Eh, I have read this thread and I am unconvinced that there is any good reason to keep alignment around at all, much less the traditional nine alignemnts. And the five alignements of 4e is 'dumbed down'? Why, because it has a different number of arbitrary personality types? Heck if that's the criteria then instead of nine alignemnts lets go with 12 zodiac signs. That gives you three more choices as to personality and "My cahracter is a Capricorn, thus he's tidy and practical" is a much better role p-laying hook than "My character is Lawful Neutral, so I gots to support me some law"
This topic was interesting for a while, but has become less meaningful when people tried to bring in things completely unrelated to Lawful, Good, Chaotic, and Evil into the conversation.
Furthermore, perhaps the most glaring problem with your extreme "scorched-earth" approach is that there have always been entire pantheons in D&D in which the gods operate under very clear terms of Law, Chaos, Good, and Evil, and these gods expect their followers to be of similar mindset or else be denied access to spells/powers/etc. If you get rid of alignment, then you senselessly erase decades of canon with respect to all of this stuff, and you might as well just chuck Grayhawk and Forgotten Realms out with the trash, because they would no longer make sense anymore as game settings. Meilikki, Malar, Shar, Selune... what's the difference, right?
There is a pretty basic difference between the night and the moon. One is in one place, and one is everywhere else. They're also different colors. The assertion you've put forward is incredibly easy to deny. Pantheon Deities have aspects, as I've just illustrated. It's quite possible to worship a god in any existing setting based solely on their aspects, and not on some greater architecture of one side versus another. A ranger could worship the God of the Hunt, in whatever form, and not feel any compunction to behave a certain way on the hunt or after.
Was Zeus a Good-aligned god? He banished a bunch of Titans. He also cheated on his wife and spawned a bunch of illegitimate childer.
The point I've hopefully made is that alignments are unnecessarily coupled with other things, because that's what you're used to. They don't have to be tied into a setting. They actually don't have to be tied to anything. That's one of the reasons it would be easy to get rid of them completely.
I read this entire thread and it was not until I read Nyariathotep post above that I realized the problem that everyone is having. This is a very simple problem and I will outline it below.
4th ed: a lot of people (not all, but a lot) who play 4th ed see alignment as "I am lawful good thus I must play lawful good"
3rd ed: a lot of people (not all, but a lot) who play 3rd ed see alignment as "My previous actions have made people and the gods view me as lawful good.
The difference is subtle but it is the source of the misunderstanding. Alignment does not dictate how you play your character. All it does is tell you, the player, how the rest of the world is views you and your previous actions. Any future actions will be judged by their own merits.
Say you're a baby eating pyromaniac. You are most likely chaotic evil. But one day you decide, "Hey all I really need is love." So you get a wife, have a kid, and get a kitten named Mr. Snook'ems. You become a member of the PTA and help build houses for the homeless. You are no longer chaotic evil. And just because you were once chaotic evil it does not mean that you have to stay chaotic evil.
Alignment never dictates what you can do, it only says what you have done.
Now that is cleared up here is a simple test.
What is the alignment of...
A Police officer:
The average Citizen:
A Vigilante:
The answer is simple. The Police officer is lawful good. He uses the laws of the country and city to arrest people and make them pay their debt to society.
The Citizen is Neutral good. He wants to live is a place that is Good and follows moral and ethical principle, but he sometimes finds the laws impedes him, and he wonders why we spend so much on poor people.
The Vigilante is Chaotic Good. He wants to uphold the morals and ethics of society but finds that the bad guys often slip through the cracks in the law. He takes it upon himself to protect the people from these criminals.
That is the basic breakdown of the good alignment axis. What needs to be remembered is that anyone of these people can change alignments easily. The Police officer could be bought off by a local gang, and suddenly he drops to lawful neutral. The average citizen might find that his neighbors dog is annoying, barking at night and keeping him up. So he poisons its food, now he is no longer good, he is stepping towards true neutral. Maybe the citizen really goes crazy also kills the neighbor, hello neutral evil. It is possible that the Vigilante realizes that the cops are actually doing a pretty good job and decides to become an officer himself, leaving his masked crime fighting days behind him. Now he is Lawful good.
Your alignment is not carved in stone, it is malleable and will change to reflect your actions.
Im sorry but ADEU is a French word for goodbye, not a combat system.
You say, "Encounter Power" and I stop listening to you.
This is a very simple problem and I will outline it below. Their are two types of people
Type 1: a lot of people (not all, but a lot) who play see alignment as "I am lawful good thus I must play lawful good"
Type 2: a lot of people (not all, but a lot) who play see alignment as "My previous actions have made people and the gods view me as lawful good.
