Is it possible to explore complex themes in 5e?

[Sir cryosin]

Just wanted to address some of the common comments:

First Off: I am NOT saying the party was wrong for killing the peasants. As many people have pointed out, I threw them into a dark world, caused them to lose trust in everything but themselves, and then placed before them a suspicious group. It was supposed to be a moral dilemma of "do we let these peasants get killed by an obviously evil entity, or ignore them because it's not our problem." The players surprised me, and I talked to them after the game, and they told me they legitimately thought they were monsters disguised as peasants preparing to attack the party. They made a role-play decision in that moment, and that's ok.

My problem is that the character who did that was chaotic good (i don't play with alignments, but based off previous actions, that is a pretty good approximation). After killing all those peasants, and the undead priest, the character immediately went to loot the corpses. There was no moment of what have I done, and I think only one other party member even cared, and he was too scared of the character to speak up. The character was also a bard, so immediately after killing the peasants and looting their corpses, they continued walking down the road humming a jolly tune.

My issue is that besides the player committing to rp, there is nothing to stop a Lawful Good character from going Chaotic Evil. Because of the gamist build of 5e, I feel like, with a group of random players who have no connection to the world or each other, 5e would seem to encourage a chaotic neutral alignment. "act because you can because this is a game, and it doesn't mater." Obviously there are ways I could have punished them as a DM, but in the grimdark world they are playing in, their actions didn't really matter to anyone, except the priest who's meal they stole, and they killed him.

Second: It's not that I want a morality system in 5e. And it is not just this one instance of weak roleplaying that has me disenchanted with the system. Everyone has their own likes and opinions, and I enjoy skill based games over level based games. I think games like WoD, where you can build a character for rp, who is almost useless in combat can still contribute to the party. I also like that they close the gap between max level and beginner so that if you are smart, and use all the resources available you can kill a god very early in the campaign. (Which my players did to my surprise). The morality isn't there to say "you did a no-no take a -1". It's there to remind the players that despite the fact that they are playing a game. They are supposed to be role-playing as people. And doing things like theft, murder and arson, even if they are for the greater good, take their toll on your morality. And eventually you see people as tools to be used, instead of people to be protected. That being said, I have run WoD games where the players disregarded these rules, and tried to be murder hobos. They didn't have happy endings, but they didn't really care, they got to murder people, and take their stuff, and that was fun for them.

minor comments:

I am using a home-brew setting, so although the gnolls were savage and attacked the party. They aren't irredeemably bound to an evil demon. I try to avoid any type of locked alignments in my game because I dislike forcing stereotypes on players/monsters.

If you claim you have been playing 5e for 35 years, you are wrong. I am not bashing DnD. I am merely making some personal observations about the most recent edition. I think that some of the changes they made reinforce the murdurhobo stereotype/mentality.

sorry for the rant and possible thread necro, just wanted to give y'all an update on how the party felt after I talked to them about it out of game.

Dude your sending mix Signals. You said you don't play with alignment but you want to play with moral dilemmas. You aslo say you don't want a moral system in 5e but your compaining about 5e can't have complex store because you cant punish or make your PC's feel bad with mechanics of the game. Those other games force PC's to pick morally good choices other wise they have to pay a consequence. In dnd they leave that up to the DM to his/her own way. What you should be asking how can I get my players more invested into there characters and how to pull of morally grey encounters.

[Beastrolami]

Having not played WoD, I'm curious. How would these other systems you're referring to have handled this?

Because you're not entirely wrong about D&D, there is no enforcement mechanism on behavior. And that can be a problem when the DM doesn't frame the situation properly, or when the players are ignoring that framing. But having that enforcement mechanism means the players are now gaming that mechanism instead of making character decisions, at least as far as I can tell.

First of all, any system can be gamed. I have seen players game the morality system, and it does kill the immersion for me as a storyteller. The way WoD does it in the Mortal line of nWoD is you start as a normal human. Not an adventurer, not a hero, just a normal dude, or dudette. As you begin committing crimes such as theft, murder, etc. you begin to become more jaded (possibly gaining derangements as well) and desensitized to these actions. If you fall far enough, you end up killing people just for getting in your way, just like the monsters you were originally hunting. It doesn't always work, but having a system that emphasizes rp, and forces players to consider the cost of their actions helps drive them to rp their characters better.

