How about alignment?

[Ahnehnois]

I would wager to say it is not so "routinely" ignored as you suggest. Whether or not it came into play, it was a part of the characters and system...even 4e, in a limited fashion.

Well this poll for 4e users has roughly a third of people ignoring it and others using houserules. You could also consult this old thread, which shows a variety of approaches but no poll. Do you believe that only a negligible number of people ignore alignment rules? Or that the number of people who do is no greater than the number of people who use other substantial houserules?

Incidentally, we're at about 20% on this poll who want alignment to "die in a fire", and another 25% who picked either allegiance or something else.

The rules are not responsibile for making the game idiot, powergamer, min-maxer, unimaginative, rules lawyer, bad-sport, immature or just plain stupid proof. That's the DM's job.

Of course not. The problem is when the rules suggest that any paladin could identify every evilly inclined person in the world. You'd have to be an idiot to let crime occur on any widespread basis under the 2e/3e paradigm.

Orrrr, preferably, with the new system, you could just "opt out" of alignment in your games from the get go. While others could use as many as they like. Poh-tay-to, poh-tah-toe.

Okay. I'm not suggesting you have to use the word allegiance, only that alignment should follow that mechanical system, which essentially makes it optional and open-ended. You might want to look at it before criticizing it. You also might want to consider that Modern is a d20 system game and is pretty close to D&D, such that porting in an element from it is not the same thing as trying to make D&D into GURPS or Cortex.

The point of alignment on a character sheet is to describe your character, not dictate his behavior, and idea that I think this rule better supports.

I honestly, and respectfully, disagree. "as it's played" by you, perhaps.
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Yes. Unequivocally. Yes, it would.
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Because, the D&D game, from the dawn of its incarnation, has had XP. And, again, I question your assertion/definition of "lots of people".

Well, beyond anecdotal experience, there's this poll I did a while back. It's not scientific or a huge sample size, but it matches my experience. I'm not saying that no one uses the XP system, but a significant number of people modify or ignore it. I think it's fair to conclude that only a (large) minority of groups use the XP system as it's written. Certainly ignoring XP is not uncommon, even if my numbers aren't perfect.

So I think that while it's always been in the rules, it would hardly kill the game if advancement were radically changed. The same goes for alignment. A lot of good game design is taking common houserules and slapping an official stamp on them. Ignoring these rules is a pretty common houserule.

I think that this is a pretty unreasonable thing to say. There have always been debates about the proper place of alignment in D&D.

Appreciate that point. I don't go all that far back, but I've sure seen a lot of debate about the role of alignment in D&D.

I personally think that 9-point alignment is ludicrous. It corresponds to no real-world system of either moral description or moral advocacy. As presented by Gygax in AD&D, it expressly draws upon contemporary moral and political notions (the rights set out in the Declaration of Independence, and notions of human rights) - causing endless problems when these are then applied to a quintessentially premodern archetype, the paladin.

And that's well said. Even to the extent that the nine alignments are classic (and they are), that doesn't mean they're good (so to speak). They are a bizarre juxtaposition of modernism and anachronism. I think they make a great foundation for a cosmology but a poor foundation for a character. With the open-ended approach, you can have the nine alignments, or devote yourself to principles that make sense to you.

 

[Jawsh]

Something else (Please elaborate)

Okay, since you axed nicely.

I use a thirteen-alignment system, with options for additional alignments if a player wishes to write something else on their character sheet.

It starts with a base of the traditional nine -- law, chaos, good, evil, on a grid. Then it adds five neutral alignments: Neutrality, Unaligned, Amoral, Balanced, and Nonextreme. NPCs are divided roughly evenly between all fifteen alignments, but the effect of having multiple neutrals weights the average toward neutral.

Five Ways to Be Neutral

Alignment is a two-word phrase that describes the following things about you: A) your attitude toward other sapient beings, B) your attitude toward society and the law, C) your attitude toward magical creatures from other dimensions, D) which other dimension you favor, and E) where in the multiverse your soul is going to end up after you die.

Grid
LG NG CG
LN NN CG
LE NE CE

Unaligned
XXX
XXX
XXX
You look at all alignments equally. You don’t care for any alignment over any other, nor do you dislike any alignment. As long as an evil person isn’t about to kill you, or a lawful person isn’t about to throw you in jail, you otherwise seem content to work with all alignments. This is the closest thing there is in the alignment system to an opt-out clause.

Neutrality
OOO
OXO
OOO
The best alignment is True Neutral. You dislike every principled stand, even if it’s on the benefits of Chaos. Alignments do not have any benefits as far as you are concerned. They only lead to problems. You think that the best people to work with are others who are True Neutral. You’ll work with other variants of Neutrality, but you still worry that they might become tainted by allowing themselves to interact with the other alignments.

