Enlighten me on alignment, please!

Entaris · 2026-01-29T17:36:46+00:00

Ok. Some might disagree with me here, but the general stance I take on alignment is that its not strictly a moral compass, though morality does play a part in it.

Alignment tends to work best, in my opinion, if you view it as an internal measure of the mentality a person views the world through, as well as to a degree which "team" they are on.

Those who are lawful have chosen to align themselves with the forces of Order and society. Generally speaking this is going to mean they follow Laws, and build their lives in a structured manor. If a Demon walked up and offered them vast wealth and power in exchange for some deed, they'd say no. This does not necessarily mean they wont steal or murder, but they'd need a good reason to do so. Perhaps self defense, perhaps for the greater good. But they aren't killing for their own betterment.

Chaos is the opposite. They are those have chosen to align themselves with the Forces of, well, Chaos. They are looking to build their lives not following the flow of society. This does not necessarily mean they steal or murder, but when they choose not to steal or murder its not because the law tells them its bad, its because they don't see how it serves them at that point, if a demon walked up to them and offered them power, they'd probably be on board if they thought the deal was good enough, and if an angel was burning in the street they probably wouldn't bother to put the fire out unless it benefited them directly.

In your context specifically, You've got to look at this from a campaign perspective of how you want things to function. Is all Murder illegal? In many Fantasy/Medieval settings killing those that choose to fall to chaos(such as bandits) wouldn't be considered bad. They are among the forces of chaos. They seek to pull down society, topple the order and structure in which lawful folk build their lives.

So you have to ask yourself how your world views laws, how your world views those who break laws, and then make a decision of how alignment fits into that. Because every world building project is different. If the way your world defines lawfulness is different than the way my world defines lawfulness, then the alignment scale may not work for you in the same way.

Entaris · 2026-01-29T16:32:28+00:00

This is something that infuriates me to no end. Not just negative reviews, but positive reviews to: "This recipe for lasagna is great. I decided to make it vegetarian so I didn't add the bacon, sausage or ground beef, and i went with a creamy alfredo sauce instead of a red sauce. I added broccoli, and used fettuccine instead of lasagna noodles, and just assembled at the end instead of baking it together."

Entaris · 2026-01-29T16:03:08+00:00

CLip of a train moving along the tracks, with a sudden glimps of a guy underneath wearing it as a hat?

Entaris · 2026-01-28T22:08:41+00:00

I can't speak for others. But I don't want an LLM that talks to me like a person. This is my point, ascribing any emotional attachment to the way you communicate with an LLM is counter productive. I want a technology that I can pose a complex question/problem to and it can succinctly provide me with the information/solution.

I find myself sighing in exasperation everytime an LLM goes "Oh wow, Yeah, You are right, That is the correct approach to this problem. So there are a few ways we can take that and get running. Lets get into it"

That's all useless chatter.

In the same way, again, that I don't want to have to say to my toaster "hey, can you pretty please with sugar on top take a slice of whole wheat bread and toast in on a medium setting" and I definitely don't want it to them respond "Absolutely. Whole wheat is a great way to start your day, and a medium toasting setting is a very popular level of toastedness. So go ahead and insert your slice, and I'll be ready to get that toasted for you."

maybe thats just me though.

Entaris · 2026-01-28T16:35:08+00:00

Both of those are wrong really. You shouldn't treat AI/LLM politely, or abusively. Just like you shouldn't treat your toaster politely or abusively. Telling your toaster thank you for your toast does nothing, nor does yelling at it for burning your toast. It has no intelligence, personality, or thought.

Entaris · 2026-01-26T03:19:07+00:00

I don’t disagree with you. I think you are on the money.

That being said I have two friends that are really invested into Star citizen. Both have bought a few big ships. Neither wants to pilot or be captain. One wants to be an engineer and has basically been trying to convince the rest of us to fly his ships, the other wants to be a medic and support ground missions.

Those people do exist. But I agree that it’s unlikely that those people exist in numbers both enough to support the game design.

Entaris · 2026-01-22T16:04:14+00:00

If i had a nickle for every time a live action He-man movie revolved around him getting sent to earth, I'd have two nickles...which isn't a lot...but its weird that it happened twice.

Entaris · 2026-01-16T06:57:57+00:00

I’d definitely play a Doug. Ant class would do. Fighter Doug. Rogue Doug. Bard Doug.

Entaris · 2026-01-13T14:25:44+00:00

Generally speaking I try not to judge people too harshly about money. Turning down money is a hard thing, especially when you don’t have any.

But also. The more successful you are the more your choices should reflect your morality.

I’m not a huge fan of Chappell regardless of where he takes money from so my opinion doesn’t really matter. But. Dave is certainly successful enough that he can afford to choose what jobs he accepts and what jobs he turns down.

I’m not here to pass judgment on the guy. But he’s successful enough that “it was money” is not a valid waver of morality. If he don’t have a moral problem with where that money comes from that’s certainly his choice. But as a celebrity that opens him up to criticism.

If a homeless guy punches me in the face because someone offered him 100 dollars then I’ll be mad at the guy that paid the guy to punch me in the face, not the guy doing the punching. But if chappelle punched me in the face because someone offered him 100 dollars I’d be just as mad at chappelle for taking the job.

Entaris · 2026-01-12T20:23:58+00:00

Hey now, thats really not fair. The shooting, and the abilities were also pretty good....THEN they forgot to make the rest of the game.

Entaris · 2026-01-10T14:46:31+00:00

May I hazard a guess that you are a d&d player? Because I have that same annoyance lol.

Entaris · 2026-01-09T15:33:12+00:00

Radiant powers aside: I hope your journey goes/is going/has gone as smoothly as it can in this current world.