The difference is subtle but it is the source of the misunderstanding. Alignment does not dictate how you play your character. All it does is tell you, the player, how the rest of the world views you, and your previous actions. Any future actions will be judged by their own merits.
Say you're a baby eating pyromaniac. You are most likely chaotic evil. But one day you decide, "Hey all I really need is love." So you get a wife, have a kid, and get a kitten named Mr. Snook'ems. You become a member of the PTA and help build houses for the homeless. You are no longer chaotic evil. And just because you were once chaotic evil it does not mean that you have to stay chaotic evil.
Alignment never dictates what you can do, it only says what you have done.
Now that is cleared up here is a simple test.
What is the alignment of...
A Police officer:
The average Citizen:
A Vigilante:
The answer is simple. The Police officer is lawful good. He uses the laws of the country and city to arrest people and make them pay their debt to society.
The Citizen is Neutral good. He wants to live is a place that is Good and follows moral and ethical principle, but he sometimes finds the laws impedes him, and he wonders why we spend so much on poor people.
The Vigilante is Chaotic Good. He wants to uphold the morals and ethics of society but finds that the bad guys often slip through the cracks in the law. He takes it upon himself to protect the people from these criminals.
That is the basic breakdown of the good alignment axis. What needs to be remembered is that any one of these people can change alignments, easily. The Police officer could be bought off by a local gang, and suddenly he drops to lawful neutral. The average citizen might find that his neighbors dog is annoying, barking at night and keeping him up. So he poisons its food, now he is no longer good, he is stepping towards true neutral. Maybe the citizen really goes crazy also kills the neighbor, hello neutral evil. It is possible that the Vigilante realizes that the cops are actually doing a pretty good job and decides to become an officer himself, leaving his masked crime fighting days behind him. Now he is Lawful good.
Your alignment is not carved in stone, it is malleable and will change to reflect your actions.
The assertion you've put forward is incredibly easy to deny. Pantheon Deities have aspects, as I've just illustrated. It's quite possible to worship a god in any existing setting based solely on their aspects, and not on some greater architecture of one side versus another. A ranger could worship the God of the Hunt, in whatever form, and not feel any compunction to behave a certain way on the hunt or after.
But Mielikki and Selune have always been good dieties, while Malar and Shar have always been evil ones (and lo and behold, their actions have reflected this). Without good and evil in that universe, none of it makes any sense anymore.
You say it is easy to deny my assertion, and yet you completely failed to do so.
The point I've hopefully made is that alignments are unnecessarily coupled with other things, because that's what you're used to. They don't have to be tied into a setting. They actually don't have to be tied to anything.
But they are tied very closely wth these particular religions, and you can't change that. It simply would make no sense whatseover for Mielikki to look the other way if one of her supposed "followers" just starts doing evil things, raping the wilderness, killing the peaceful inhabitants within, etc. It would be utterly nonsensical in the context of Forgotten Realms.
I suppose you don't care for the Light Side/Dark Side distinction in Star Wars either. It's the same exact thing, and it's absolutely INTEGRAL to that world. If you want to play in a D&D setting that doesn't have morals or ethics as part of the game, then it simply can't be Grayhawk or Forgotten Realms, period.
The problem with that, though, is if I can play the way I want with and existing edition without making changes, why switch to a new edition if I have to make changes? It's not leting me do the things I want and already do any better, so it just seems like a waste of time and money.
If 5e wants to attract me as a customer, it needs to do the things I want and already do better than what I'm used to. It also need to carry on and support the traditions of D&D that make D&D distinct from other fantasy games.
I coudn't have said it better myself.
The bottom line is that if they want the game to be successful once again, then they absolutely must get the old customer base back, and they obviously aren't going to do that with anything that resembles 4E.
Leadership and class choice should have NOTHING to do with each other, EVER.
Conflating the two is simply horrendous game design.
4th ed: a lot of people (not all, but a lot) who play 4th ed see alignment as "I am lawful good thus I must play lawful good"
Actually, that's been the problem with alignemnt from day one and is what turned me off to it two editions ago. In fact I would say that mindset was at its worst in 1e when deviating from ones alignment came with penalties like level loss.
4th ed: a lot of people (not all, but a lot) who play 4th ed see alignment as "I am lawful good thus I must play lawful good"
Actually, that's been the problem with alignemnt from day one and is what turned me off to it two editions ago. In fact I would say that mindset was at its worst in 1e when deviating from ones alignment came with penalties like level loss.
