D&D 4E No evil gods in 4e?

[DM1979]

Alignment Makes Sense

Also, can someone who thinks he or she doesn't like the alignment system tell me where the line is between neutral good and chaotic good? Lawful evil and neutral evil? I have a hard time drawing those lines definitively.[/QUOTE]


I am so glad that you asked.

I have been a DM for the better part of 30 years and one of my favorite aspects of D&D is the alignment system. I have no trouble differentiating between neutral good and chaotic good. A neutral good character is much more likely to respect social codes and actual written laws than a chaotic good character. Similarly a chaotic good character is extremely likely to flaunt social convention and break what they would identify as a pointless rule. If a chaotic good character sees a sign that says "keep off the grass" he or she would stick a toe on the grass just to break what is, in their eyes, a ridiculous rule (we all know people like this). The neutral good character would avoid the grass unless some need should arise that would render rule-following behavior counter-productive. The lawful good character, by contrast, would go to great lengths to avoid stepping on the grass. A LG would only step on the grass at great need or perhaps only to render aid or avoid bodily harm.

If anything the difference between neutral good and chaotic good is far more noticeable than the difference between lawful good and neutral good. Generally the chaotic aspect of chaotic good characters causes them to make choices which would clearly distinguish them from a neutral good character. That is chaotic good characters live to break the rules. Conversely lawful good characters and neutral good characters are harder to distinguish because both would tend to follow reasonable rules and the only distinction would be seen with rules that tend toward pure order with no moral component.

BTW I am adopting the 4th edition rule set but I will also continue to use the alignments as presented by our founder Gary Gygax. Gary forgive them, they know not what they do.

PS If you want I can also explain the difference between neutral evil and lawful evil. Let me know if you need more help.

 

[jsaving]

My problems are 1) that there is JUST as big of a difference between lawful evil and neutral evil - if not MORE SO - then there is between neutral evil and Chaotic Evil, and that 2) there is now a distinction where "lawful = good, chaotic = bad."

This was inevitable, I think, once the designers decided to streamline/simplify 4e into a standard good-versus evil setup. A second alignment dimension encourages the very team-ups the designers are trying to squelch, with good and evil characters uniting in the name of freedom or security or laws or tradition. So all that stuff had to be scrapped, leaving Law and Chaos with nothing except the "sinful" pieces, like lying and poisoning.

My conjecture is that Law now equals what one might call "honorable-Good," the kind of guy who keeps his word and realizes that ends cannot justify means. Whereas Chaos now equals "dishonorable-Evil," the kind of guy who lies/poisons/backstabs as necessary to move ahead. And under this framework it just doesn't make sense to keep CG in the game, because just about everybody who was CG under the more expansive 3e definition of the term wouldn't be considered CG under the much-restricted 4e definition.

Is this setup a good idea? I don't think so, myself -- it betrays a lack of creativity and puts far too much emphasis on simplicity for simplicity's sake. But it would certainly explain why the designers seem so convinced that CG/LE have no place in the game -- because for them, under the very limited 4e conception of what Law and Chaos mean, CG and LE actually *don't* have a place in the game.

 

[gribble]

I didn't play it because I read it and couldn't stop yawning long enough to actually enjoy it.

Fair enough - I didn't say it was for everyone. But having played and run it extensively, I can say with 100% certainty that the setting doesn't have anything inherently "power-gamey" about it. In fact, one of the inherent themes is that your characters are very small fish in a massive pond.

 

[Hussar]

/snip
If anything the difference between neutral good and chaotic good is far more noticeable than the difference between lawful good and neutral good. Generally the chaotic aspect of chaotic good characters causes them to make choices which would clearly distinguish them from a neutral good character. That is chaotic good characters live to break the rules. Conversely lawful good characters and neutral good characters are harder to distinguish because both would tend to follow reasonable rules and the only distinction would be seen with rules that tend toward pure order with no moral component.

