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1 year ago ::
Mar 01, 2012 - 3:05PM
#31
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Date Joined:
Jun 16, 2005
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"No mechanical effect in the game was ever triggered by being neutral except for the cleric (for whom it was a question of adhering to your God's values and as such probably comes up even without alignment) and the paladin (an archetype that specifically requires and supports an intent to adhere to a strict standard of behavior and morals regarding honor, duty, self sacrifice and personal courage e.g. paladin's code, again something that would cost you the class even without alignment).
Really? Then go pick up an axiomatic greatsword with your true neutral druid and try to wield it. There were PLENTY of mechanical effects that triggered on neutral characters.
An axiomatic weapon is lawfully aligned and infused with the power of law. It makes the weapon law-aligned and thus bypasses the corresponding damage reduction. It deals an extra 2d6 points of damage against all of chaotic alignment. It bestows one negative level on any chaotic creature attempting to wield it. The negative level remains as long as the weapon is in hand and disappears when the weapon is no longer wielded. This negative level never results in actual level loss, but it cannot be overcome in any way (including restoration spells) while the weapon is wielded. Bows, crossbows, and slings so crafted bestow the lawful power upon their ammunition." -D20 SRD
Might want to use an example that actually backs up your point. This is my number one frustration on this topic. People who wail about how alignment punished them can't ever find a reference from the book to back themselves up. All I ever hear is "My DM did x" when it's pretty clear that the DM was making a judgement call (however questionable) and the rules didn't have a thing to do with it. Try finding an actual example. I'm working from memory and experience too, maybe you'll find something to prove me wrong if you actually read the material that you are complaining about.
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1 year ago ::
Mar 01, 2012 - 3:26PM
#32
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Date Joined:
Nov 27, 2006
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Advanced.
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1 year ago ::
Mar 01, 2012 - 3:28PM
#33
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Date Joined:
Dec 12, 2011
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Me, I'll go for the Advanced option. Though I do hope the include other options for those that want them.
Playtest or get off the playtest boards.
---
I want justice for the voice that can't be heard
Vindication for every suffering and hurt
Let retribution hold dominion over earth
--Nemesis, VNV Nation
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1 year ago ::
Mar 01, 2012 - 3:28PM
#34
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Date Joined:
Dec 12, 2011
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Exactly. If that were true, D&D would be the only RPG, since no other system uses this.
If you mean alignment, that's not stricyly true. Other systems do/have used it, whether it's basic "alignment" (as in Palladium) or a more advanced personality.world view meter (as in the WoD games).
Playtest or get off the playtest boards.
---
I want justice for the voice that can't be heard
Vindication for every suffering and hurt
Let retribution hold dominion over earth
--Nemesis, VNV Nation
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1 year ago ::
Mar 01, 2012 - 3:33PM
#35
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I strongly suspect 5e will offer multiple optional alignment systems, but if there was only going to be one (or one that's an explicit default), what would your preference be?
A few options that come to mind are...
- Oldschool: Lawful - Neutral - Chaotic
- Advanced: The full nine-alignment grid, meaning...
Lawful Good - Neutral Good - Chaotic Good
Lawful Neutral - True Neutral - Chaotic Neutral
Lawful Evil - Neutral Evil - Chaotic Evil
- 4e: Lawful Good - Good - Unaligned - Evil - Chaotic Evil
- Hybrid: A nine-alignment grid with neutrality removed, meaning...
Lawful Good - Good - Chaotic Good
Lawful - Unaligned - Chaotic
Lawful Evil - Evil - Chaotic Evil
- Faction-based: That is, something similar to d20 Modern's allegiances
- Freeform: Player-authored (and DM-authored) descriptors of each character's ethical stance
- No alignment system
If you have something else in mind, though, feel free to detail it here.
Well, the grid was neigh useless IME. 4e did well to cut back more in the direction of D&D's 3 alignments. I think basically the 4e version works. The names are a bit odd perhaps, but it gets the main point across well enough. Frankly for PCs I don't even care. I have no idea what alignment anyone has written on their sheet (if any) in all the time I've run 4e. TBH I don't recall caring back in our AD&D days either.
