to the choices and actions the players take in trying to solve the problem. It can be very free form (you don't need to plan events, or anything like that, just have a monster with clear motivation, clear characteristics, and let the players try to take it down before it decides to start hunting them).
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Pat on June 14, 2021, 06:34:29 PM
The puzzles you describe is a good example; I've read the the same Van Richten books, and while they did emphasize customizing monster weaknesses (and strengths), they didn't do a very good job of explaining how to incorporate them into adventures, and primarily left it up to the DM.

Did you read the originals or the compilation books?
Originals. I don't think I've even flipped through the compilations.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on June 14, 2021, 07:09:53 PM
Are there any RPGs that actually do gothic horror well?
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: jhkim on June 14, 2021, 07:44:19 PM
Are there any RPGs that actually do gothic horror well?

The only game that I recall that did straight gothic horror was Chill (originally from Pacesetter). However, I don't think it worked particularly well. I used some of the sourcebooks - they had an excellent one on vampires in 2nd edition, but never ran a campaign using the rules system. For my own gothic fantasy game, I used a homebrew adaptation of Ars Magica without the magic system.


To make an aside, one of the things D&D has always been bad at is describing the basic premise of the game. Not the rules, but the way you use the rules to run a game. How you take the mechanics, and turn it into coherent adventures and campaigns. The consequences of the thin line between life and death, the importance of small unit tactics, marching order, weapon length, henchmen, hirelings, and so on. That's one of the reasons why the OSR first emerged, after all. There was an ur-playstyle, exemplified by the Greyhawk and Blackmoor campaigns, that was largely lost over the decades and needed be rediscovered. None of the old school D&D books did a good job describing it. People picked up bits and pieces, but except for those who were directly exposed to that playstyle, not a lot of people were able to pull it together in way that ran smoothly and as intended. The OSR spent a lot of time and blog posts chasing down and explaining that lost playstyle, which is exemplified in things like the Old School Primer or Philotomy's Musings.

One of the best examples of how to turn the rules into an adventure and a campaign comes from a monster-hunter game: the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG. It's very cinematic, and it's only tangentially gothic, and the formalized structure including Big Bads and the Monsters of the Week can feel a little rote, but it's not a bad reference because it shares a lot in common with D&D, and the genre is gothic-adjacent. Sounds like you adopted a similar structure. Villains as living (or not) and dynamic characters who take action based on their motives and the information available to them was less common in the early 90s, but it's just good campaign. So is interweaving recurring elements.

Ravenloft could use a better explanation of how to run a game. What I've been describing is a few general principles in that regard, but I haven't been getting into the details of campaign and adventure design. A good Ravenloft guide book would cover some of them, but place a lot more emphasis on specific details. The puzzles you describe is a good example; I've read the the same Van Richten books, and while they did emphasize customizing monster weaknesses (and strengths), they didn't do a very good job of explaining how to incorporate them into adventures, and primarily left it up to the DM.

I'm not sure how much there is an ur-playstyle per se, in that people have run D&D in very different styles. I think it's flexibility and vagueness made it easier for individual GMs to make it their own. I ran a lot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer - I agree it is an excellent model, though I see it as very different from D&D, since it has a very explicit episodic and dramatic structure. The closest thing to an ur-D&D style is the dungeon as a keyed location, while Buffy has a single monster-of-the-week that gets fought in different locations.

For me, a key thing that made both Buffy and gothic games pop was dramatic hooks in the player characters. My usual formula for a Buffy episode was always a combination of a dramatic storyline for a character and a thematically-appropriate monster that matched. My gothic campaign didn't have the same episodic structure, but they also had strong dramatic hooks in characters. I think of, for example, the family doctor PC who secretly had killed his abusive father and now was haunted by his father's ghost (or thought he was), or the estranged son who had sought out mystic secrets and was now on a path to becoming a dragon via elemental magic.

I never actually watched the series Dark Shadows, but I was told my approach was similar. For a number of my gothic horror games, I had my PCs as blood relatives rather than homeless professional adventurers, and I thought that worked well.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Omega on June 14, 2021, 07:55:43 PM
For me RPGs that do Gothic Horror well are...

Masque of the Red Death: Hands down the best so far at this.

TORG's Orrorsh could do it well but would take alot of tweaking. Same for Beyond the Supernatural, only more so.

I've heard alot of good things about Cthulhu by Saslight, but never had a chance to see it for myself.
Same for Chill. But I thought that was more modern themed?