BTW I am adopting the 4th edition rule set but I will also continue to use the alignments as presented by our founder Gary Gygax. Gary forgive them, they know not what they do.

PS If you want I can also explain the difference between neutral evil and lawful evil. Let me know if you need more help.

The irony contained in these statements makes me giggle considering how much alignment changed over the years.

 

[Hussar]

From what I am reading, the new system is properly defined as the "Wishy-Washy Alignment System" (WWAS).

The new WWAS is not as bad as claiming that 4e will be OGL, and then pulling a very restrictive agreement out of the closet (exactly, one notes, what some of us predicted to the hooting derision of others!). After all, you can presumably ignore the WWAS and adapt the one from previous editions. You just can't do it in a product you intend to sell.


RC

Hrm, GSL=STL. Or close enough for government work. But, somehow it's morphed into become very restrictive. Amazing for a document no one has read.

RC, I know for a fact that you really enjoy B/E D&D. Do you also consider that to be WWAS? After all, there's no good/evil axis in there at all. Only 3 alignments.

 

[Saurdaux]

As far as evil gods in the DMG but not the PHB, I'm kind of on the fence about it. From the player perspective it's moderately inconvenient, in that you have to look in another book to make any kind of evilly religious character, but at least it's in a core book which will be available at the table anyway whether the player personally owns it or not. From the DM's perspective it makes it a bit easier to circumvent the sort of party that doesn't accomplish anything because their axiomatically inclined to fight each other. Is that a worthwhile trade-off? About as much as restricting magic items to the DMG was. At the heart of it, both intended to prevent potential game-breakers for tempting players without keeping them too far out of reach.

While I reserve final judgment until the book is in my hand, the preliminary look at the new alignment system strikes me as being no better than the previous version. I tend to have a preconception of how I want my characters to behave and what their motivations are. Pinning that into one of the nine alignments wasn't always easy to do and five alignments probably won't be better for that. Sure, I could decide not to use alignment, but what fun is that? Besides that, alignment is fairly hard-wired into clerics, who I can't help but enjoy playing. Having an unusual enjoyment for playing clerics, I figured out that cleric domains are much more specific. I would use the expedient of comparing character-appropriate domains against the alignment of a corresponding deity to arrive at a good fit alignment.

Now, I'm not really sure what, if anything, they're doing with the Domain system in this edition, but I'd like to see it adapted as an alternate alignment system, perhaps for PHB2. Not only could you recreate the old alignments that way, but you could also mix and match any shade of gray you like. It leads to more possibilities and is only as complicated as you choose to make it. You could create anything from a simple Captain Marvel/Shazam (Good) to a complicated Batman (Law, Chaos, Protection, Trickery, Knowledge, Etc.) or to use D&D-appropriate examples, a standard trickster bard type (Trickery) to a fervent activist druid (Earth, Plant, Animal, Protection). It also allows for succinctly describing a character who doesn't much care for good, evil, law, or chaos, without using the flavorless (at best) or misleading (at worst) "Neutral" or "Unaligned" categories.

Deities would be largely unaffected, as they work their portfolio of domains anyway. It would make angels a bit more sensible too, as each could embody a specific domain. Since multiple deities can have the same domain, you end up with the same type of angel working for different gods.

Now, I'm not going to say this is a perfect solution or one that Wizards is likely to put on bookshelves, but it'll be on my pleasantly short list of houserules for this edition either way.

 

[VannATLC]

*sigh*

I hate alignment arguments.

Unless you want to come to me and tell me you are an objectivist, the whole mess is broken. If you come and tell me you ARE an objectivist, I won't play with you.

I've always tended to utterly scrap alignment, and all spells based off it. It serves no useful purpose.

I have a vampire NPC who fosters and grows a community around him, maintains their safety in an uncertain world, hold fortnightly competitions in physcial and mental skills, then awards the winner with an invitation to a light dinner. At a certain age, the elderly are assisted in writing the memoirs, then drained of blood.

