Bring back alignments?

[MrMyth]

That is simply untrue: at the very least, the mechanical effects ensconced in certain abilities- Protection from ________, Detect ________, Smite ________, etc.- are gone, and given the way the AEDU system constrains variety for most classes, it is not something you can easily bring back.

Absolutely true, and I don't have any objections to someone advocating a return to more mechanical connections to alignments. But that's not what the initial post itself is asking for.

Look, here are the key things I see wlmartin saying/asking for:

"Alignments were something personal, you roleplayed your alignment"

"Also, the concept of Alignment (which D&D pretty much invented) was a guideline for playing your character."

"Playing an Evil character was fun!!"

"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!"

None of that requires a Detect Evil spell, or Holy Word, or Paladin or Bard alignment limitations. One can certainly debate over the merit or flaws of having those mechanical limitations - there are valid points to be made both for and against them - but the actual act of playing a CG character? Having alignment as a guideline for playing your character, as advice for roleplaying? The enjoyment of playing an evil character? Or 'a renegade, a rebel'?

None of that has gone away. And I honestly, genuinely, don't understand what is standing in the way of wlmartin writing down "Chaotic Good" on his character sheet, or even just leaving it blank and playing the character that way anyway.

 

[Dragonhelm]

The big change WotC made wasn't changing the alignments, it was divorcing alignment from mechanics. And that means that every time you play, you can use whatever alignment system you prefer.

If you like the nine-point alignment system, just go ahead and say your character is chaotic good. Or lawful evil. Or whatever. Roleplay them that way, and the problem is taken care of.

I really like the divorce of alignment from mechanics for this very reason. It allows you to use whatever alignment system fits your game. For example, if you're playing an Oriental Adventures game, you may prefer an honor system. Or, you can drop alignment altogether.

This is the one thing I think needs to be done with alignment. Make it an optional rule that serves as a guideline.

WotC consolidating the categories was not, I think, an attempt to avoid having parties of varying alignments. I think they genuinely felt that some of the categories overlapped in a way that was hard to explain to new players, and consolidating things would still reflect the full spectrum while being easier to explain. And there is some logic there, even though I prefer the nine-point system and the greater granularity it provides.

Some of the alignments really had little differentiation. NG and CG come to mind. I never felt that NE really stood on its own two feet. It just came across as a lesser version of CE to me.

But the thing to understand is that their ultimate goal was to make alignment entirely an element that assist roleplay, rather than a mechanical element that can be used to aid or punish a character. As such, the alignment system is just a guide on how to operate your character.

Love it.

 

[Ramius613]

As I said earlier, I personally like how alignments are set up in 4e. However, I think a good compromise would be to have an Unearthed Arcana article that would have 'Codes of Ethics' with some suggestions for benefits and penalties. They would have to be small, as to not detract from game balance too much, but would offer some incentive to those choosing to make use of the feature. It could also help people roleplay their characters better.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Yeah, I miss alignment having occasional in-game ramifications too. I don't miss Detect Evil, Know Alignment, or alignment restrictions.* I don't miss paladins having to be a very specific kind of LG, and I don't miss the Law/Chaos axis. In fact, I think of alignment as a simple Good-Neutral-Evil spectrum. But I do think that 4e threw out the baby with the bath water when in comes to alignment.

*I think it's funny when someone says that 4e divine PCs have to be this or that alignment, because they don't.

Every single player in my campaign has chosen the not-alignment - unaligned.

Mine too, which I find funny because they all know alignment doesn't matter and I don't care what they write on their CS. Even the players who don't use the CB invariably write Unaligned...I haven't yet figured out why.

If your character aren't chaotic good these days, that's a choice you made, not a decision WotC made for you.

QFT. I find it tragically amusing how many players don't seem to realize this.

 

[nightwyrm]

Mine too, which I find funny because they all know alignment doesn't matter and I don't care what they write on their CS. Even the players who don't use the CB invariably write Unaligned...I haven't yet figured out why.

Maybe it's because it's a new term that doesn't have any of the old alignment baggage and offers the PCs what they want - to be able to do whatever they want with the freedom of not having to be nice, but also not being labelled evil.

 

[theNater]

But more specifically... if we are putting in a rules subset to help new players find a character and play it... why not just give a list of personality traits to choose from, rather than this morality chart that requires you to also explain what those choices mean? It's much easier and more comprehensible to play "helpful", "free", "honest" and "not bound by convention", than it is to play "Chaotic Good".