Dude your sending mix Signals. You said you don't play with alignment but you want to play with moral dilemmas. You aslo say you don't want a moral system in 5e but your compaining about 5e can't have complex store because you cant punish or make your PC's feel bad with mechanics of the game. Those other games force PC's to pick morally good choices other wise they have to pay a consequence. In dnd they leave that up to the DM to his/her own way. What you should be asking how can I get my players more invested into there characters and how to pull of morally grey encounters.

Yeah. It's not that I think 5e needs a morality system. The main complaint is that because 5e has simplified the mechanics, it plays more like a videogame than a tabletop game. (especially since 75% of the mechanics focus on combat and the other 25% is getting loot after you win [not accurate numbers]). I'm not saying there should be a bar that says hey, you are sad now because your companion died. Just saying that with the streamlined nature, and combat heavy focus, I feel like it pushes players to rely on combat, rather than rp to solve their problems, and if they mess up, they will deal with it in a violent way, instead of an rp way.

Obviously a player can roleplay as they like, and a group of friends who play a certain way will have good chemistry and roleplay their characters together well. But, examining the system in itself, it seems to lend itself to murderhoboing in a mad dash to get the best loot and kill the biggest boss so you can.... win? (CONTROVERSIAL ALERT)

idk, I rambled again. There are things I like about DnD, and maybe I have gotten burnt out on the system. I think that it is impossible to make the perfect tabletop system, and although a lot of people like 5e, as I've delved farther down the rabbit hole I have begun to see what I consider flaws in the system.

[pwykersotz]

First of all, any system can be gamed. I have seen players game the morality system, and it does kill the immersion for me as a storyteller. The way WoD does it in the Mortal line of nWoD is you start as a normal human. Not an adventurer, not a hero, just a normal dude, or dudette. As you begin committing crimes such as theft, murder, etc. you begin to become more jaded (possibly gaining derangements as well) and desensitized to these actions. If you fall far enough, you end up killing people just for getting in your way, just like the monsters you were originally hunting. It doesn't always work, but having a system that emphasizes rp, and forces players to consider the cost of their actions helps drive them to rp their characters better.

Okay, I think the bolded is the heart of your point, please correct me if I'm wrong.

What is the cost of their actions? What do you want that cost to be? Take your above example, you wanted the Chaotic Good Bard to take murder seriously, but in your grimdark setting, society and deities won't be holding anyone accountable. Which seems to indicate that you want the character to be beholden to the player. The player should realize that they're doing bad and dark things according to societal norms, and to either embrace the evil path they are treading, or to think twice about what it actually means to kill these peasants who might be monsters. Your core assumption seems to be that the players want their characters to be, if not strictly good, then at least reasonably non-evil people.

I'm definitely not against bumper rails on alignments to make sure characters are contextualizing their actions properly. Whether that is because of GM prodding or a system of some sort, that kind of context is important for making decisions. But now you have a spectrum to deal with. On the one hand, you have D&D alignment (a very soft system) and the optional modules on Sanity and such in the DMG (crunchy, but limited). On the other hand, you have WoD, which from what you say is very much in depth. D&D emphasizes the freedom of choice and a lack of overt punishment overall, whereas WoD represents consequences to future decision making capabilities.

I think there is nothing wrong with saying another system did something better or that you prefer that system. But based on what you say, I don't think that's the problem. I think the softer D&D system just needs to be brought into the foreground a bit. For example, let players choose their starting alignment. Define the alignment system in your game (since everyone views alignment differently). Then, if someone deviates from that action wildly without provocation, ask the player if they've changed their mind about who their character is. If they have not, apply a short term madness. And if they perform enough actions of another alignment and they still have not changed their mind, give them a long term madness or flaw.

To revisit your Bard situation with this, you said they approximated to Chaotic Good. This decision clearly shows an utter lack of care for human life. So as the player narrates their decision, ask if they have decided to change to Chaotic Neutral. Or since you don't use alignments, if they believe they are doing the good and right thing here, since that's generally how they've been trying to behave. Remind them that they are committing pre-emptive murder, and verify that fits the character. If they say that yes, it does, then change their alignment or the generalization thereof in your mind and call it good. If it does not but they feel they should do it anyway, give them that brief madness to reflect the cognitive dissonance. Heck, let the player choose their madness to best reflect the decision.

