D&D 4E Alignment hint about 4E...or not?

[Glyfair]

Jonathon Tweet posted a bit about his character on his blog. There he makes the following comment:

This is a 3E game that's been running for a while, so she has "neutral good" written on her character sheet.

Is this a "4E won't have that aligment" comment or is it a reference to some sort of alignment changes done within 3.X? I admit I haven't followed any minor changes to alignment, so sorting out the reference is a bit tough.

What do you think his reference means?

 

[Dr. Harry]

Jonathon Tweet posted a bit about his character on his blog. There he makes the following comment:



Is this a "4E won't have that aligment" comment or is it a reference to some sort of alignment changes done within 3.X? I admit I haven't followed any minor changes to alignment, so sorting out the reference is a bit tough.

What do you think his reference means?

It might also mean that alignment is something that is done a bit later, after the character's actions have shown herself to be NG.

 

[Roadkill101]

I've never bothered with worrying about alignment in the games I run. So whatever and however it's get implemented in 4E, I'll continue to ignore it's existence.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I've never bothered with worrying about alignment in the games I run. So whatever and however it's get implemented in 4E, I'll continue to ignore it's existence.

OK.

 

[Ranger REG]

Personally, I prefer Allegiances over Alignments. See d20 Modern rules.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Personally, I prefer Allegiances over Alignments. See d20 Modern rules.

QFT. At the very least, IMO, players should not write alignment on their character sheets. DMs should, after at least one session has passed. (That doesn't mean the player can't have an idea of how they will play their character, just that they aren't the "final authority" over alignment.)

 

[M.L. Martin]

Personally, I prefer Allegiances over Alignments. See d20 Modern rules.

You know, a streamlined Allegiance system (Good/Evil, Order/Chaos, Balance, and maybe a handful of others) would keep most of the strengths of D&D alignment--the ability to adjudicate effects based on a character's committment to certain ideals--without some of the headaches. You could drop the 'neutral' alignments altogether unless a character is actively committed to the 'Balance' concept--just take one allegiance instead of two--and you could replace 'Law' with 'Order' without having to worry about the problem of finding a good adjective derived from Order. Paladins must take at least one allegiance; clerics must take at least one allegiance tied to their patron.

 

[Anthtriel]

To me, the real danger is that players end up creating characters with alignment in mind, and thus come up with very similar characters. Any person should have more complicated goals than "acting good and acting by the rules". Alignment does not take that away, it doesn't do anything bad in theory.
But in practice, characters made with Alignment in mind tend to be quite a lot blander.

 

[hopeless]

Alignment Issue

It isn't clear whether its 4e or not but if its a 4e blog would that count?

Upon reading it looks like he's running a character with some options thrown in along with a bit of a counter to his character's personality.

Against the dwarven rigid social structure but having taken a name from that society to indicate the character does support the status quo if I'm understanding this correctly.

However its what happens in the game that will eventually decide the character's alignment, I've played in games where the LG Paladin was played with more evil tendencies than the CN Rogue nd the goblins came across as almost understandable in motivation compared to the "Might makes right" and ignore the rest of the party even though there's no reason to kill off a helpless prisoner other than out of sheer spite...

Sorry I tend to play Good aligned characters, the only evil character I've played was n assassin as part of a pregenerated group and he was the first one slain after I assassinated a favourite npc of the gm before he could cut loose so when the group of all evil characters cme face to face with a group of angels my character was the first one slain, sorry going off topic.

It would be nice if they addressed the alignment issue given they're supposedly trying to make it easier for 4e but so far I assumed they meant you could play Paladins of any alignment rather than any actual change.

Allegiances would make sense especially concerning Paladins, but how exactly are they going to held up to their code so to speak?

 

[Gargoyle]

My theory is that alignment will exist but will no longer be tied into game mechanics. That has a lot of implications, but the absence of alignment from stat blocks and character sheets seems to point to just that.