Amoral
OOO
XXX
OOO
You act out of selfish motivations, and this is what you believe drives the multiverse. You shy away from both overly Good people who are always acting fake, and from overly Evil people, who are usually just ego-tripping. You see Law and Chaos being at the heart of motivation, so you see both Lawful and Chaotic characters as honest and true to themselves. It is possible to describe yourself as Lawful Amoral, Amoral Neutral, or Chaotic Amoral, which are just alternate ways of saying Lawful Neutral, Neutral, and Chaotic Neutral.

Balanced
OXO
OXO
OXO
Your pet cause is the battle between Law and Chaos. You believe strongly that neither Law nor Chaos should be allowed to get the upper hand. You describe your position as balanced precariously between too much Law, and thus oppression of all people, and too much Chaos, leaving the universe incomprehensible. When it comes to Good and Evil, you are mostly indifferent. It is possible to describe yourself as Balanced Good, Balanced Neutral, or Balanced Evil, which are just alternate ways of saying Neutral Good, Neutral, and Neutral Evil.

Nonextreme
OXO
XXX
OXO
You think that the problems of the world come down to the combinations of extreme ethical and moral positions. Good is fine by itself as a concept, and so is Law, but as soon as they become combined, they become an oppressive tool. Unfortunately, the same is true of Chaotic Good. Chaos is alright, and so is Good, but Chaotic Good leads people astray. And the same is true of Lawful Evil and Chaotic Evil. These four extremes are what the entire multiverse is fighting about most often.

 

[Shemeska]

9 point alignment. It's a core part of D&D in my mind, along with a lot of the creatures that come bundled into it on the planes. Of course I'm coming from a heavily biased towards the planes POV.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I don't mind alignments - 3, 5, 9, 10, whatever - so long as:

1) they have no common (or uncommon) mechanical effect (every 1st level Cleric isn't casting Protection from Evil and demons aren't shouting Unholy Words), and what mechanical effects there are aren't organized like 'team alignment' perks, but rare, like the very occassional 'pervasive aura of evil' in a tomb, or an artifact that'll only function for a given alignment.

2) 'Unaligned' is always a choice.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I voted 9 alignments, but if I can't have that, I'd prefer a system in which you have Good/Unaligned/Evil over most other options.

That said, if alignment exists in the game, I also feel quite strongly that it should have meaningful mechanical effects. Protection from (alignment) and related effects are iconic.

However, I can see that they might be better modeled as effects that grow in power as the person raising the ward increases in power. That minimizes the need for having a plethora of different wards, and it also means that more powerful beings could (potentially) shrug off the effects of such a ward if it were of low power. Someone who just learned a Circle of Protection may be able to hold off a few minor undead or spirits for a minute, but it would take a powerful ritualist indeed to keep a Pit Fiend at bay for more than an eyeblink.

 

[Riley]

It's got to be the 9-alignment system, because that's the one that has entered the general pop culture.

Oh, and they might as well include a sidebar about the de facto 10th alignmnet, "Lawful Stupid," while they're at it.

 

[howandwhy99]

I vote 3 axes:
Lawful, Neutral, Chaotic

Lawful Creative, Lawful Balanced, Lawful Destructive

Chaotic Free, Chaotic Neutral, Chaotic Oppressive

For each of the first big two, the other is their bad.

 

[Sunseeker]

"* Unaligned is True Neutral, seeker of balance

To be fair, to me, "true neutral" and "unaligned" do not feel both the same in this usage. I would like to see true neutral kept with the addition of unaligned. Some people really do like being truly neutral.

 

[Ahnehnois]

To be fair, to me, "true neutral" and "unaligned" do not feel both the same in this usage. I would like to see true neutral kept with the addition of unaligned. Some people really do like being truly neutral.

I use "true neutral" to describe the random guy off the street who's decent enough, but doesn't worry much about morals or ethics, as opposed to the arch druid who seeks to bring nature's balance to the world.

But I can see where others might not look at it that way. It is certainly important that any alignment system explicitly allows people to be noncommittal.

 

[Ratskinner]

What I'd like and what's realistic

What I'd like is for Alignment to die in a fire. With all the arguments about what each one meant or would mean, and the general lack of clarity with alignments, I generally find them more trouble than they are worth. Nonetheless, I would expect (prolly the AD&D 9) to show up as the default for backwards compatibility.

What I'd really like is for all such systems to show up in module land. In addition to Alignment and Allegiances from d20, several Indie games have possibilities as well Motivations, Keys (from The Shadow of Yesterday), Aspects (from FATE). Tack 'em all in there somewhere, what the heck.