Using this method, there's nothing really to game. You still retain complete freedom to make your decisions and change your character as you see fit. But it forces engagement with that system, and forces you to acknowledge what you've done. Penalties are light but present, and you haven't really deviated outside the core of 5e. Does something like this fill that hole that you feel is in the game?

Disclaimer: This system was an off the cuff example and might or might not have serious flaws as-is, I was just using it as a demonstration of the flexibility in adding something like this to 5e.

[RipTide]

The main complaint is that because 5e has simplified the mechanics, it plays more like a videogame than a tabletop game. (especially since 75% of the mechanics focus on combat and the other 25% is getting loot after you win [not accurate numbers]). I'm not saying there should be a bar that says hey, you are sad now because your companion died. Just saying that with the streamlined nature, and combat heavy focus, I feel like it pushes players to rely on combat, rather than rp to solve their problems, and if they mess up, they will deal with it in a violent way, instead of an rp way.

The books focus on combat mechanics because that is where you need the mechanics so things don't get to out of hand. If you put to many game mechanics into Roll Play it becomes harder to play the character you want to play because you have to weigh that punishment as a part of your decision. Even if people aren't doing it intentionally there will always be situations where people think "If I make this hard call, my character will permanently be changed from what I want it to be. So I'm gonna go the other way even though my character wouldn't want to do that."

D&D does require players to want to get into this, and as a gm it is hard to force your players if they don't want to. So I still think the more open system allows for better opportunity to RP but only if that is what the players want.

[Unoriginal]

I agree with the people saying "exploring complex issues" can be done in 5E in spite of or regardless of the system, but not thanks to it. It's very much geared towards player agency in the gamist sense - total control over your character's feelings, actions and formal abilities - as opposed to agency in the narrativist sense of having a say in where the story goes.

What. How does that hinder "exploring complex issues" ?

My problem is that the character who did that was chaotic good (i don't play with alignments, but based off previous actions, that is a pretty good approximation). After killing all those peasants, and the undead priest, the character immediately went to loot the corpses. There was no moment of what have I done, and I think only one other party member even cared, and he was too scared of the character to speak up. The character was also a bard, so immediately after killing the peasants and looting their corpses, they continued walking down the road humming a jolly tune.

That means that those characters are shifting toward an evil alignment, as they're not having any remorse over avoidable deaths. One incident like that won't change their alignment, but if it becomes an habit, definitively.

My issue is that besides the player committing to rp, there is nothing to stop a Lawful Good character from going Chaotic Evil.

That's great! People have agency. It's one of those complex issues like the ones you claim you want to explore, right?

Because of the gamist build of 5e, I feel like, with a group of random players who have no connection to the world or each other, 5e would seem to encourage a chaotic neutral alignment. "act because you can because this is a game, and it doesn't mater." Obviously there are ways I could have punished them as a DM, but in the grimdark world they are playing in, their actions didn't really matter to anyone, except the priest who's meal they stole, and they killed him.

No, 5e's system doesn't encourage that. It's the RP you're giving the players/the players are doing that's pushing them that way.

They are supposed to be role-playing as people. And doing things like theft, murder and arson, even if they are for the greater good, take their toll on your morality. And eventually you see people as tools to be used, instead of people to be protected.

We call that "people becoming evil".

First of all, any system can be gamed. I have seen players game the morality system, and it does kill the immersion for me as a storyteller. The way WoD does it in the Mortal line of nWoD is you start as a normal human. Not an adventurer, not a hero, just a normal dude, or dudette. As you begin committing crimes such as theft, murder, etc. you begin to become more jaded (possibly gaining derangements as well) and desensitized to these actions. If you fall far enough, you end up killing people just for getting in your way, just like the monsters you were originally hunting. It doesn't always work, but having a system that emphasizes rp, and forces players to consider the cost of their actions helps drive them to rp their characters better.

It doesn't emphasizes RP, you admitted yourself it was just a game system that could be gamed, and was constantly so.

In DnD, PCs would become evil as they start being roleplayed as doing evil things.

The main complaint is that because 5e has simplified the mechanics, it plays more like a videogame than a tabletop game.

...are you trolling? Honest question. How is giving you MORE freedom to make choice and change the world "plays more like a video game" ?