There's two advantages to the morality chart. First, each alignment is very broad, which means the player can find a useful part of it in many situations. Second, the sorts of situations I see newbies having trouble with most often are moral issues, so the fact that it's specifically a morality chart is helpful.

One example of this sort of issue is what to do with a surrendering orc when you're a hundred miles from anywhere. The personality traits "curious", "reliable", and "loyal" aren't going to be much help, but most players I've seen are able to come up with a position after rereading a paragraph or two of an alignment description.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

I love alignments and I love the old alignment mechanics that came with them. What people find hard to understand is that alignment is just like a class. You don't take fighter if you want to be a Wizard. The whole point in alignment was to actually be a character with a certain perspective on life.

You could call a class, or a race a straight jacket because you stay with in that frame work.

The argument for not liking alignment is usually by those people who want to have the freedom to pretty much do what ever they wanted without the rule of alignment over their head.

Alignment is just another mechanic just like any other. Like I said before, it's just like choosing a race or a class. If you want to be an elf then choose elf and not a dwarf.

Also, people tend to make alignment a bit more narrow than it really is. Being lawful doesn't mean you hover around not touching anything because you are afraid you might kill a bug. Things do happen that would cause one to stray away for a moment from their alignment but that is where the good old DM comes in. I also think a lot of people tend to forget some of the reasons for actually having a DM

Alignment is one of the main reasons we role play in the first place. It allows us to pretend to be something that we're not, just like with race and class.

I may be a free spirit in real life, but with say Lawful Neutral, I can act like the hard core law enforcer.

 

[FireLance]

Since they are now mostly divorced from the actual game mechanics, I think it is perfectly fine to arrange their alignment system as they wish.

The big change WotC made wasn't changing the alignments, it was divorcing alignment from mechanics. And that means that every time you play, you can use whatever alignment system you prefer.

Exactly.

I may be a free spirit in real life, but with say Lawful Neutral, I can act like the hard core law enforcer.

If it really helps, just call yourself Lawful Neutral.

 

[MrMyth]

I love alignments and I love the old alignment mechanics that came with them.

Alignment is just another mechanic just like any other.

...

Alignment is one of the main reasons we role play in the first place.

I may be a free spirit in real life, but with say Lawful Neutral, I can act like the hard core law enforcer.

I think part of my point is that there is a serious disconnect between the first two statements and the last two. Alignment isn't a mechanic, because it is about roleplaying. Even without any mechanical nature to it, you can still choose to call yourself Lawful Neutral and act like a hardcore law enforcer.

Or, to try and put it in other terms...

If I'm playing a game that uses a different set of core races, and I end up playing a tiefling, I can certainly choose to play the character like I would play an elf. But no matter how much I like trees or act disdainful of mankind or whatever... in the setting, in the game, I will still be a tiefling. Acting like an elf won't make me one, and the experience will be a genuinely different one than in a campaign where I can actually play an elf.

If I'm playing a game that uses a different list of alignment options, and on my character sheet is written "Alignment: Good", I can choose to play the character as though they were Chaotic Good. And they will, thus, indeed be Chaotic Good for all intents and purposes. I can and will act exactly the same as I would if I was playing in any game where Chaotic Good was listed as an alignment option. And NPCs will react to me exactly the same way they would react to a chaotic good character in a campaign where that could be written on my character sheet.

If I choose to play an elf, that is something that affects how the world interacts with me. If I choose to be lawful neutral, that effects how I interact with the world.

And for me, that really is the fundamental difference, and why it is just a matter of roleplaying, and not one of mechanics.

 

[nightwyrm]

snip

I'm not sure that's a valid comparison. Class and race choices do not necessarily restraint behaviour. You can be a claustrophobic dwarf, a forest-burning elf, a pacifist fighter, or even a philanthropic rogue (funny story that, in the old days there was something written about how if your thief wasn't trying to steal from the party, you weren't playing him right. That fell to the wayside pretty quickly). Moreover, classes are well defined metagame constructs. Alignment as described in the books is a lot more vague and everybody brings their own interpretation of good/evil/lawful/chaotic to the table.

Also, with refluffing and multiclassing, the class mechanic isn't as restrictive as it may seem.