Oldmandan

*possibly. There's been no official word, (no word at all from anyone but this one freelancer) and public sign up for press copies went up an hour or so ago; unknown how quickly those are being processed, and it's possible larger reviewers/creators have been sent keys separately from said sign up.

Apologies. I tend not to think of PFH/Blood in Baldur's Gate stuff as spoilers, since it's pretty explicitly promotional material. But I know not everyone looks at stuff that way, and want to go in as close to blind as possible.

In before it turns put we can romance serial-killer Julikar. :P (The "canon" Dark Urge, I believe, who it's been implied you'll meet in Baldur's Gate if you don't choose them.)

IIRC, there is a bit more complexity than that to the Pirahã understanding of numeracy. Relative quantity is something they're just fine at understanding, (with words for single/less, plural/more and same) it's abstraction of quantities to tokenized values where they struggle. Which, I suppose, also interestingly lines up with the study results; the initial training period resulted in nodes associated with quantity, but those nodes were separate/unrelated to numeracy systems that developed with additional training.

I... am growing somewhat confused as to what is being argued, here.

Alignment as an axes system is flawed (but people liked it better this way, other systems have been experimented with in other editions), yeah, because the axes correlate by nature, and things like good and law have different meanings based on how much you value the other. But... categories aren't better? Because morality and ethics do exist on a spectrum, as much as the spectrum used is a poor representation. I get the sense (no intent to put words in your mouth, correct me if I'm wrong) you see alignments as broad character archetypes, more so than descriptions of their ethics and morality? Which is fine if you want to treat them that way, just liable to get confusing.

Again, fairly fundemental philosophical differences. This isn't the forum for writing essays about the nature of self and of minds, and the capacity for change, so I'm not going to do that here.

As for actions; this is actually what I was getting at. Nature and action can be in opposition, but as outside observers, we determine nature from action. Is a change in action a change in nature, or a facet of complex circumstance? Can nature change without a correlating change in action? The NPCs and other characters shouldn't have access to the writing on your character sheet. They should judge you by the information they have available.

I think, again, I have managed to put my foot into my mouth, but I also think this is maybe reaching the root of the disagreement (although, as mentioned, I am a little confused about that :P). To my mind, alignment is something determined from character, not a in-depth descriptor of character. Your character, their role in the story and their personality, matters to the whole table. But your alignment is an (incomplete and over-generalized) aspect of that, not the whole of it, nowhere close.

Absolutely not. There are 9 separate alignments, each well covered and presented by D&D and its derivatives like Pathfinder as well as numerous articles and possibly sourcebooks/handbooks. There are suggestions as to how apply each by the DM to his NPCs and how to roleplay one as a PC.

Eh. There are two axis divided up into approximate zones. Said suggestions, based on these zones, cover a wide range of characters, that might fundementally disagree on questions of morality and ethics. They provide guidelines and generalizations about what they care about and prioritize. The label only means as much as can be held true across all permutations of characters within it, which isn't a lot. Again, moral shorthand for general situations.

Not really, no. It takes a severe physical trauma/farmacology to change the character of a man. Mood might change, patience might fail, but you don’t shift from a saint to a murderer overnight. You may walk among your fellow people pretending to be something else than you really are, but the mask isn’t your “alignment” and by wearing it you’re effectively casting a spell that hides the real you before the eyes of the other people.

To avoid getting too deep into philosophical considerations of the self, and the nature of minds, I will just say that I fundementally disagree with this interpretation of humanity. And, it is worth noting, this hyperbolizes somewhat. A change from good to neutral is still a change. :P People don't tend to seesaw between extremes, but rather vary about some average. More importantly, perhaps, at what point does/must action reflect nature? But, ultimately, I think this is a philosphical disagreement that cannot be easily bridged. /shurg

I see no problem in deciding what character I will play before the game begins and trying to “fill the boots” during the session(s).

To be fair, this was poor phrasing, on my part. The morals and ethics of your character are, obviously, part of the character's concept. But if you want that concept to be reflected in the world, you have to live up to it. Words on paper do not determine the morality of your character. (Alignment is essentially entirely phased out at this point, mechanically, for a reason.) Your alignment only really matters for the DM, in how they make the world respond to you. And (unless you're dealing with cosmological forces/extraplanar entities), that is often more nuanced than nine vague categories can adequately express. /shurg

I plan for my first playthrough (I will be doing mutiple, likely simultaneously), to play with a group of friends I play dnd with, so my first character is likely going to be pretty flexible, to fill in around what they want to play. I have a preference for casters, especially gish casters, so Warlock/Paladin/Ranger are all pretty likely, but depending what is needed I could go for pretty much anything. (If it ends up a martial, I will probably prioritize subclasses w/ spells/spell-like abilities, EG Way of Shadow/Elements, Wild Magic, Eldritch Knight, Arcane Trickster, etc.)

Doesn't help that a lot of this gets internalized, I think. Like, fuck, there are plenty of terms that seem reasonably descriptive of me (bi, demi, enby, etc.) but... I'm super straight passing, and not super driven by sex or romantic relationships, so it's like... I never really have to deal with these labels in my day-to-day? I stick he/they in stuff when people ask for pronouns, style myself somewhat androgynously, am well aware 90s David Boreanaz is objectively eye-candy, and I haven't gone on a date in... years, because I just don't really care. But claiming those labels feels improper, somehow. Both from a "born and raised christian, que toxic masculinity and internalized homophobia" perspective and a "I am in a position of extreme privilege where I haven't had to face many of the struggles common to the LGBTQIA+ community, claiming a place there seems insulting" perspective. /shurg

TBH, alignments are, at best, a shorthand for a character's morals, how they'll likely act in a philosophical vacuum as it were; with no context, will they default to upholding the law, or defying it? Helping others, or prioritizing themselves?

For a cosmological force/extraplanar entity, these things can be absolute and binding; upholding a law they believe unjust because it is law, withholding aid even when offering it might be in your best interest, because kindness is weakness. But for everyday people? Who, why, when, where; all the possible little nuances matter. Our "alignment" might change day by day with our mood.

Much more useful, IMO, for to just be ignored during character creation, and the characters judged by how they behave. You don't decide ahead of time whether or not you're playing a good character, you show me during the session. That way, it's not words on paper, it's the actual nature of the character you want to play. /shurg

TBH, my first campaign struggled largely because I tried too hard to make a sandbox. There was a little intro adventure, set up some lore and conflict, then I told them they could go wherever. They decide to travel to a nearby town thay mysteriously cut contact with the village they saved. Oh, there's a cult and supernatural plague here? Cool, lets dip and wander to the active battlefield to the west, run into an imperial patrol and get drafted into the army. The enemy army is made up of strangely changed soldiers that refuse to stay dead. Spooky. Lets desert and go back to the first village, and investigate the strangely coordinated goblins that had them under threat. >> This all happened over the course of about five sessions. Their ability to run into, and then immediately drop, plot threads was unparalleled. :P

Conflict drives storytelling. /shurg Internal, character-focused stories require internal, character-focused conflict. The good ending will be that much more satisfying I'm sure, if you achieve it after supporting the characters through their issues and personal growth. :P And if there is pain or heartbreak along the way, that's just part of telling an impactful story. :P

I honestly don't know. :P Tempted by Warlock/Paladin or Warlock/Sorcerer, I have a thing for gish builds and both of these have potential to be very powerful. But also the tweaked Monk looks very fun. So IDK. :P Race... probably half-drow, dragonborn or tiefling. Haven't fully decided yet.