(especially since 75% of the mechanics focus on combat and the other 25% is getting loot after you win [not accurate numbers]).

That's basically all the editions of DnD.

I'm not saying there should be a bar that says hey, you are sad now because your companion died. Just saying that with the streamlined nature, and combat heavy focus, I feel like it pushes players to rely on combat, rather than rp to solve their problems, and if they mess up, they will deal with it in a violent way, instead of an rp way.

Violence can be RP. And it's not a fault of the system. People react to the story, not to "here are commoners with 4 HPs".

Obviously a player can roleplay as they like, and a group of friends who play a certain way will have good chemistry and roleplay their characters together well.

Indeed. So, you admit that you know one can explore complex themes and have great RP in 5e

But, examining the system in itself, it seems to lend itself to murderhoboing in a mad dash to get the best loot and kill the biggest boss so you can.... win? (CONTROVERSIAL ALERT)

Just killing monsters is meaningless without a story. It's not up to the rules to give you a story, they're here to let you know how situations are resolved in the story.

The system does not "lend itself to murderhoboing in a mad dash to get the best loot and kill the biggest boss so you can.... win". It's pretty outlandish that you praise 3.X's versions of things, where that kind of scenario was way more pushed, yet blame 5e for it when it doesn't do it.

The system lends itself to help unfold a story. You can't win at a RPG, you can simply have successful characters and enjoyable sessions. 5e pushes the focus away from accumulating magic items and loot. And the only reason to get stronger is that you can have more awesome interactions with the world, be they combat or otherwise.

[Coffee_Dragon]

What. How does that hinder "exploring complex issues" ?

By giving you a hammer and telling you to go look for nails. Of course, you can ignore it or work around it, like you can ignore or work around anything.

[Honest Tiefling]

My problem is that the character who did that was chaotic good (i don't play with alignments, but based off previous actions, that is a pretty good approximation). After killing all those peasants, and the undead priest, the character immediately went to loot the corpses. There was no moment of what have I done, and I think only one other party member even cared, and he was too scared of the character to speak up. The character was also a bard, so immediately after killing the peasants and looting their corpses, they continued walking down the road humming a jolly tune.

This makes me think that one of the core problems of this game is that not everyone is on the same page. I know that if I was plopped into a game without prior discussion and see a bunch of peasants worshiping a dude that looks like a Saturday morning cartoon villain with butt-worms on his face, I'm probably going to assume that this is a silly game due to several factors. Firstly, the over the top dress of the priest isn't putting anyone into the mind set. Thirdly, unless you have set up this world really well, they might as well be worshiping a hungry bear for all of the good it'll do them and might not seem logical (hence why I think your players thought they were monsters too. Thirdly, butt-worms. I'd try to avoid the scatological references until the tone is more set and everyone has reached a compromise.

Roleplay can be encouraged or discouraged, but it takes a lot of work for a system to completely kill it if the players are determined enough. Several posters here could probably roleplay a game of tic tac toe if they were bored enough.

I do have to wonder, have you provided many carrots to encourage RP? With a grimdark setting it is easy for players to feel like talking to NPCs is too dangerous or doesn't do anything but provided a cheap drama when they die horribly. I do have to wonder if the players just don't have a lot of ways to be invested in the setting.

[GPS]

By giving you a hammer and telling you to go look for nails. Of course, you can ignore it or work around it, like you can ignore or work around anything.

Well, as the DM who's making the campaign story and wants to explore these complex topics, isn't it your job to find the nails? If mechanics force complexity for you by making players unplayable when they step out of line instead of the DM RPing the results of evil actions, is the result really a well-played complex scenario? I'd argue that both can be complex depending on the situation, but that the roleplaying consequences makes for a much more interesting moral quandry than just say, "welp, you didn't pick the right option, lose a sanity point." Sure it might take a little thought and legwork, but if a mechanic makes your player's RP decisions for them, what's the point in challenging them with moral quandaries in the first place? You already know the result, as the result is required. That would be the game making RP decisions, not the players.

