Tag Archives: alignment

D&D 5e’s alignment trap

Posted on by Henry

The 5e alignment system is a useful shorthand and a misleading trap. The Outer Planes as presented in the 2014 Player’s Handbook and Dungeon Master’s Guide only make the alignment system’s problems worse. The perfect overlap between alignments and planes—and the total lack of alternative Outer Planes—reinforces the alignment system’s worst inclinations: easy stereotyping, reductionist thinking, and a restriction of creative possibilities.

So what the heck are you supposed to do?

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World Building: Making The Outer Planes Better

Posted on by Henry

500px-Outer_planes

Once again, I find myself investigating the cosmological background of the setting I’ve most recently created.  I was reading through the Dungeon Master’s Guide again, reading the section on planes near the beginning, and I’m in that usual place: somewhere between excited and miffed.  Fortunately, it’s easy enough to change the things that haven’t excited me.

I’m comfortable, for the most part, with the material the DMG offers on things like the Astral and Ethereal planes.  I’m more okay with the DMG’s ideas for the Shadowfell, the Feywild, and the various elemental planes.  I’m not very happy about their ideas for the Outer Planes.  I have some rewriting to do; let me tell you why.

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