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10 months ago ::
Aug 03, 2012 - 9:12PM
#231
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Date Joined:
Aug 15, 2011
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That's the thing, really.
Alignment as a roleplay guide is great. Alignment as a mechanical requirement only causes problems.
Especially since that makes it completely ignorable. I can write down words that actually mean something on my sheet to describe my character's personality.
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10 months ago ::
Aug 05, 2012 - 4:45PM
#232
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- Forum Guide
- Hero Craftsman Gold Medalist
- Master Dungeon Master
Date Joined:
Jun 23, 2005
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..."window.parent.tinyMCE.get('post_content').onLoad.dispatch();" contenteditable="true" />"C" is for "Champion"
I was close. Thanks for the correction.
You were right the first time.
Mea culpa! You were right I was wrong. I can't believe I remembered that so wrong!
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10 months ago ::
Aug 07, 2012 - 9:16PM
#233
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Date Joined:
Feb 16, 2011
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C is for Companion. I'm looking at my copy as I type. I still use it for the mass combat system, and occasionally play the old basic game.
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10 months ago ::
Aug 08, 2012 - 6:24AM
#234
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Date Joined:
May 25, 2012
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I thought C is for cookie. That's good enough for me!  I still have the cover of one of my companion books. I heard they released it (BECMI) again in a single volume? Now to get the alignment issue. Alignment is good. It promotes even wear on your tires. On another note, if alignment is removed from the game, I understand spells such as detect/protection from lawful/chaotic would go away, but detect good and evil should not be affected.
I started playing D&D in the 80's. I've played D&D, 1e, 2e, and 3.xe (and many other RPGs). I also played Magic since it came out (except for a few years around the change of the millennium. I say this so you know a bit of my experience, not because I care about editions.
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10 months ago ::
Aug 08, 2012 - 8:14AM
#235
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On another note, if alignment is removed from the game, I understand spells such as detect/protection from lawful/chaotic would go away, but detect good and evil should not be affected.
How would that work when they have nothing to sense? Or would they operate on the caster's completely subjective definitions of good and evil or something dumb like that?
Another day, another three or four entries to my Ignore List.
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10 months ago ::
Aug 08, 2012 - 12:27PM
#236
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I'm personally loving watching people go back and forth about how alignment is good/neutral/terrible, how it should be kept/removed/made optional, etc, and quoting stuff like the Paladin to support their arguments.
Especially when we get right down to it the problem isn't with Alignment, its with pidgeonholed class design.
People will hold up the Paladin, the Barbarian, and the Bard and say "I want to play this class but as a different alignment!" to prove that alignment is broken and bad, but you don't see them holding up the Fighter as "I want to play a cultured Samurai, but this class doesn't give me enough skill points!" as proof that skillpoints are broken. Or hold up the wizard and say "I want to be an unstoppable juggernaught of magical destruction, but the d4 wizard is too easy to kill!" as proof that hitpoints are bad things.
Bottom line is that the problem exists not with the alignment system but with using narrowly defined stereotypes as being the basis for a class.
Look at the Rogue, its a very broad concept. It can be a catburgler, a mob thug, or an expert dungeoneer, all because the class itself was not specifically built to be one or the other. The paladin was built to be a highly specific thing, like a catburlger. The Barbarian was built to be a highly specific thing. The Bard was built to be a highly specific thing.
If you don't like the restrictions placed on these highly specific class concepts, then by all means remove them. But don't sit around complaining about how the pieces are broken when each piece works perfectly well when what you don't like is a specific example of how that piece is used as part of something else.
It isn't alignment's fault that a warrior that can heal people is restrictive in what it can do, its the fault of the class designer who wanted to emulate the upstanding beacon of light and hope at the expense of any other interpretation.
Broad class design = good, narrow class design = bad.
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10 months ago ::
Aug 08, 2012 - 12:44PM
#237
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Date Joined:
May 18, 2002
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On another note, if alignment is removed from the game, I understand spells such as detect/protection from lawful/chaotic would go away, but detect good and evil should not be affected.
How would that work when they have nothing to sense? Or would they operate on the caster's completely subjective definitions of good and evil or something dumb like that?
It simply remains the "Detect Plot Advancement" it always has been.
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10 months ago ::
Aug 09, 2012 - 12:08AM
#238
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I'm personally loving watching people go back and forth about how alignment is good/neutral/terrible, how it should be kept/removed/made optional, etc, and quoting stuff like the Paladin to support their arguments.
Actually a lot of people hold up the total subjectivity of alignment as a reason why it should be shot in the head.
If you have questions about 4th Edition - don't hesitate to ask me via PMs. Join the Community Monster Manual Group and help to collect a mass of monsters which will make your life as DM easier, and your life as Player pure hell!  I am a cartographer. You can find some of my maps in my profile, free for non-commercial use. Also, if you happen to like maps or make them yourselves, join into the Cartographers Group!
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10 months ago ::
Aug 09, 2012 - 5:07AM
#239
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Date Joined:
Jun 15, 2006
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Choosing the less bad option could be subjetive some times, but the true ethic isn´t it. If morality was subjetive all, everything, could be allowed. Making serious injustices voluntarity without migitating circustamnces like menaces is being evil. Why can´t I kill my wife is she is a adulterous to clean my honor? Why must I try avoid collateral damages? Why can´t I be a slave trader?
Any times we don´t know a character is good with neutral tendencies or neutral with good tendencies but morality isn´t subjetive.
If anybody doesn´t find the difference anytime, he could need psychological examination.
"Say me what you're showing off for, and I'll say you what you lack!" (Spanish saying)
Book 13 Anaclet 23
Confucius said: "The Superior Man is in harmony but does not follow the crowd. The inferior man follows the crowd, but is not in harmony"
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10 months ago ::
Aug 09, 2012 - 6:06PM
#240
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Date Joined:
Jul 25, 2012
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Actually a lot of people hold up the total subjectivity of alignment as a reason why it should be shot in the head.
I was definitely in this camp in the past, and depending on how good and evil are being defined I still am. I've run through examples with people in the past that get them flopping back and forth on whether a single action was good or evil, just by illustrating it further one point at a time. Hence why I only come down to good is altruism and evil is selfishness, as it's the only definitions that make sense from multiple (opposing) points of view.
Choosing the less bad option could be subjetive some times, but the true ethic isn´t it. If morality was subjetive all, everything, could be allowed. Making serious injustices voluntarity without migitating circustamnces like menaces is being evil. Why can´t I kill my wife is she is a adulterous to clean my honor? Why must I try avoid collateral damages? Why can´t I be a slave trader?
Any times we don´t know a character is good with neutral tendencies or neutral with good tendencies but morality isn´t subjetive.
If anybody doesn´t find the difference anytime, he could need psychological examination.
True ethics? Please, master guru, enlighten me on how entirely subjective viewpoints and values can be specific and universal, and surpassing both culture and religion.
*rolls eyes*
Seriously, every example you gave there has had people upholding them, even to this day, as the "only morally correct" option. I don't mean on a personal ethics level either, but the moral outlook of the societies to which they belong and were brought up in. Even the briefest glance at the different codified philosophies (even excluding those set forth in religion) shows incredibly disparate outlooks that strongly clash over what they consider the morally correct decision for any circumstance is.
Now throw in multiple gods that are at odds with each other on top of it all, as well as radically different innate behaviours for species/races, and morality becomes so gummed up that you'll only be able to quantify any of it in very broad, easily applicable terms. What's good for the fox isn't good for the hare, after all.
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