Five Alignments?

[hong]

Actually, nothing revealed so far mandates the specific ordering LG-G-U-E-CE. You can just as easily read the new system as saying LG is a dilution of G, as an intensification of it. In fact, you can also say that LG sits alongside G and is neither better nor worse, just different. It's just that people have taken it as read that LG is more worthy than G for some reason.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Actually, nothing revealed so far mandates the specific ordering LG-G-U-E-CE. You can just as easily read the new system as saying LG is a dilution of G, as an intensification of it. In fact, you can also say that LG sits alongside G and is neither better nor worse, just different. It's just that people have taken it as read that LG is more worthy than G for some reason.

I suppose that is ultimately since we haven't seen the actual descriptions of the alignments yet, have we? All the current theorizing is nice and dandy and might get us close to the designer intentions, but without the actual text, we're still just guessing.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

This is another torpedo below 4Ed's waterline for me.

I don't have any particular need to have an alignment system in RPGs- many I play, my favorites HERO and M&M included, don't use them- but if you're going to have an alignment system, have a robust one- and this simply isn't.

I may yet wind up playing 4Ed, but its unlikely I'll ever DM it.

Robust? What system did you have in mind? Because all the Paladin and Alignment debates have shown me that the 3E alignment is anything but robust.

 

[lutecius]

Actually, nothing revealed so far mandates the specific ordering LG-G-U-E-CE. You can just as easily read the new system as saying LG is a dilution of G, as an intensification of it. In fact, you can also say that LG sits alongside G and is neither better nor worse, just different. It's just that people have taken it as read that LG is more worthy than G for some reason.

I wouldn't say "more worthy", so much as "more extreme" like some zealots who follow a moral code to the letter or try to impose "goodness" on others. In warhammer, Law corresponds more or less to dnd's LG, but taken to the extreme, these ideals can be just as bad as absolute Chaos.
Also, Chris Sims wrote that the gods in the dmg were "evil or worse", so LG being somewhat beyond Good isn't such a stretch.


As for LG and CE just sitting alongside Good and Evil:

But if they are evil, then either

1) they are either more or less evil, or
2) being chaotic is unrelated to being evil, and hence the 9 alignments make more sense

which sums up what i was trying to say in previous posts.

The best solution imo would have been to get rid of Law and Chaos altogether. If what used to be CN and LN can be lumped together into Unaligned
(and i have no problem with that) I don't think Good and LG can be different enough to justify the separation.
I believe the only reason CE and LG are still in, especially if they don't have any mechanical effect, is because such names have been dnd trademarks for decades and they wanted to keep some of them around.

 

[hong]

I wouldn't say "more worthy", so much as "more extreme" like some zealots who follow a moral code to the letter or try to impose "goodness" on others. In warhammer, Law corresponds more or less to dnd's LG, but taken to the extreme, these ideals can be just as bad as absolute Chaos.

Precisely.

 

[sckeener]

I haven't read all 9 pages of this thread....

but as far as alignments...I think it is strange that they have 5 alignments (ok I find the exclusion on LE & CG silly), but I'm not really going to care if they really removed all the mechanical effects (or most of them) of alignments from the game...i.e. detect evil, Protection from evil, etc...

I'll just ignore alignments or maybe go to allegiances.

 

[Mercule]

Actually, nothing revealed so far mandates the specific ordering LG-G-U-E-CE.

Which is the exact reason I started the thread. Going back to alignment discussions in the past (since we have no 4e definitions, I've got nothing else from which to pull), the majority of the time that I've seen anyone try to line things up, it's been to place LG at the top of the heap, CG as nigh-neutral, and CE as the most wicked.

The main thrust of my origin post was, "Hey, this is my gut reaction to the terms I saw. That interpretation makes me more than a bit uneasy. Could someone who saw the books at the 'open house' events, a play-tester, or some WotC staffer please tell me I'm wrong and not to worry.

 

[TerraDave]

Hmm. There is a basis for the 9 point alignment system: Morality vs. Ethics.

I guess what this is saying is that you can be

G: particularly moral,
E: particularly immoral,
LG: particularly moral and ethical,
CE: particularly immoral and unethical
UA: moral and ethical some, but not all, the time.

But just being unethical, or just ethical, or ethical but immoral, or moral but unethical, are out. Of course, you can always define morality and ethics to make this true...but are you loosing some interesting rp posibilities in the process?

 

[GreatLemur]

Man, I was really hoping 4e was gonna make more progress in this area.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Hmm. There is a basis for the 9 point alignment system: Morality vs. Ethics.

I guess what this is saying is that you can be

G: particularly moral,
E: particularly immoral,
LG: particularly moral and ethical,
CE: particularly immoral and unethical
UA: moral and ethical some, but not all, the time.

But just being unethical, or just ethical, or ethical but immoral, or moral but unethical, are out. Of course, you can always define morality and ethics to make this true...but are you loosing some interesting rp posibilities in the process?

I never quite understood the difference between morals and ethics, to be honest.