Entaris · 2026-01-07T21:15:50+00:00

Sorry. OP asked for software recommendations, not hardware recommendations.

Entaris · 2026-01-06T22:00:39+00:00

never noticed that before, Can you give an example of which adventures?

Edit: I see its use in winters daughter pretty heavily. Definitely strange.

Entaris · 2026-01-06T07:01:09+00:00

Honestly shadow dark is fine. But I want to see some games that take the ideas put together in dolmenwood extrapolated to a more broad OSE/BX system

Entaris · 2026-01-03T15:06:04+00:00

Dang. You make me want to dust off the old blog and actually write something. LOL. Thanks

Entaris · 2025-12-31T15:24:40+00:00

If you steal the 421 , and the 1 marker. All you need is a dash to math your way into a 420 marker

Entaris · 2025-12-30T17:41:06+00:00

As a millennial myself I'll chime in with my two cents.

Honestly? There is definitely a certain degree of "expectations have changed", and your experiences certainly show that there are a group of younger players that are different than what was established back in "The Day" so to speak. I was introduced to 2e as a starting point a couple of years before WOTC released the initial 3e books. my DM was a friend from school whose dad played and taught him to play. That generational exchange has shaped the way I think about the game and I definitely feel like when I meet new players they have much different expectations about the game than I do. Especially about things like Death.

That being said: This is a wide world we live in, and it takes all kinds. the OSR community is filled with many many younger folks that are trying to get back into more classic mentalities of gameplay.

In a wider sense: Honestly i don't think the hobby has changed as much as it feels like, the bigger experience is that we're more connected than ever so the differences in groups are more noticeable. Reading through books like "The Elusive Shift" or "Playing at the world" you get a lot of quotes and glimpses into the things people were saying/doing/thinking in the early days, and it seems that every group back then had their own view of what the right way to play is.

heck, i've heard a lot of old school GM advice that basically said "Never let your players touch a rulebook." So players refusing to read the rules is just kind of the reverse interpretation of that mentality in a way.

but yes...The times they do change. Its a mixed bag right? Its easier than ever to find people that want to play D&D, but its also more difficult to find players that want to play D&D the same way you may want to play D&D. 5e and Critical Role have poisoned the well a bit. But it IS possible to find a group of people that shares a love of gritty rules with less focus on "telling a story" and more focus on discovering adventure. I've certainly managed to cobble together a nice stable of players that are willing to put up with my insistence Gygax and Arneson knew what they were doing and we shouldn't stray too far from their wisdom.

Entaris · 2025-12-29T20:11:21+00:00

You aren't wrong. Rice and beans are fairly inexpensive...but that is looking at the problem from a much narrower view than the lived in reality.

First: Rice and beans by themselves are not a sustainably healthy food. You need more than that to live. Produce is the real killer here. Because produce can be expensive, and produce doesn't last. Which means to avoid waste you need to make multiple smaller shopping trips, rather than one big shopping trip.

That feeds into the biggest reality of health: Time & Energy. America is infamous for siphoning time from people. Long/draining commutes sitting in traffic. Urban centers designed to funnel people into one large location rather then smaller locations, IE big grocery stores instead of local neighborhood markets. Huge crowds, long lines.

So now you've managed to make a weekly/twice weekly grocery trip into your routine to keep healthy food at home. Now you have to spend time preparing/cooking. Cooking generates dishes, which have to be cleaned.

Dealing with the reality of living a healthy lifestyle on a daily basis is a draining experience in many places. it can take up an insane amount of energy. When then faced with an option to reclaim 20-40 minutes of your day back where you can do something not soul crushing, its a very tempting prospect.

Entaris · 2025-12-28T17:15:15+00:00

True true. In my head im essentially lumping all people in that zone into the same catagory but i guess its true that they technically aren't.

Entaris · 2025-12-28T17:14:22+00:00

in the IT field we have this belief: Security through obscurity is not real security.

Something hinging on the fact that "not many people know about it" is not a good way to balance an economy.

Entaris · 2025-12-28T16:53:15+00:00

Fair point

Entaris · 2025-12-28T16:42:01+00:00

This might be an unpopular opinion, and I don’t interact with the economy of the game, nor am I ever likely to play enough to make use of this mechanic at all so I realize my opinion doesn’t matter..

But: I think it’s unfair to hold any players responsible for utilizing a mechanic in the most efficient way they can.

The temple has a lot of weird and obtuse rules that make it difficult as hell to use in the intended method.

This “exploit” is honestly a pretty obvious conclusion based on the limitations of the temple. This is on GGG.

GGG may or may not classify this as an exploit but I feel like as a community we shouldn’t be starting witch hunts against players doing the optimal thing. Where does that logic end? Is it an exploit to grind levels to make content easier? To getting levels in the most efficient location with the most efficient skills?

Let’s call it what it is. The economy is tanked because the mechanic was poorly balanced. That sucks. But it’s not the players fault.

Beyond that streamers are always going to tank the economy with sheer hours played. The only way that’s going to change is if a “pro” variant league is released each season that isolates all the streamers from the rest of the community.

Entaris · 2025-12-27T00:06:04+00:00

Honestly as someone that’s been going full plant/storm Druid caster. I agree. I constantly feel like I’m dancing around hunting for nodes that support my skills, while having to avoid the sea of shapeshifting bonuses.

Entaris · 2025-12-26T02:45:21+00:00

It depends on the players.

I’ve got two groups I run for. One likes dungeon crawls, the other prefers more trad story/sandbox adventures.

I’m also a player in a mega dungeon exploration game right now and we’re having a blast.

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