Bring back alignments?

wlmartin · Jul 26, 2011

Well.. its not like I am starting a petition to do so, but would like to reminisce.

Alignments were something personal, you roleplayed your alignment and unless you had other members of your group casting "Know Alignment" spells, they had to guess what you were --- it was nice and secretive.

Also, the concept of Alignment (which D&D pretty much invented) was a guideline for playing your character. Playing an Evil character was fun!!

However someone at WotC came up with the idea that Alignments screwed up gameplay... you couldn't have a CE wizard, a N druid and a LG paladin in the same group!!! Whilst I suppose that was right, after all the motivations of those 3 different PCs would be some unaligned that it wouldnt make GAME sense for the PCs to even be in the same group...

So now what do we have for PCs
Lawful Good
Good
Unaligned

This was their way of sidesteping the whole "What do we do with Alignments?" problem - since an alignment nowadays is just flavor (although some classes need you to be a specific alignment) much like your choice of Deity... I just yearn to be CG again

Chaotic Good was the best Alignment to be. It meant you didn't give a poop about the rules and law but would do the right thing. You were a renegade, a rebel!

Anyways - does anyone else miss Alignments? Do you remember the fun Alignments brought to old editions?

MrBeens · Jul 26, 2011

wlmartin said:
Well.. its not like I am starting a petition to do so, but would like to reminisce.

Alignments were something personal, you roleplayed your alignment and unless you had other members of your group casting "Know Alignment" spells, they had to guess what you were --- it was nice and secretive.

Also, the concept of Alignment (which D&D pretty much invented) was a guideline for playing your character. Playing an Evil character was fun!!

However someone at WotC came up with the idea that Alignments screwed up gameplay... you couldn't have a CE wizard, a N druid and a LG paladin in the same group!!! Whilst I suppose that was right, after all the motivations of those 3 different PCs would be some unaligned that it wouldnt make GAME sense for the PCs to even be in the same group...

So now what do we have for PCs
Lawful Good
Good
Unaligned

This was their way of sidesteping the whole "What do we do with Alignments?" problem - since an alignment nowadays is just flavor (although some classes need you to be a specific alignment) much like your choice of Deity... I just yearn to be CG again

Chaotic Good was the best Alignment to be. It meant you didn't give a poop about the rules and law but would do the right thing. You were a renegade, a rebel!

Anyways - does anyone else miss Alignments? Do you remember the fun Alignments brought to old editions?

To answer your last 2 questions -
No
No

What is stopping you playing a character that is a renegade, a rebel, someone who doesn't give a poop about the rules in the current system?

OnlineDM · Jul 26, 2011

For nostalgia reasons I do miss the nine alignments, but I just unofficially have them. If you want to be Chaotic Good in 4e, just choose Good as your alignment and play the character in a Chaotic Good way. Nothing wrong with that.

I have no problem with the official position on PC alignment being that you shouldn't choose Evil or Chaotic Evil. The books do a good job of making it clear that you CAN do a campaign with evil PCs, but that's a special situation that the DM should plan for in advance with the involvement of the players, etc.

And as for Lawful Evil, again, the villain can just be Evil and the DM can play him in a lawful way.

The way I see it is as follows:
-4e Lawful Good = Lawful Good
-4e Good = Neutral Good and Chaotic Good
-4e Unaligned = Lawful Neutral, True Neutral and Chaotic Neutral
-4e Evil = Lawful Evil and Neutral Evil
-4e Chaotic Evil = Chaotic Evil

twilsemail · Jul 26, 2011

I don't miss them at all. I don't think I've filled out that part of my sheet in 15 or so years. Alignment was a crutch. I don't feel it's necessary (for me and mine) any more.

"Chaotic Good" falls into "Good" now. It's a sliding scale and everything that was in the grid before fits into the new system. Just imagine that instead of a line, it's an american football. There's more space for variation in the middle.

(Psi)SeveredHead · Jul 26, 2011

wlmartin said:
Well.. its not like I am starting a petition to do so, but would like to reminisce.

Alignments were something personal, you roleplayed your alignment and unless you had other members of your group casting "Know Alignment" spells, they had to guess what you were --- it was nice and secretive.

Also, the concept of Alignment (which D&D pretty much invented) was a guideline for playing your character. Playing an Evil character was fun!!

A lot of players and DMs (I blame the PH 2e) didn't see it this way. They saw alignment as a "straightjacket". It didn't help that 2e had punitive rules for changing alignments (even going from "neutral good" to "lawful good", or that real-life people are not always consistent in any aspect of behavior).

Making matters worse, alignment is always subject to interpretation. And whose interpretation is important? The DM's, as they're the only person who can "punish" a PC for acting "out-of-alignment". This meant that whatever two letters you wrote on your character sheet could be "wrong". IMO, the DM should write down your alignment, not the player, and only after a few sessions of play. After all, what a player thinks is "lawful good" might not match a DM's definition.

You could be told "you shouldn't do that, you're lawful" or even players tell themselves "I shouldn't do that, I'm evil".

And worse, when alignment was part of some classes, like paladins and monks. It's a bigger deal if the player and DM don't agree on alignments then. I thought the paladin should be a PrC, where the player has to "prove" they can meet paladin ideals before taking that class, due to this issue. (And that's aside from the paladin code, which had issues beyond alignment.)

I just yearn to be CG again

Chaotic Good was the best Alignment to be. It meant you didn't give a poop about the rules and law but would do the right thing. You were a renegade, a rebel!

Anyways - does anyone else miss Alignments? Do you remember the fun Alignments brought to old editions?

