D&D 4E My Special Rules for Nine Alignments in 4E

[Fox Lee]

There are a few interpretations that fit with CN as described; "freedom is more important than everything, even if morality matters too", "freedom is important and I don't care about morality", or perhaps even "freedom is important and morality is a false dichotomy/a construct that's not actually valid". And in any of those, you could replace "freedom is important" with "structure is dangerous" for a more pro-active chaotic. Lots of fun interpretations that make for interesting characters who aren't freaking nuts.

I think part of the problem is people taking the term literally instead of considering what it means in an alignment context. "Chaotic", outside of D&D, could mean "random", "thoughtless", "unpredictable", "uncontrolled"... lots of things that are perfectly reasonable interpretations, if you don't read the D&D definition.

Now combine this with the concept of "neutral" as being not "doesn't care", but "deliberately maintains balance between good and evil". That's definitely not supported by 3e, unless perhaps you are a lawful neutral with your own personal philosophy, but I have heard 2e players espouse the idea time and again (even outside of druids). I imagine if you're the kind of player who views alignments as being a static guide for how you should act, rather than a dynamic reflection of how you do act, it would be easy to fall into that mindset.

If you put the two together, you have "random and uncontrolled" coupled with "making sure neither good nor evil gets a leg-up". And right there, there's your "insane bastard" chaotic neutral player. They do random crap and might actively try to hinder you if you're winning, and then they justify it with "I'm just playing my alignment". Oh, and of course there's the player who just reads both "chaotic" and "neutral" as "I do whatever I want". Le sigh.

Anyway, for my money, I reckon that's how it happens: outdated interpretations, or not bothering to read/process the definitions. And the desire to play a jerk.

Having said that, the new five alignments are horrible choices to me not because I'm an old-timer, but because of the implication...to be "REALLY" good you must be lawful, which then leads to weird situations - - what if the government seems to be wrong? Whose law rules?

I find that really interesting, because I interpreted the removal of chaotic good to mean that in its purest form, good is chaotic, and law is just an add-on that you have to specify

1. Ordered Good. = you see good Delivered though Order and organisation.
2.Good= You believe in good but think a mix of freedoms and laws should deliver best.
3. Anacistic Good = You see good can only be delivered if there is no opression

being a scale PCs fit on it somwhere.

then there is the evil scale
4. Opressive Evil. Only through Opression can dictators bring victory.
5. Evil. Evil need a mix of Iron fist and Randon distruction to be effective.
6. Chaotic Evil. True suffering is only brought about if Greed and distruction runs riot.

Bad guys go on this scale.

Interesting, but as Camelot notes, "anarchistic and "ordered/oppressive" may as well be lawful and chaotic. Also, I think removing the neutral alignments loses compelling character ideas; every PC should be made to cooperate with the group for some reason, sure, but they shouldn't be forced to be good-aligned. I've made more than one character who started off as lawful or chaotic neutral, explicitly because their development over the story would lead them to a higher ideal. I'd hate to lose the opportunity to play such a character because the system says heroes always have to be good.

By the same token, your villain alignment choices are also passing over many interesting villain motivations. Oppressive Iron Fist or Random Destruction are very big, obvious, super-villain kinds of evil, but often subtle villains are more interesting. A villain doesn't have to pursue either dictatorship or destruction to be evil; simply being profoundly selfish also serves that purpose. And what about the tragic well-intentioned villain who thinks he's doing the right thing? Both of these are well-used villain archetypes, but your system seems to have no place for them.

Anyway, I'm not saying this a total do-over, but I guess what I am saying is that I can't see why you would go up to seven alignments, but not all the way to nine. It has all the complication of houseruling, but still misses out on most of the opportunity provided by the 9-point system.

 

[TarionzCousin]

Chaotic Neutral - - you are insane...

Why shouldn't CN be interpreted as favoring the individual and his/her freedom above even life itself and its preservation?

Isn't the issue with CN just that a few (lots of) players just bought into the bad descriptions?

I would bet that most of the players who played "insane" characters would have played that way regardless of what alignment they were. Being Chaotic Neutral was just an excuse.

 

[phloog]

I would bet that most of the players who played "insane" characters would have played that way regardless of what alignment they were. Being Chaotic Neutral was just an excuse.

That's exactly right....in fact, it seems to happen with a lot of paladins in some groups.

"I am a tireless champion of good, and so of course I just can't wait to find someone evil so I can completely eviscerate them!" - - I would say 90% of the paladins I've played with were completely bloodthirsty, and only took the paladin because of powers allowed, or because they felt it gave them a rationale for their bloodlust.

 

[Bill Hooks]

In the absence of the old nine alignment system, "lawful good" and "chaotic evil" just sound weird and out of place to me. In the new system they basically seem to mean really really good and really really evil, so how about "righteous" and "depraved", or something like that?

 

[KahnyaGnorc]

I don't like ANY implication that chaos and evil are tied, or that law and good are tied. Chaotic Evil shouldn't exist if Chaotic Good doesn't.

Robin Hood is a great example of a chaotic good hero, and any sort of evil Empire, or evil Secret Organization will have Lawful Evil elements. They're classic fantasy tropes.

I've looked at the new alignment scheme as the opposite (but still don't like it). The new scheme incorporates Chaotic Good into Good, if you read the description of good. To me, that makes it seem that Chaotic Good is Good, while Lawful Good is something different from "real" Good. Conversely, to me, it makes Lawful Evil seem like the "real" Evil, while Chaotic Evil as something different. The two combined make it seem like Chaotic is more Good than Evil, while Lawful is more Evil than Good.