He is good for this community. There is no two ways about it. He knows things they would forget in a generation or two, otherwise. He defends them when necessary. Its a true symbiotic relationship, not a parasitic one. Without him, the community would fall within a generation.

Why should he be evil?

I strongly like the new system, because it allows for a LOT more flexibility.

You've got a single axis, this is true. I understand the concerns that chaotic=evil and law=good.

However, most of those concerns are bunk. Chaotic things are not anarchists. They are inherently destructive. A person who has an internal code, of any sort, is NOT chaotic. They may care nothing for tradition, or laws, or social mores. But they are not chaotic. Chaotic = Insane.
I've never been able to comprehend any other meaning. As soon as somebody makes a rational decision based on their own personal beliefs (Ignoring, for the moment, the validity of those beliefs) then they are not a chaotic person.

Even then, my little rant is ultimately pointless, as chaos is only an idea that is represented by an incomplete understanding of a system. (I'll grant there is a philosophical possibility of true randominity inherent in what we understand of the truly base levels of existance. Quantum Fluctations and other similar random events.)

You can have a character, of course, who is opposed to social laws. An anarchist.

Describe them as an anarchist. Not chaotic good.

 

[DangerAbe]

This new system: LG - G - U - E - CE is better for good vs. evil stories.

I hate good vs. evil stories.

The problem with good vs. evil stories is that everyone knows whos right and whos wrong.

I perfer Good vs. Good stories were character have to choose between 2 "good" choices (like many Star Trek episodes) or Evil vs. Evil stories (like the Sopranos or most White-wolf games).

In D&D and fantasty or historial settings, I think Order vs. Freedom is a much more compelling conflict than G vs. E. Past editions labled Order as "Lawful" and Freedom as "chaotic". And while I didn't like those labels, they'd been working fine since the 1970s.

I'm probably not going to use alignment in the new system, but you know what?

That's really the biggest strength of the new alignment model.
It can be ignored.


NG for life, boys.

 

[Amphimir Míriel]

Then why have it? If you want to get rid of alignment, then DO IT! Don't take off a couple of the alignments and claim it's fixed when all you've done is make it more broken.

I am really excited by 4E, however I have to agree with you here Professor...

I guess that Alignment was going to be reduced to Evil-Unaligned-Good (as in the new minis game) but someone claimed that "Lawful Good" and "Chaotic Evil" were phrases that had entered pop culture as D&D-isms (like "hit points", "saving throws", etc), and therefore should remain as sacred cows.

Now, back to Evil Gods, I think its perfectly fine for the "Evil options" to be sent to the DMG... In my experience, 90% of gaming groups play only non-evil characters, either by conscious choice or just because its fun to foil a villian, so its ok in my book to devote more attention to those options that the majority of players will use, and leave Bane/Devil/Demon worshipping to the MM and the DMG...

 

[Jhaelen]

If "Chaos" is assumed to be an aspect of "Evil", and law is presumed to be an aspect of "Good", that pretty much says anyone who opposes the law is evil -- and anyone who upholds it is good.

The Sheriff is LG; Robin is CE. So it goes.

Sorry, but that is bizarro-logic. You can still be chaotic without being evil in the new alignment system: You can be Good or Unaligned.
Being lawful does not mean you have to be good either. You can be Evil or Unaligned.

I think it's safe to say the Sheriff is Evil and Robin is Good.

HOWEVER:

Unless there is some extremely good explanation for the new alignments in the 4E books, I don't like them. It doesn't seem to be an improvement over the old system.

I'd also have understood five alignments, if they'd been:
Good - Lawful - Unaligned - Chaotic - Evil
-> pick the one you most care about, pick unaligned, if you don't care

I'd have understood three alignments:
Good - Unaligned - Evil
-> choose your side - or don't

I'd also have understood one alignment:
Unaligned
-> no character with real depth can be reduced to a single alignment anyway

But this:
Lawful Good - Good - Unaligned - Evil - Chaotic Evil
-> ??? I don't get it.