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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7742571" data-attributes="member: 996">Maybe 'backsliding' is an unfairly easy thing to hang on a game that set out, explicitly, and continually re-affirmed throughout it's playtest, the goal if evoking the classic game.  But, it is certainly going back to the 9-alignment system, and some mechanical impact, from a simpler/more intuitive (CG, LE, CN, LN, & TN having each thrown some folks) one with less mechanical impact. 9 alignments is the middle ground between 9 alignments and no alignments?  Wouldn't 4.5 be the mid-point.  ;PSeriously, though, it's fine to note that alignment has not been returned to nearly the invasive mechanical bugaboo it was in the classic game.  Just don't kid anyone 5e 'reduced' that impact, anymore than it nerfed casters relative to the preceding edition.5e is very much a compromise edition, so for any given horrendous D&Dism it's typically better than the worst offender, but that doesn't mean 5e, itself fixed the issue, just that it didn't restore it fully relative to the version that did. My observation, from when the mechanical impact of alignment was removed, 6 years before 5e hit the shelves, was that it made players more inclined to play 'unaligned' characters, as they were more open to a range of personality & motivation, since there was no benefit to playing the more prescriptive alignments.  It also helped that the alignments were fewer and more intuituve, there was no confusion over seemingly (to brand-new players) 'contradictory' alignments like CG or LE, nor temptation to use CN as an excuse for disruptive behavior...</blockquote>

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