My point isn't that systems like nWoD are inherently bad for complex themes. Worse, maybe, but not bad. It's that you can definitely explore complex themes in 5e, the consequences were inside you all along. You just gotta believe in yourself and your ability to RP consequences. No witnesses? Well, there are a few fixes for that. If one of your players' characters is religious, might I suggest the d&d staple, "god appears in their dreams and sends them on some atonement quest," a classic prescription for an evil act from a good character. If you have a divine caster, this is an especially pertenant threat, as gods can cause paladins to fall or cut off cleric's powers if they really hate their actions. I'm not saying actually take away their powers (unless they're a paladin), as that would be the same as sanity points and such. I'm saying use the threat to make for a good quest hook and a way to make the party think twice about murderhoboing. No divine casters? Well, several other solutions have been proposed on this thread. You often don't need a mechanics's crutch, as there's usually an answer to an RP scenario that implements RP if you seek it out. Sure it might take a little thought and legwork, but in the end you'll end up with something unique, something you created, tailored to your campaign as a consequence for evil actions.

Edit: I agree with prior posters that say this is more a problem of the players and DM than of the game. If they're willing to kill a whole bunch of innocent commoners just for convenience, all a sanity or nWoD morality system is going to do is make them bored and frustrated with the game. It may sooner convince them to leave the group than to change their ways and embrace the moral quandaries from a moraly-good standpoint like OP wanted. If the players and the DM aren't on the same page about the type of game they want, system mechanics aren't going to make much difference in a positive direction

[Cespenar]

You can put plenty of consequences inside the battle and its aftermath to underline the action they took. Describe in detail how easily the peasants' heads exploded with the might of the Shatter spell, splattering blood and viscera on the clothes of the nearby characters. Have one of them survive (due to being out of the area), and run away in grave horror. Have another fall on his knees and hold his wife's shattered body, etc.

In the next town, people might be speaking about the "something" that butchered a bunch of peasants and a priest effortlessly. A group of kings men, led by a corrupt constable might be waltzing around the place and decided to investigate the deaths out of boredom or spite. A no-nonsense inquisitor might have been chasing the priest/creature, and upon seeing the location of the incident, believes a greater monster might be at work there.

[Orion3T]

I'm still not sure I understand the problem. I see 2 aspects that seem to bother the OP:

1. The PCs chose a path which they didn't expect, and the DM feels there should be some mechanism to discourage that.

2. The PC in question was supposed to be CG. So what? Giving the PCs an alignment is a RP aid for the players, not some rule they should follow or a stick to beat them with.

Also, I don't know how the OP defines Role Play. In what way was them choosing that option not Role Playing? They may not be playing the role the OP expected and/or wanted them to play. But making that decision is just as much RP as deciding to leave the priest alone or trying to take it out without killing the followers. Not following the alignment suggested on their character sheet does not mean they are not roleplaying. It might mean they changed their minds about the type of character they want to play, or it might mean they had a different understanding/perspectie on the scenario you presented them with.

I get the impression that if the PC who cast Shatter had been say Neutral Evil, the OP would have been OK with it? Please correct me if I'm wrong.

All that's needed here are:

a) Consequences for their actions. Sure, the system doesn't provide penalties for the way the players choose to play their characters. That's the DM's job in this game. Which might mean more work for the DM but it actually makes it more flexible, not less.

b) Possibly a discussion with the player about why they acted that way and whether they think it's in keeping with their alignment or if they would prefer to change their alignment. Not that it really matters - Alignment in 5E is just something to help the players get into character. At least, that's how I think of it.


In a campaign my son is DMing for me, I play a Drow. She started out Evil and I acted that way; she would torture, sacrifice members of the party (NPCs) if they were holding the group back (one NPC who had been making little or no contribution was the last one trying to climb a rope ladder and our captors were chasing us, beginning to climb it themselves. She started cutting the ropes, sacrificing the NPC so our pursuers couldn't follow. Not that it mattered as they shot him anyway, but she would have kept going even if he'd looked like making it.).

However she has gradually become more neutral - she learned that even those who appear weak can show bravery (a Kuo-Toa pacifist NPC she thought was useless, jumped from a boat to distract an attacking water creature with his fast swimming and pretty much saved the entire party). She has also lost NPCs she thought were strong to Orog and now hates Orog. She found that torture really didn't work very well and she didn't enjoy it, so now tends to use more subtle methods.

She can still be a bit merciless - she insisted on killing some baby basilisks because the adults had petrified an ally; they would grow up to be too dangerous. This might not be evil but it certainly isn't particularly 'good' either.

