Are you going to limit PC alignments in your 4e game?

[Agamon]

Most DM's prohibit the evil alignment's from players. Is it because some players wreck it for everyone or is it because DM's are tyrants, or is it because "evil" is unheroic.

What are you thoughts on limiting PC alignments and why DM's do it?

Jay H

You, sir, rock for including the following: "Yes. We will not use the "alignment" component of D&D"

Alignment sucks rocks. No one walks around my campaign world with signs around their neck stating their general attitude. Act good, do good things, treat people well, and people will react to you correspondingly. Personality traits are better labels then "good" or "evil".

 

[Ambush Bug]

I don't allow alignments in games I run. Well, you can write it on your character sheet, but I'm never going to ask you about it. They don't have much mechanical use in the game, and they don't line up with the settings I use, so alignments subtract more than they add to my games.

 

[RabidBob]

Because 'Good' is the default alignment of the guy in the street,

I think the default alignment of the man in the street is "selfish". But enough of my cynical philosophy.

 

[McFluff]

I'm DMing a group of players where this is all their very first RPG campaign ever. None of them roleplay much at all anyways yet so it hasn't really come up. I suggested at character creation that it'd probably be easier for them as a team if they all chose an alignment from LG, G, or U. So I guess that's why I went ahead andvoted for the first option.

Though I don't think that I'd have a problem with the evil alignment in future after they get more involved with the RP aspect of the game.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

I asked my players to stick to LG, G and U in my game, explaining that it was a Core D&D game with Core assumptions about heroic characters, using the published modules.

None of them complained. Had any of them kicked up a big fuss about it, I would probably have simply said that perhaps this wasn't the sort of game they wanted to play in, and asked them to find another game. I would have also happily suggested some places they could do that.

 

[Wormwood]

As long as the group agrees on the game's themes and expectations, it doesn't matter what players write on their sheets.

Life is easier when you don't play with jerks.

 

[Badgerish]

Literally, no. Effectively, yes.

I've voted for 'yes - unaligned only' but I'll be allowing any alignment, however i don't expect any G/LG/E/CE alignments to last.

<tries to explain how i feel about the alignments>
<fails>

<tries again to explain>
<fails>

Okay, third try: I feel that 'unaligned' covers 95%+ of the alignment range, and the remaining G/LG/E/CE is left for the supernatural and the dangerous edge-cases who can't fit into anything resembling real (or adventuring) life.

I'm not going to penalize any players for this, but i'll be asking them after each session, "do you really feel your character is G/LG/E/CE after what you did today?"

 

[Lord Mhoram]

I voted other. I'm generally not going to allow unaligned, unless there is a good reason for it. When I GM I want heroes, not adventurers - LG and G only.

 

[Obryn]

Since Alignment is disconnected from the game rules, I told my players that they can basically write down whatever they want.

I let them know the basic LG, G, U. Then said they could pick Lawful Neutral, Chaotic Good, Republican, Democrat, Mormon, Bahamutian Fundamentalist... really - whatever. It has zero mechanical effect, so it's all characterization at that point.


I advised against Evil PCs at this stage of the game, though. It's a new campaign, and I'd rather not deal with it yet.

-O

 

[The Little Raven]

It depends on the exact campaign. My first campaign will be a heroic one, so it will be LG, G, and U only. The second will be a CE, E, and U only game in which the villains deal with the changes wrought by the players of the first campaign.