I'll just basically be happy enough to see the game eschew the silliness of alignment based mechanics. If people want to put whatever on their character sheets you can be sure we'll all keep right on utterly ignoring them and not worrying about it.
Factions might be fun though, but I don't know. I'm not really sure what they would do. I guess at least I might consider some sort of mechanical role for something like that at high levels. It could be used to gauge which god-level beings you 'align' with, if any.
That is not dead which may eternal lie
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1 year ago ::
Mar 01, 2012 - 3:54PM
#36
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I strongly suspect 5e will offer multiple optional alignment systems, but if there was only going to be one (or one that's an explicit default), what would your preference be?
A few options that come to mind are...
- Oldschool: Lawful - Neutral - Chaotic
- Advanced: The full nine-alignment grid, meaning...
Lawful Good - Neutral Good - Chaotic Good
Lawful Neutral - True Neutral - Chaotic Neutral
Lawful Evil - Neutral Evil - Chaotic Evil
- 4e: Lawful Good - Good - Unaligned - Evil - Chaotic Evil
- Hybrid: A nine-alignment grid with neutrality removed, meaning...
Lawful Good - Good - Chaotic Good
Lawful - Unaligned - Chaotic
Lawful Evil - Evil - Chaotic Evil
- Faction-based: That is, something similar to d20 Modern's allegiances
- Freeform: Player-authored (and DM-authored) descriptors of each character's ethical stance
- No alignment system
If you have something else in mind, though, feel free to detail it here.
Well, the grid was neigh useless IME. 4e did well to cut back more in the direction of D&D's 3 alignments. I think basically the 4e version works. The names are a bit odd perhaps, but it gets the main point across well enough. Frankly for PCs I don't even care. I have no idea what alignment anyone has written on their sheet (if any) in all the time I've run 4e. TBH I don't recall caring back in our AD&D days either.
I'll just basically be happy enough to see the game eschew the silliness of alignment based mechanics. If people want to put whatever on their character sheets you can be sure we'll all keep right on utterly ignoring them and not worrying about it.
Factions might be fun though, but I don't know. I'm not really sure what they would do. I guess at least I might consider some sort of mechanical role for something like that at high levels. It could be used to gauge which god-level beings you 'align' with, if any.
Factions, as used in d20 Modern, granted a +/-2 modifier to interactions with people who share/oppose your allegiance to that faction. For example, you could have an "environmentalist" allegiance, which would get you a +2 bonus to social interaction checks with NPCs who share that allegiance and a -2 penalty to checks with NPCs who opposed tree-huggers, conservationists, etc.
Why Mechanics-Alignment Integration is Bad
Show
so why even play a fighter if you can play the paladin the exact same way behaviorally and get added power to boot. "Paladin" is about accepting better game-enhancing mechanics at the price of more rigid in game behavior.
Really? So it goes something like this?
Fighter: "I want to be a paladin."
NPC: "Really?"
Fighter: "Yes."
NPC: "Very well." Starts reading from a holy book while still in-character "Do you accept having to choose and stick to the lawful good alignment, eventhough neither of us actually knows that it exists or what it is?"
Fighter: "I do."
NPC: "Do you reject good game balance because you accidentally rolled a high Charisma?"
Fighter: "What?"
NPC: "I don't know what it means either."
Fighter: "Oh. Umm, ok I do."
NPC: "In the name of all that is metagamey and broken, accept these better game enhancing mechanics."
Fighter: "These what?"
NPC: "Just get out there and try to fulfill a million different people's notion of good while not violating and part of any of them."
So the system is designed such that every single hit needs to be described to avoid confusion? Here's a scenario. The players are nudists, everybody in the world are nudists, it's not weird, it's totally normal in this land. They are naked and they fight drakes taking damage throughout, but healing up with surges. Later they meet the guy who raised the drakes.
Part 1: I didn't describe any of the hits. What does he see?