Bemusingly TSR's MSH can easily do it. But you'd need the right sorts of heroes to drop into such a situation.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Pat on June 14, 2021, 08:35:39 PM

I'm not sure how much there is an ur-playstyle per se, in that people have run D&D in very different styles.
People have run D&D in very different styles. That's correct. But it's unrelated to the rest of your statement, which is objectively wrong. "Ur-" means "original" or "primitive", and I specifically referenced Greyhawk and Blackmoor. The playstyle at those tables were the original playstyle, and it's the one the early OSR was concerned with replicating. Which was my entire point.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Pat on June 14, 2021, 08:39:03 PM
Unknown Armies (I'm only familiar through 2e) might handle gothic horror fairly well. The mechanics are fairly brutal, and the psychological meters wouldn't have to be tweaked much for a game of gothic horror. The tone would have to change dramatically, though. Postmodernism is almost the antithesis of gothic.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Naburimannu on June 15, 2021, 07:36:00 AM
Thanks, and it does give me some idea of your approach. Like I said, I think you're incorporating a lot of what I'm describing without realizing it, or without realizing how you've changed things from the gothic horror tradition, because you're describing a fairly standard D&D campaign with some gothic elements.

1-2 combats per adventure, few magic items, and few dungeons seems pretty far removed from a "fairly standard D&D campaign" in my experience?
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Chris24601 on June 15, 2021, 07:51:14 AM
Thanks, and it does give me some idea of your approach. Like I said, I think you're incorporating a lot of what I'm describing without realizing it, or without realizing how you've changed things from the gothic horror tradition, because you're describing a fairly standard D&D campaign with some gothic elements.

1-2 combats per adventure, few magic items, and few dungeons seems pretty far removed from a "fairly standard D&D campaign" in my experience?
Feels very much like several campaigns I've been in though. Different groups play D&D differently and always have. This should not be news to anyone.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on June 15, 2021, 08:24:32 AM
Are there any RPGs that actually do gothic horror well?

I think Ravenloft did it well. But this has long been a criticism among some fans of Ravenloft. You may be interested in Krevborna: A Gothic Blood Opera. I haven't played it so I don't know how well it handles the Genre but it is by Jack Shear, who used to post about Ravenloft here, and who, I believe, teaches courses on gothic literature (I remember he was a professor at least, and pretty sure he said he covered that period in his courses). I think he shared a lot of the complaints that have been expressed in the last couple of pages and my impression when he released this was it was a kind of answer to those criticisms (though I should note it mentions being influenced by stuff like Castlevania in the description).

Omega mentioned Gothic Earth and that really is a good setting and interesting system. I think all you need too for this one is the boxed set. There is a gazetteer and I remember there being a guide for Transylvania as well (I found these not as inspiring as the boxed set material at the time---but it has been ages since I read them).

I never ran it but Orrorsh for TORG always seemed good to me as a player. But it is a little out there due to the nature of the TORG setting
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Thornhammer on June 15, 2021, 12:55:20 PM
I think Ravenloft did it well. But this has long been a criticism among some fans of Ravenloft. You may be interested in Krevborna: A Gothic Blood Opera. I haven't played it so I don't know how well it handles the Genre but it is by Jack Shear, who used to post about Ravenloft here, and who, I believe, teaches courses on gothic literature (I remember he was a professor at least, and pretty sure he said he covered that period in his courses). I think he shared a lot of the complaints that have been expressed in the last couple of pages and my impression when he released this was it was a kind of answer to those criticisms (though I should note it mentions being influenced by stuff like Castlevania in the description).

Krevborna is Bloodborne done up as a tabletop setting. It has a few other things in it here and there, but it is significantly Bloodborne. It's really good, too.

He also has a set of (there are at least three) compendiums all about running Gothic games. Named the same as his blog, Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque.  I only see the first one on Amazon, but I seem to recall getting all three of them at the same time. They specifically discuss how to implement "what a horrible night to have a curse" and it made me smile greatly.

Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on June 15, 2021, 01:49:35 PM
Isn’t Bloodborne also a cosmic horror setting?
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Thornhammer on June 15, 2021, 09:10:58 PM
Isn’t Bloodborne also a cosmic horror setting?

Yep.

Strongly rhymes with Mythos material without being Cthulhu-related.
Title: Re: Ravenloft Bans Alignment, Drow Now Good, Soulless Worlds Result
Post by: Pat on June 15, 2021, 09:26:30 PM
Thanks, and it does give me some idea of your approach. Like I said, I think you're incorporating a lot of what I'm describing without realizing it, or without realizing how you've changed things from the gothic horror tradition, because you're describing a fairly standard D&D campaign with some gothic elements.

1-2 combats per adventure, few magic items, and few dungeons seems pretty far removed from a "fairly standard D&D campaign" in my experience?
Feels very much like several campaigns I've been in though. Different groups play D&D differently and always have. This should not be news to anyone.
Yep. Plus, if someone thinks that's far from the D&D experience, it makes it sound like D&D is all they've played.