Am I now RPing her wrong, or not at all? I don't think so, I'm just changing the character. She has evolved because of her expriences. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

[Orion3T]

You can put plenty of consequences inside the battle and its aftermath to underline the action they took. Describe in detail how easily the peasants' heads exploded with the might of the Shatter spell, splattering blood and viscera on the clothes of the nearby characters. Have one of them survive (due to being out of the area), and run away in grave horror. Have another fall on his knees and hold his wife's shattered body, etc.

In the next town, people might be speaking about the "something" that butchered a bunch of peasants and a priest effortlessly. A group of kings men, led by a corrupt constable might be waltzing around the place and decided to investigate the deaths out of boredom or spite. A no-nonsense inquisitor might have been chasing the priest/creature, and upon seeing the location of the incident, believes a greater monster might be at work there.

This, very much.

OP said the PCs killed all the witnesses (were these passers by, which would be very much an evil act, or just making sure all the cultists were dead?) but unless they covered their tracks extremely well it's pretty trivial to have the local town send/hire someone to investigate the missing villagers. And that pursuer could become their main foe for a while. Perhaps they can realise there's some other powerful adventuring party after them and they will need to deal with that (either by defeating them, which might be considered also evil, or by clearing their name as they had intended to do good and thought the cultists were beyond saving).

It all depends on the details, but it's all up to the DM to come up with interesting consequences which will encourage the players to consider their actions in hindsight and question their own motives.

Also - make sure there are rewards for avoiding fights just as much as for winning fights. If I have the option to confront or avoid an encounter, thinking my character's progression will be affected by the choice can affect my decision even if I try not to let it. I would be in favour of awarding the same XP for an encounter no matter how it's resolved (unless it's effectively bypassed altogether, like if there's something to explore and they choose not to). I should get the same XP for persuading a group of bandits to stand down as I would have for killing them. OK, I won't get the loot, but then loot from bandits is likely to be trivial in 5E anyway. And it's likely a faster encounter so we get onto the next one sooner.

The way to avoid the players being murderhobos is to not make murdering everything the most profitable activity. If they can get just as much from a 1h RP session as they do from a 1h slaughterfest then the RP session becomes more appealing (and probably less dangerous). If the players decide they want to RP their evening's shennanigans in the tavern, telling stories to NPCs and playing games with them, that should earn them something I think.

[Beastrolami]

This thread is 3 pages in, so I guess I can give an update on my personal conclusions.

Yes, of course you can explore complex themes in DnD. You can explore complex themes in almost any rp system (and like someone mentioned above, you can rp tick-tack-toe if you're bored enough.... curse those X's). That being said, I think that having strong roleplayers or a system to measure morality/sanity can help emphasize some of these points. In the end, DnD 5e as a system doesn't support my style of game as well as I'd like it to. In a campaign where I'm a player, we had a tough fight, and afterwards, I mentioned that my character collapsed from exhaustion. immediately, one of the other players went over to try to heal me, and asked why I had exhaustion levels. I was hurt, but hadn't taken the most damage, and didn't have exhaustion levels, but I was forced to tank for the majority of the fight, and I am not running a tank build. As a roleplaying decision, my character was stressed out, and tired from being forced to fill a role he was not trained for. However, the system said there was nothing wrong, and other players in the party were confused as to why I was waiting back, and not immediately moving to loot our dead opponents. I'm not saying that DnD needs a morality system, fatigue system, etc. But, when you cram 5-6 fights into a single in-game day, and more combat is the DM's primary tool for challenging players, I feel more inclined to create challenging combat encounters for the players than trying to facilitate roleplay or character development.

quick side points: I'm not mad that the character killed the peasants, nor do I feel like they need to be punished. They were the lowest of the low, who understood that this creature would probably kill them, but anything was better than the horrible lives they were living, and so they took the small hope he gave them and followed him willingly into the unknown. It's a grimdark setting, no one cares when a bunch of nameless bums die.

Just a bit of extra story points: After they killed the peasants, the creature, who had yet to reveal his wormy face (to those without darkvision, he looked like a robed/wooded figure with a long white beard). The creature ran, his meal was gone, and these random travelers were obviously much more powerful than he was alone. The party hunted him down, killed him, and then were upset when he didn't have any loot on him. That's what frustrated me the most. The encounter was designed to be a roleplay encounter, and although I was ready for it to turn into a combat encounter, I was surprised that the party saw it as a walking loot drop. (Again, I talked to the players out of game, and resolved the issue).

