D&D 4E [MD&D4e] Thread 1. Alignment

[mythusmage]

Background: MD&D4e stands for "Mythusmage's Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition, how I would do D&D 4e were it my game to revise.

This thread is about Alignment, namely what I would do with the dang thing.

What would I do with Alignment? Dump it. We can't agree on what it is. We can't agree on how it should be used. It's black and white morality in a world where things come in shades of gray. Some in very dark gray, some in very light gray, but gray. So I'd get rid of Alignment.

What would I replace it with? Guidelines to behavior and personality. Here is how elves behave by and large, and here's how orcs behave by and large. Here's the basic halfling personality, and here's the basic goblin personality. And here's a few ideas for creating a unique personality for your PC.

I'd also add the allegiance system from d20 Modern. That is; what, if anything, is the character dedicated too? Or, at the very least, is somewhat fond of.

Paladins would be dedicated to one of many codes of morality. That would be their allegiance. Other 'dedicated' classes would have an allegiance to something similar. A code, a cause, a popular personality. Such 'dedicated' classes would be expected to adhere to their 'cause' strongly, but the occasional mistake would not redound upon them as harshly as an Alignment faux pas does.

Of course, someone dedicated to following a certain deity would likely find the punishments a bit harsher for an infraction.

That's what I got for now regarding this subject. Your take?

 

[DonAdam]

I dislike alignment as well, but I can stomach the BOTR's take. It keeps it to a broad cosmological/societal perspective, which keeps it from getting in the way of interesting moral dilemmas and also avoids the problem of what lawful or chaotic mean.

As long as I allow some stretch room, I've never had a problem with good/evil. With law/chaos though, there are at least two very distinct meanings for that axis in the core rules. The first is the devil/demon distinction, or the cosmological distinction between well-ordered societies, planes, and worlds vs. less ordered ones.

For character classes, though, monks and barbarians, to make any sense, must refer to law/chaos as some kind of personal discipline. There is absolutely no reason you could not have an anarchic monk that thinks that people should follow their own codes of honor, or a barbarian from a tribe that is very well structured.

Consequently, when referring to BOTR's definition of alignment, I cannot hold classes (except clerics) to any law/chaos requirements. I would still require a paladin or monk to follow certain strictures, but they would be personal rather than cosmological.

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

...
What would I replace it with? Guidelines to behavior and personality. Here is how elves behave by and large, and here's how orcs behave by and large. Here's the basic halfling personality, and here's the basic goblin personality. And here's a few ideas for creating a unique personality for your PC.

...

I agree that Alignment is not the totality of determining a characters personality. If you try to use it as such, of course it will be seen as broken. I like Mark Clovers "CMG PROSE System" for augmenting the Alignment and Charisma inputs into a more fully formed personality picture:

Politics
Religion
Others
Self
Economics

numbers rank the above to show their relative importance to the being in question

Key Words ( 3 or so per being ) can fill in further holes, and guide roleplaying opportuities:

example from CMG's Whispring Woodwind:

Politics -------------4
Religion ----------- 3
Others ------------- 5
Self ----------------- 7
Economics ------- 8
1 - Commanding
2 - Disarming
3 - Perceptive

 

[Wombat]

I don't understand why mechanics would be needed to replace alignment at all.

Just drop it and have players reap praise and suffer consequences for their actions. Don't bother with specific numbers -- that's unnecessary.

Only thing this might affect at all would be Clerics (and Paladins, who still deserve to be a PrC rather than a core class), but how has not ever heard of a priest who doesn't even follow the dictates of his own religion.

Nah, the whole alignment thing should just be shunted.

 

[The Little Raven]

Why don't we just toss elves out of D&D while we're at it?

 

[MarauderX]

I would ditch the subdivisions of alignment and just go with Good, Evil, and Neutral. Players could be and do what they wanted to an extent, and only good gods would grant good characters powers. The dividing lines become a little more clear in many ways, but less in others, such as revenge or other savage things that could be attributed to any alignment.

I ran a campaign without alignment before, and most of the players are good when they think they should be acting good, neutral in most moral situations, and bad when they think they can get away with it - which was a majority of the time. I felt like I had to push them to behave sometimes, as they would lead wealthy merchants down dark allies, jump them, and pretend they were completely innocent the next day when 10 witnesses showed up to rat them out, and that they weren't valiant heroes after all but just greedy self-serving doorknobs.

All in all, a party can do whatever it likes, yes; but assigning at least some restriction to actions holds the players a little accountable for their actions, and has served to prevent the players from acting good or bad against their alignment when it suits the encounter.

 

[I'm A Banana]

If you're going to ditch alignment freakin' ditch it totally and don't make up a replacement -- you don't need it.

But I like alignment. So