Part 2: Lets say I described the drakes as biting the players, yet they healed up. What does he see?
D20 Modern Toon PC Race.
Mecha Pilot's Skill Challenge Emporium.
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1 year ago ::
Mar 01, 2012 - 4:01PM
#37
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Date Joined:
Sep 29, 2008
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For what purpose?
Mechanically? Nothing.
Cosmically? I suppose the Advanced 3x3 grid, but stripped down and rebuilt from the origins. I'd like to see law vs chaos used as a base, with good and evil as a different axis on top of that. You could have a plane of neutral good where lawful good and chaotic good planar beings come to negotiate and build co-operation, but there's no need for a corresponding plane of neutral evil since lawful evil and chaotic evil have no desire for any permanent neutral zone. Or alternatively, replace or rebuild the law vs chaos axis along the lines of 4e factions: gods vs primordials with primal spirits and Far Realm aberrations in between.
Hoard: may earn you gp; Horde: may earn you xp.
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1 year ago ::
Mar 01, 2012 - 4:19PM
#38
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Date Joined:
Jan 29, 2005
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This is basically the Batman argument.
Yes, but it's still valid.
Oh, I agree with it. I was just pointing it out.
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1 year ago ::
Mar 01, 2012 - 4:22PM
#39
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Date Joined:
Jan 29, 2005
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Exactly. If that were true, D&D would be the only RPG, since no other system uses this.
If you mean alignment, that's not stricyly true. Other systems do/have used it, whether it's basic "alignment" (as in Palladium) or a more advanced personality.world view meter (as in the WoD games).
nWoD uses virtues and vices, which give a small mechanical benefit for playing to them, which is filling up your willpower. Vampire has humanity, which basically says that if you go around munchkin village slaying, you'll end up showing the true monster within. Neither are really anything like alignment, per se.
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1 year ago ::
Mar 01, 2012 - 5:08PM
#40
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Date Joined:
Jun 30, 2009
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I haven't had time to read the entire thread, so I don't know if this has already been said, but I'm thinking that simply having an alignment system with predetermined values is not a good idea, as the values of "Good/Evil" and "Law/Chaos" are not entirely understood by most people (I, personally, think that morality in real life is objective, with the caveat that we don't entirely understand all of morality and that it would take a lot of time and thought to come up with a general guideline as to what's right or wrong), and a lot of people would disagree about the morality of a certain action. For example, it has been my experience that most people see mercy in all forms as a definitively and universally "Good" thing, whereas I, having taken up what I call a "Pragmatic Karma" view of this aspect of morality, believe that if a person is evil, or if a person has done an evil thing, it would be "Good" to give them what they deserve (as in, make them suffer). I also, personally, think that, while actions don't define an individual's personality, they do show what kind of person an individual is, which is not quite the inverse of, yet still not at all, what most people believe. Finally, I see most people thinking that the morality of an action relies solely on the action itself; that killing is always bad, giving is always good, etc., whereas I would say the morality of an action depends on multiple factors (Who the action effects, how it effects them, what motive the action-taker has, etc.).
My point isn't necessarily to say what I think is right or wrong, despite having summed that up rather nicely, but rather to highlight the fact that morality is not at all simple, nor is the perception of morality uniform among all people, and so it is a bad idea to treat it as though it were simple or uniformly percieved.
Some examples: Lawful can be percieved in many ways; You could simply try to obey the law of the land; you could strictly adhere to a code of honor or discipline; you could revere the concept of law as a means to achieve goodness, and at the same time see abuse of the law as both an insult to and a perversion of law; you could believe that peaceful cooperation is the ideal state of living; you could even say that Lawfulness means a pragmatic view of the universe in which one tries to study physical law, and in settings where Abberant things exist, to preserve such physical law. And there's always the question of whose law you support.
What about Good? You could see Good as simply leading a life free of evil, or you could view it as actively trying to eliminate evil not only in yourself, but in the world as a whole. And what actions are Good, or are there such things as "Good Actions," a matter which I discussed in the first paragraph.
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