The
Rule-of-Three today tells this thread everything that it wanted to know.
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One of the earlier conversations touched on alignment. Will Alignment be in D&D Next? If so, will it be the classic nine alignments? And will it have a mechanical impact for characters? For monsters?The classic nine alignments are planned to be the default alignment assumptions (though personally I also have a soft spot for "Unaligned" as well). As for mechanical impact, I think that there's an assumption in the history, world, and cosmology of
Dungeons & Dragons that there are tangible, elemental forces of good, evil, law, and chaos, etc. Some of D&D's best stories are built on it; see the war between Law and Chaos that led to the creation of the
Rod of Seven Parts. Having mechanics that interact with a fundamental force of existence makes sense, much in the same way that having mechanics that interact with fire, lightning, etc. make sense. However, we want alignment to be a tool, not a straightjacket, so the execution of those mechanics should serve that goal, and really only apply when dealing with the powerful, elemental forces of alignments, not someone who just behaves a certain way. Additionally, I believe we'll also want it to be easy for a DM to strip those mechanics out of his or her campaign, if the DM so chooses.
