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.

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.

Quote from: 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.

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).

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.

Quote from: 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.

So the only change with this version is that now the DM can't detect alignment either.

Quote from: HappyDaze on June 03, 2021, 06:32:55 PM

Quote from: 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.

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.

Quote from: jhkim on June 02, 2021, 05:01:26 PM

Quote from: oggsmash on June 02, 2021, 04:06:56 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:

Quote1: 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.

Quote from: jhkim on June 02, 2021, 05:20:52 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on June 02, 2021, 04:13:54 PM

Quote from: jhkim on June 02, 2021, 03:17:29 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).

Quote from: HappyDaze on June 02, 2021, 05:23:59 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on June 02, 2021, 04:00:35 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.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 02, 2021, 05:46:24 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on June 02, 2021, 04:08:44 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 02, 2021, 01:55:01 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.

Quote from: RPGPundit on June 03, 2021, 07:47:03 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.

Quote from: jhkim on June 02, 2021, 07:25:56 PM

Quote from: Shasarak on June 02, 2021, 05:46:06 PM

Quote from: jhkim on June 02, 2021, 05:01:26 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:

Quote1: 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.

Quote from: Pat on June 03, 2021, 08:07:46 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on June 03, 2021, 07:47:03 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.

Quote from: RPGPundit on June 03, 2021, 08:17:03 PM

Quote from: Pat on June 03, 2021, 08:07:46 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on June 03, 2021, 07:47:03 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.

And Lancelot's first appearance in the Matter of Britain was in a story by Chrétien de Troyes, a Frenchman.

Quote from: RPGPundit on June 03, 2021, 08:12:24 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.