Alignment shifting. I don't have a problem with changing your alignment over time. I think that when you rp it correctly, it can drive immersive, and interesting character growth and development. I'm not mad that the character's alignment changed over time. I am just frustrated that they had this near polar alignment shift and didn't rp. They didn't get realize that good deeds go unrewarded, or that the death of a few is greater than the death of many. They saw a potential enemy killed them, and then after realizing it wasn't an enemy, said, "oh well, people make mistakes." looted the bodies and started skipping down the road cheerfully. That isn't character development. To a certain extent, there needs to be mechanics. An exhausted character will roleplay they are exhausted, falling behind the group, performing poorly on checks, they will probably begin huffing/puffing in character, or complain that they haven't gotten a good night's sleep in a while. Again, not saying you can't explore complex themes, or engage in good roleplay in dnd, just saying it is beginning to conflict with my dm style which favors horror themed games for their focus on the smaller aspects of being the character, than the gamist aspects of which ability is better for killing bad guys.

If I didn't respond to your post it is because I'm trying not to start a flame war, but I have been trying to answer everyone's arguments. if you think I am avoiding your argument, feel free to post it again, or PM me, and I'll debate my opinions with you.

[N810]

Sounds like you and your players want to play very different types of games.
You seem to want a deeply role played character driven campaign,
and your players seem to want a basic dungeon craw with very little roleplaying.

[Orion3T]

Sounds like you and your players want to play very different types of games.
You seem to want a deeply role played character driven campaign,
and your players seem to want a basic dungeon craw with very little roleplaying.

Based on your last post, this is the impression I get also. The players aren't particularly into RP and there's no mechanism to push them in that direction.

It isn' that 5E is stopping you from doing anything - it has nothing to do with either the sysem or your choice of setting. It just doesn't have a mechanic built-in to actively encourage the players towards the type of game you want. Since your players don't seem naturally inclined to play the way you like, you feel like it's something 5e is missing.

This could (though perhaps less likely) have been someone asking why D&D seems too facilitate all that annoying character background stuff; all the DM wants is a dungeon romp into the unknown with exciting battles and reward the players with shiny l00tz while keeping the players on the edge of their seat scared of dying. But the players just seem to want to stay in the local library and tavern to research their long-lost family so they can return Uncle Bert's trinket and resolve their Mummy issues. And the rogue is scared of confined spaces so refuses to enter the DM's carefully crafted dungeon.

5e allows for both just fine but the players and DM need to be on the same page with expectations. Either talk to the players about it and compromise (they will attempt to get more into character, you will try to ensure they get rewarded in some way no matter what decisions they make) or house rule a mechanism which does the job for you.

[GPS]

Just wanted to address some of the common comments:
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My problem is that the character who did that was chaotic good (i don't play with alignments, but based off previous actions, that is a pretty good approximation). After killing all those peasants, and the undead priest, the character immediately went to loot the corpses. There was no moment of what have I done, and I think only one other party member even cared, and he was too scared of the character to speak up. The character was also a bard, so immediately after killing the peasants and looting their corpses, they continued walking down the road humming a jolly tune.
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My issue is that besides the player committing to rp, there is nothing to stop a Lawful Good character from going Chaotic Evil. Because of the gamist build of 5e, I feel like, with a group of random players who have no connection to the world or each other, 5e would seem to encourage a chaotic neutral alignment. "act because you can because this is a game, and it doesn't mater." Obviously there are ways I could have punished them as a DM, but in the grimdark world they are playing in, their actions didn't really matter to anyone, except the priest who's meal they stole, and they killed him

Wait a minute! If you don't play with alignments, how can you use the alignment system in your argument. Either don't play with alignments, or play with alignments! Don't try to approximate a character's alignment and act accordingly if they don't have an alignment! Don't blame the alignment system you're not even using for not preventing something! You took out the alignment system, and now you want to blame it for your problems?

I thought your characters were just RPing poorly. Nope, turns out you'd told them alignment didn't exist, then gave them a secret alignment anyway, then expected to use that secret alignment against them. That's just bad form. Not really helping your argument, as you can't really except PC's to adhere to alignments that for all intensive purposes they do not have.