 

[Fox Lee]

I've looked at the new alignment scheme as the opposite (but still don't like it). The new scheme incorporates Chaotic Good into Good, if you read the description of good. To me, that makes it seem that Chaotic Good is Good, while Lawful Good is something different from "real" Good. Conversely, to me, it makes Lawful Evil seem like the "real" Evil, while Chaotic Evil as something different. The two combined make it seem like Chaotic is more Good than Evil, while Lawful is more Evil than Good.

This. Personally I prefer the apparent 4e view (chaotic is closer to good and law is closer to evil) to the opposite alternative, but I still prefer the nine-alignment system. Either way, though, it certainly seems to me that the "purest" good in 4e is the non-lawful version. Good is Good, by definition; Lawful Good is Good With an Asterisk. But that's just how it comes across to me, and I'm pretty pro-chaotic; likely, it's one's personal view that colours this more than anything.

That said, perhaps our problem with the 4e system is that we are the ones imposing "chaotic" and "lawful" onto the now-default good/evil. I think "Good" in 4e makes a decent amount of sense; it seems appropriate that regardless of how "good" you are, you may or may not also have a special dedication to law, which you only need to "declare" if you have it. Evil seems like more of a stretch to me, but I think maybe it's supposed to be personal/selfish evil (which just doesn't care if it hurts people on the way to its goals), versus chaotic evil (where hurting people is the goal).

If these views are correct, then "lafwul good" is a still a good choice of name, but "chaotic evil" was perhaps poorly chosen (and maybe only there for legacy reasons). I probably would have kept the destructive version of evil as the default, and given "selfish evil" a clarifier instead.

Either way, though, I would still miss lafwul neutral :<

 

[Camelot]

The two combined make it seem like Chaotic is more Good than Evil, while Lawful is more Evil than Good.

Well, in this day and age, it pretty much is. Nobody wants to read a story where the main character is the paragon of justice and goodness (lawful good), and he has to destroy an enemy who does nothing but mindlessly destroy things (chaotic evil). Protagonists in fiction are more likely to be flawed outcasts (chaotic good) who go up against the tyrant evil genius (lawful evil), while everyone is against the protagonist. While the first scenario could be done well, and even better than the second, the second is more common.

 

[marli]

i think that the problems with 9 fold system is that they took an idea(two scales) and produced a table.
on that table there seems to be three points that caused problems.
the neutrals.
however if neutrals are so neutral then they lack motivation for chaos or order.
add to that that allignments can change and,,,
removing neutrals from the table solves the problems that WOTC had.(neutral chaotic-wtf. if you are just randomly causing chaos, you are evil chaotic. if you only cause chaos when there are evil you are chaotic good)(lawful good-again wtf. if you are instigating laws that cause more good than evil, you are lawful good, if you dont care you are lawful evil)

suddenly 2/3s of the problems go away. now all we have ask is balance= keeping evil and good in balance.
if you twart good so you are evil. twarting evil doesnt stop you being evil, evils are renown for that.
so we are left with neutral....you dont have an opinion. yep but you cant really be an adventurer with this lack of motivation.

 

[TarionzCousin]

I'm convinced this was change simply for the sake of change, and it bugs me.

This is exactly what I meant. Does anyone disagree or feel differently?

Why did WotC change the alignment system?

 

[Fox Lee]

Well, in this day and age, it pretty much is. Nobody wants to read a story where the main character is the paragon of justice and goodness (lawful good), and he has to destroy an enemy who does nothing but mindlessly destroy things (chaotic evil). Protagonists in fiction are more likely to be flawed outcasts (chaotic good) who go up against the tyrant evil genius (lawful evil), while everyone is against the protagonist. While the first scenario could be done well, and even better than the second, the second is more common.

I think saying that chaotic good gives you a "flawed outcast" is inappropriate, but aside from that, I see where you're coming from. A protagonist with only one source of opposition (the villain) is pretty primitive; it's the kind of thing that comes more from very old stories (or poor amateur ones). A hero who is clearly in the moral right, and supported by the common folk, and approved of by the relevant authorities, has a lot of potential to be boring.

In contemporary fantasy, people certainly seem to prefer an underdog. Loveable Rogue, Loner With a Heart of Gold, Embittered Vigilante, Persecuted Outcast... none of them have to be chaotic, but they're almost certainly not lawful. Or, in other words, modern fantasy thinks most people prefer Batman to Superman, and it's probably right.

This is exactly what I meant. Does anyone disagree or feel differently?

Why did WotC change the alignment system?

If there is a valid reason WotC changed alignments - rather than change for change's sake - it's probably just how misunderstood Law vs Chaos was. As humans, we all (with some exceptions who are probably in prison by now) have a fundamental sense of right and wrong; we wouldn't be such a successful social species if we didn't have that much. We might argue over some aspects of it, like end versus means, but we still all basically get "do unto others" and similar concepts.

Law and Chaos, on the other hand, have always been kind of vague. In different places, WotC have used both social/philosophical outlook and personal conduct/mindset to justify a place on the Law/Chaos axis, but where then goes an extremely orderly, methodic individual who opposes the laws of society? What about a person who ignores the laws of society because they consider themselves beholden to a different set of laws - say, an authority like a foreign power or a deity? What about somebody who rigidly follows the letter of the law, but uses the ambuguity of that "letter" to make the laws work the way they want (aka the Sam Vimes debate)? Do you have to be a pro-active anarchist to be chaotic, or is it enough to simply ignore the laws that people try to impose on you? Is a person who obeys the laws not for their inherent value, but out of fear (or perhaps ambivalence), lawful or merely neutral?

My group kind of enjoy the ambiguity of nine-axis alignments; it's almost like a puzzle, finding the appropriate place for a particular personality. But the fact that it can be used so loosely probably makes it awkward for new players, and I think that's where WotC is coming from.

Or they just didn't want to get caught out describing Law/Chaos in a way that totally contradicts itself, again