Indeed. I observed that a LOT more in pre-4es, especially since you could get mechanically hosed if your alignment shifted (or sometimes if you just broke it once).
I houseruled it as far out of the game as I could in 3e. Since it has no real mechanical implications in 4e, it wasn't really a 'houserule' to remove it completely.
Another day, another three or four entries to my Ignore List.
My main point. Add a 10th alignment known as unaligned. That way you can play your character no matter how you want without your DM pointing out that you are going to shift positions. Example, I play a Mercenary who does a job as long as he gets paid, stays out of conflicts involving good or evil, he is just as likely to kill an orphange as he is to kill demons. Now in a game that revolves around alignments I would have to flip flop between Good, Neutral and Evil, but with Unaligned I can play how I want to. Now if I do an good/evil act without payment, my DM can say, "Your going against your own moral code, you risk becoming good/evil"
As with a lot of people I agree in making Alignment optional.
I enjoy the 9 system to some extent but I have issues with its interpretation. One of my old DMs says a true neutral character should switch sides in the middle of the fight because otherwise he is choosing a side. The other possibility is that the character doesn't do anything. Am I the only one confused by this?
Was Zeus a Good-aligned god? He banished a bunch of Titans. He also cheated on his wife and spawned a bunch of illegitimate childer.
I agree with this for the most part. Like people there is not usually a black and white, just different shades of moral grey. For example the crusades.
Yeah, so he obviously wouldn't be of one of the good alignments.
How is this relevant?
Even good Gods can still be jerks/evil. And just because a hunter decides to hunt men doesn't mean he is any different from a fisherman in the eye of his god. As long as a god is being prayed to then they shouldn't care that much about what his disciple is doing, as long as it follows the overall message. This stuff could be mentioned in fluff, but honestly there is a lot of leeway. A follower of the Raven Queen could kill people, seeing it as honoring his god. A follower of Kord could start battles all the time. Even with real religions there are Extremists on both ends of the spectrum.
Thats why I liked how my DMs play down alignment a lot, though I stick with classes that do not require alignments, like Fighter and Wizard. That way I can play how I want to. Though it pisses me off to no end with one of my friends who plays the paladin.
CURRENT GAME(3.5e): Warlock(Different class can't remember name) gains spell to make it look like he is evil aligned or change it to any other alignment. Paladin says he will kill him on sight if he changes to evil, because he is a law abiding paladin. I ask him, "If he tells you he is going to change alignment to trick our enemies, will you not kill him?" His response, "He could be possessed by an evil demon, it is my duty as a paladin to purge him." My response, "But he's doing it right in front of you, you know he's not possessed." His response, "I'm playing my character. My character wouldn't be able to tell."
Thats why I'm glad 4e paladins don't have detect evil any more.
ok. So let's look at the Alingment Axis'. Good-Neutral-Evil: Helping people and saving lives, defending the weak makes you good. Murder, Torture, Pillaging, Plundering, Enslaving, these make you evil.
Law-Neutral-Chaotic: This is part Societal Law and Order, part Personal Methodical capacity. As a society, you abide by the laws of the government, thus making a lawful society. A republic is a Lawful society. Hitler's Nazi Germany is a lawful state. Evil, murderous State, but Lawful. The Galactic Empire from Star Wars and the Federation from Star Trek, again, are both lawful Societies. A Barbarian Chiefdom is more Chaotic in it's society, because Might makes right, not Law makes right. Democracies are also Chaotic, because it's the votes of the people, that change the socitey, not the Law. On a personal level, a monk is methodical in all he does, making him Lawful. A barbarian, has this problem, where when he flies into rage, he doesn't have the higher thought capacities, some even losing the ability to tell the difference between friend and foe. This is why Barbarians can't be lawful. The knight and Paladin, along with Devils, have to follow through with their promises, which is what makes them lawful. Drow are actually Lawful Evil, and not Chaotic Evil. Read up on them. chaotic ones don't survive to adulthood.
So when you are looking at the Lawful-chaotic Axis, you need to keep in mind that it is your method capacity and how you act in societal terms are both affecting your alignment.
Alignments are Fluid, meaning that they are based off of your actions, not your actions being based of the alignment.
Also, alot of 3.5 fans do not log onto the WOTC website. So polling on the WOTC website is going to be heavily leaned towards those who like the current edition. I'm sure when 5th ed. comes out, some of the 3.5 and AD&D fans will come back, and some of the 4E fans will leave. So Polls are never going to be good, unless you poll every night for a month, at every gaming shop around the globe.
Alignments are Fluid, meaning that they are based off of your actions, not your actions being based of the alignment.
