Five Alignments?

[Dyir]

Why is everyone assuming a perfectly linear continuum, anyway? Where did the notion that either G or LG must be "more good" than the other, or that E or CE must be "more evil," come from?

IMO some of this notion came from pre-4E philosophies of alignment; specifically, that "Neutral Good" and "Neutral Evil" where the "true" alignments of Good and Evil. I, myself, found this notion to be a little overmuch, but I definitely recall that attitude being present in Planescape and still appearing on threads involving alignment from time to time. I imagine that if you liked that notion, then you would automatically see an alignment named "Good" and being superior to one being named "Lawful Good," since it would register as the same as the previous incarnation of "Neutral Good."

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Because other solutions would be clunky and some people are optimistic.

I dunno, I'm the opposite. I'm thinking this because other systems would be open and more creative, and I'm pessimistic.

 

[Oldtimer]

Why is everyone assuming a perfectly linear continuum, anyway? Where did the notion that either G or LG must be "more good" than the other, or that E or CE must be "more evil," come from?

Probably because "Lawful" and "Chaotic" are (still) being used as qualifiers to "Good" and "Evil" respectively. That makes "Lawful Good" a kind of Good, which connects it to "Good". Same for "Chaotic Evil". And with four of the alignments connected up, it's hard not to arrange them linearly.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

*blink*

Anything non-linear is clunky? The alignment system only works if it runs on a straight, single-line continuum?

Uh, sorry, but that's just nonsense.



I'd love to see a source on this. Because I've seen playtest drafts dating back over half a year, now, and I can tell you that in terms of alignment, some terms may have changed, but the content and meanings have stayed pretty consistent.

I don't have the quote, but anyone searching, I think it was Mearls that posted something to the effect. But I suppose that might be because alignment is not his part of the "mechanics", and he might only not have remembered the exact chosen names for the alignments, or something like that. But he wouldn't be the first designer in the world to remember the up-to-date details of his rules. Monte professed similar problems - after having gone through many iterations of the rules, it's hard to keep them all straight.

 

[Tervin]

Thinking about it, I would not have minded a system with five alignments:

Lawful, Good, Unaligned, Evil and Chaotic.

That would have given me everything I want, and it would have been very easy to show how it was not linear.

 

[Spatula]

I'd love to see a source on this. Because I've seen playtest drafts dating back over half a year, now, and I can tell you that in terms of alignment, some terms may have changed, but the content and meanings have stayed pretty consistent.

The only incident that I can think of is, someone at a convention asked Mike Mearls if alignment X was in 4e, and he didn't know the answer. Mearls said it was a "world" type question and he was the "rules" guy.

There definitely is a difference between the info that was released around the time of DDXP (the pregens, the updated DDM cards) where nearly everything was "unaligned" and there was no mention of Lawful or Chaotic (which I believe is what prompted the above question) and now, where it seems that everything is strongly aligned (CE orcs, giants, titans; LG KotS pregens).

 

[lutecius]

*blink*

Anything non-linear is clunky? The alignment system only works if it runs on a straight, single-line continuum?

Uh, sorry, but that's just nonsense.

Not anything non linear. This particular list of alignments not being a linear continuum.

If LG and CE are not necessarily "more good" and "more evil", but still extremes beyond Good and Evil, à la WFRP and like Chris Sims' recent "evil or worse" comment seems to suggest > LINEAR

I never liked the Law and Chaos descriptors, but if you do keep them in the Name of the Cow and they mean something unrelated to Good and Evil, like they did in previous editions (ie non linear continuum), and yet they somehow only exist in conjunction with Good and Evil, respectively > CLUNKY

I'd love to see a source on this. Because I've seen playtest drafts dating back over half a year, now, and I can tell you that in terms of alignment, some terms may have changed, but the content and meanings have stayed pretty consistent.

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=223360

Courtesy of Charwoman Gene from I-con, 10am session
Alignment: [A paraphrase]
Me: What's going on with Alignment. Are Lawful and chaotic still in the game?
M. Mearls: There is still Lawful Good, Good, Unaligned, Evil, Um do we still have chaotic evil?
B. Slaviscek: I tihnk that was changed? Did we change
M. Mearls: Umm, that's more of a "world issue" I'm more of the rules guy.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

Yeah, Mearls at I-Con kind spilled it.

In asked him about the D&D minis alignments. I asked him point blank if LG was still in the game. He confirmed LG, G, U, and E. The he muffled on CE, and the begged off as not a world guy.

LG and CE are subsections of good and evil denoting a certain specific way of being good or evil.

 

[LoneWolf23]

I think it would've been better to either dump Alignment entirely, or just turn it into an "Allegiance" style mechanic as in D20Modern, representing a character's dedication to a concept, rather then something like a hardwired behavior.

 

[Andor]

I think it would've been better to either dump Alignment entirely, or just turn it into an "Allegiance" style mechanic as in D20Modern, representing a character's dedication to a concept, rather then something like a hardwired behavior.

QFT