Gargoyle
Adventurer
I got to thinking about this when my wife rolled up a wood elf fighter the other night. We hit a small bump, and I wanted to share this experience to gather thoughts on the subject and hopefully make things smoother for others.
She likes to roll dice, so naturally when she got the opportunity to roll for her soldier's background of Ideal, she did so and rolled Might - In life as in war, the stronger force wins (Evil). For Flaw, she rolled "I obey the law, even if the law causes misery."
After that, perhaps a bit out of order in the process, she read the alignment descriptions and promptly selected Chaotic Good as her alignment.
I had to stop and think about that one. Talking to her about it, she explained that the description of CG suited what she wanted to play. She's not what I'd call an inexperienced player, but we haven't really played with alignment since 3rd edition either since in 4e you could be unaligned. She usually played Neutral Good characters prior to 4th edition, and has no experience with anything older than 3rd. And she's not the type to read the rules unless she needs to look something up, so she's a casual player, and could be considered new as far as alignment rules go. She is the type of player who loves to roll for ability scores during character creation and anything else she can roll for, and adamantly sticks with her rolls. She loves tables.
After talking to her about it, and further explaining what each alignment meant, she changed it to Neutral Good, which is how I believe she wants it...I don't think I talked her into anything, as much as I explained it to her a bit more. She kept her ideal and flaw that she rolled.
No problem here really, but in the future, I'm going to have them choose an alignment first, then encourage them to pick their traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws or roll them if they can't decide, or make them up. All of which is pretty much what the rules say to do in the first place.
At first it bothered me, but after talking to her and thinking about it, it's fine if their alignment differs from their ideal or other traits. There are plenty of people in the real world and fiction who do a lot of good in the world but who also believe the stronger force will win in war, and plenty of rebels out there who still obey the law perhaps out of fear of being caught, perhaps out of a sense of respect toward a singular legal authority (they really love the king, etc) ; they find other ways to express their chaotic nature. Complexity of personality is a good thing.
So I love the system, even with alignment (which I admit to never liking in past editions) because of the depth that it can give you.
Now the only thing I dislike is that they chose to link most ideals to alignments. While those with a "Might" ideal could tend toward evil, it sort of seems unnecessary and a bit confusing, especially since things like "I obey the law, even if the law causes misery." do not say "Lawful" or "Lawful Evil" at the end. I suppose ideals are meant to be more closely related to morality than flaws, but it still seems unnecessary, and some of the samples they've given for these background traits maybe aren't the best. I think they could have written these samples better if they stayed away from alignment terms like evil and law, and I like the way my wife's character turned out with an ideal that conflicts with her alignment.
Some other thoughts:
- Unaligned is a 4e option for PC's that I missed at first. But I've changed my mind and decided Neutral is fine for this, it's nearly synonymous, and addling Unaligned in for characters seems a bit more complexity than is needed, it's fine for animals, etc.
- I do like how they handled the nature of intrinsically aligned beings such as devils, and racial tendencies. At first I felt it was a bit strange to treat evil aligned creatures differently, than good (good are that way because they choose to be, but evil can be innate), but it makes sense from a lore and from a gameplay perspective.
I welcome the traits, ideals, flaws, and bonds and Inspiration...I think it's going to be a much better for encouraging roleplaying than alignment alone, and I like that alignment can conflict with some ideals/flaws/ etc to create more interesting characters, but I feel like that's not something they intended, and in fact had intended that they match.
She likes to roll dice, so naturally when she got the opportunity to roll for her soldier's background of Ideal, she did so and rolled Might - In life as in war, the stronger force wins (Evil). For Flaw, she rolled "I obey the law, even if the law causes misery."
After that, perhaps a bit out of order in the process, she read the alignment descriptions and promptly selected Chaotic Good as her alignment.
I had to stop and think about that one. Talking to her about it, she explained that the description of CG suited what she wanted to play. She's not what I'd call an inexperienced player, but we haven't really played with alignment since 3rd edition either since in 4e you could be unaligned. She usually played Neutral Good characters prior to 4th edition, and has no experience with anything older than 3rd. And she's not the type to read the rules unless she needs to look something up, so she's a casual player, and could be considered new as far as alignment rules go. She is the type of player who loves to roll for ability scores during character creation and anything else she can roll for, and adamantly sticks with her rolls. She loves tables.
After talking to her about it, and further explaining what each alignment meant, she changed it to Neutral Good, which is how I believe she wants it...I don't think I talked her into anything, as much as I explained it to her a bit more. She kept her ideal and flaw that she rolled.
No problem here really, but in the future, I'm going to have them choose an alignment first, then encourage them to pick their traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws or roll them if they can't decide, or make them up. All of which is pretty much what the rules say to do in the first place.
At first it bothered me, but after talking to her and thinking about it, it's fine if their alignment differs from their ideal or other traits. There are plenty of people in the real world and fiction who do a lot of good in the world but who also believe the stronger force will win in war, and plenty of rebels out there who still obey the law perhaps out of fear of being caught, perhaps out of a sense of respect toward a singular legal authority (they really love the king, etc) ; they find other ways to express their chaotic nature. Complexity of personality is a good thing.
So I love the system, even with alignment (which I admit to never liking in past editions) because of the depth that it can give you.
Now the only thing I dislike is that they chose to link most ideals to alignments. While those with a "Might" ideal could tend toward evil, it sort of seems unnecessary and a bit confusing, especially since things like "I obey the law, even if the law causes misery." do not say "Lawful" or "Lawful Evil" at the end. I suppose ideals are meant to be more closely related to morality than flaws, but it still seems unnecessary, and some of the samples they've given for these background traits maybe aren't the best. I think they could have written these samples better if they stayed away from alignment terms like evil and law, and I like the way my wife's character turned out with an ideal that conflicts with her alignment.
Some other thoughts:
- Unaligned is a 4e option for PC's that I missed at first. But I've changed my mind and decided Neutral is fine for this, it's nearly synonymous, and addling Unaligned in for characters seems a bit more complexity than is needed, it's fine for animals, etc.
- I do like how they handled the nature of intrinsically aligned beings such as devils, and racial tendencies. At first I felt it was a bit strange to treat evil aligned creatures differently, than good (good are that way because they choose to be, but evil can be innate), but it makes sense from a lore and from a gameplay perspective.
I welcome the traits, ideals, flaws, and bonds and Inspiration...I think it's going to be a much better for encouraging roleplaying than alignment alone, and I like that alignment can conflict with some ideals/flaws/ etc to create more interesting characters, but I feel like that's not something they intended, and in fact had intended that they match.