You can play a character like that without an artificial, out-of-character structure that can be misinterpreted (sparking arguments), shackled to you by a DM, thrown away because the DM doesn't care, etc.

This was my problem with alignment interpretation:

A Character Alignment made popular by Dungeons & Dragons, Lawful Evil comes in three flavors:

Type 1 is those who believe in civic order, and are the villains who believe either in keeping order and control at all costs, or that it's much easier to become ruler of the world by exploiting the existing system than by tearing it down and starting anew. Maybe they like to rule with an iron fist, or publicly playing by rules gives them enough Good Publicity to get away with their evil schemes. If the villain is supreme ruler of their realm, then they are probably either Lawful Evil or The Caligula. This is the canonical alignment of devils in Dungeons and Dragons. Lawful Evil can be the most dangerous alignment because it represents intentional, methodical and frequently successful evil. More than likely megalomaniacal sorts out to "restore/maintain order" by - you guessed it - Taking Over The World.

Type 2 is a baddie with a code of honor (personal order) that prevents them from doing truly heinous things. The second type tends to either perform a Heel Face Turn or suffer death by redemption. These tend to be reliable allies in an Enemy Mine situation where alignments would fizzle out. The alternative is that they ultimately choose evil over this and cross the Moral Event Horizon. Note that these two types are not mutually exclusive.

Type 3 can be The Dragon in a Five-Bad Band or a straight-forward, honest Complete Monster. Perhaps they lack the same pure drive that the Big Bad has, or maybe they're just not quite as smart, but they both do what they are told or do what they say that they are going to do, taking the most straightforward and efficient means of accomplishing the task they set out to do. They're a genuine threat, but they're not the real danger. If they're loyal to the Big Bad then they take orders without any problems, and they obey the Big Bad without any complaints. If the villains are going to be killed off, you can bet this guy is going to go down with the Big Bad. They are not The Starscream because of their loyalty to their boss, but they're just as mean in real life as they are at their job, so they're not a Punch Clock Villain either. Type 3 may work temporarily with The Hero if the Big Bad goes temporarily nuts, but this isn't a Heel Face Turn, as they will go straight back to their boss once it's all sorted out.

That's from TVTropes, and they list all nine alignments there - I just chose lawful evil. Why are they describing alignments better than TSR and WotC?

Never mind that, maybe my mind just needs a cane to understand WotC's incomplete explanations. Instead, look at how they have three different ways of being lawful evil.

And because they clarify it this way, I can then clearly state that I like types 2 and 3, but don't think type 1 is, in fact, lawful evil.

It was pretty hard to argue with a DM without this kind of baseline. But is there even a point? Maybe it's better to take away the philosophical battles unless you're playing Planescape.

Dannyalcatraz · Jul 26, 2011

Anyways - does anyone else miss Alignments? Do you remember the fun Alignments brought to old editions?

"Yes" and "Yes"...but I doubt you'll find much support for their return in the majority of 4Edphiles...or in the game's next edition.

malraux · Jul 26, 2011

In theory they are cool. In practice they lead to arguments about if Batman is lawful good, chaotic good, chaotic neutral, or lawful evil which I find tiresome to even think or care about.

DEFCON 1 · Jul 26, 2011

I think alignments are 'fun' inasmuch as any other character generator option I get to select and write down on my sheet that helps focus in on the personality and type of character I wish to play. In other words... if I've decided I want to play a Batmanesque type of character, I'd find the internal debate I'd have with myself in trying to figure out what Batman's alignment is to be fun for a little while. The same way I enjoy looking at those gridded web posters that people have made online that have assigned the nine alignments to like the Muppets, or Mad Men characters.

But at the same time... once the fun part is over (which occurs once I've decided on what my character's alignment will actually be)... it immediately becomes absolutely useless and unnecessary. I'm going to play the character the way I wish to play it, regardless of what I wrote down. And as the alignment has no real mechanical effect on the game (except for the very rare side cases of go up against Protection From ____ spells or whatever), there's no time I'd ever actually use it.

jimmifett · Jul 26, 2011

I like the old alignment system as a way to help figure out initial motivations of my character. The 4e system does that just fine as well.

I have no desire to be hamstrung by alignment issues as my character's world view changes throughout the campaign. If my cleric decides that the only way to protect the uninfected populace from the curse of lycanthropy is to completely erradicate weres, regardless of how the were may act when not changed, or comes across children lycanthropes, so be it. He believes he is doing good.

It's up to the DM to decide if the cleric's deity needs to sit him on the porch and have a long talk with him. If he revels in the killing, sure, i'd want the DM to have his deity impose some sort of punishment. But if he's praying for the souls of the infected as he tosses the recently slain were-family's corpses onto the funeral pyre, thats a different story.

No alignment straightjackets for me, thank you.

vaultdweller · Jul 26, 2011

No. No. A thousand times, no. I adamantly refuse to write an alignment on my character sheet, nor will I play in any game where there is any need to do so.

Alignments are terrible at being descriptive. If you tell me your character's alignment, I still don't have any idea what type of person your character is.

They are even more useless at being prescriptive. Knowing a character's alignment provides no help in determining what decisions a character should make, because every possible decision can be rationalized into every possible alignment - and by gourd, they will do so (until everyone at the table is blue in the face).

That space on your character sheet could be used for almost any other combination of two descriptive words and be far more informative. You could write in "pensive introvert" and it would tell me a lot about your character. "Bloodthirsty savage" would tell me something about your character. "Courageous champion" would tell me something about your character. "Sardonic trickster" would tell me something about your character. "Chaotic neutral" does not.