D&D without the rules and themes of alignment is just a generic fantasy adventure game. 5E was already an example of taking simplification too far and diluting the interesting part of the game. BG3 is making the problem even worse, but those without any experience with the rule system will obviously not understand the consequences of these decisions. The younger audience here comes from a videogame background, and that makes sense since that is the demographic being marketed to.
I'm sure BG3 will still be a good game, but this is one area where it's a major departure from authentic D&D mechanics (which are the reason for its longevity).
I started playing D&D in a bygone millennium, when video games were played on an Atari. The alignment mechanic was silly then, and it is silly now.
There are essentially only three ways it can go.
- The DM (who in this case is Larian) can impose upon the players their own consequentialist or deontological ethics. If they decide that good and evil are evaluated according to consequentialist ethics, then it won't be very fun for deontological players, and vice versa. To one person capitalism is Chaotic Evil. Socialism seeks to replace the anarchy of unregulated markets with a structured, centrally controlled economy that will prevent the exploitation of the proletariat. So then Socialism is Lawful Good. Of course to another, it is Socialists who are Chaotic Evil. They are the ones who seek to rebel against existing laws and power structures, in order to stifle free exchange and impose tyrannical economic oppression that would destroy the proven efficiency of the Free Market. To them, those who obey the law and adhere to the Non-Aggression Principle are the Lawful Good characters. There is no room for such varied perspectives on good and evil with Alignment mechanics. If smite evil works on them, they are evil. Full stop. One can easily see why Larian (or any DM for that matter) would not want to be the arbiter of whether Donald Trump is Chaotic Evil or Lawful Good in a game that is supposed to be fun for everyone. Which leads us to the second option...
- Avoiding this uncomfortable situation by never addressing any moral quandary more ambiguous than whether to save that injured puppy or sacrifice it to Bhaal. Or my personal favorite...
- House rules to omit all that alignment nonsense from the game.
Not only do alignment mechanics kill any kind of nuanced approach to ethics and morality, but it isn't even internally consistent with the setting. Faerun has a pantheon, rather than a single deity. So it should stand to reason that for a paladin to smite with the power of their patron deity, they should be smiting according to the misalignment of the one they are smiting, rather than some universal complex plane of law/chaos/morality.
A character who chose to spare a repentant murderer from execution should get good points according to the doctrine of Eldath, but by thus subverting justice they should get evil points according to the doctrine of Tyr. If a paladin draws power from their patron, a paladin of Tyr should be able to smite those pacifists who seek to undermine justice at every turn, whereas a paladin of Eldath should be able to smite only as an immediate act of self-defense or defense of others. A single universal alignment mechanic makes no sense for a diverse pantheon of judges.
