D&D 4E No evil gods in 4e?

[Charwoman Gene]

Vampire doesn't have an alignment system.

Humanity/Paths aren't alignment?

I can easily imagine a chaotic good Cleric healing the people of the land.
I Can See a Neutral good person over throwing a tyrant. Hell, LG revolutionaries are awesome.

 

[Deep Blue 9000]

The point you seem to be unable to accept is that not everyone is supposed to match one of these four alignments perfectly. That's part of what the "unaligned" option is for. The vast majority of people in 4E, PCs or otherwise, don't have an alignment.

Just because someone doesn't match any of the other four alignments doesn't mean he's unaligned. He's just aligned to something only partially listed (law or chaos). It's "unaligned", not "other".

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I think WHFRP's system is very different. For example, Chaos is not Chaotic Evil. All the Chaos Gods combine both positive and negative aspects, even if they are generally the bad guys. Chaos is much more like CN in 3.5. So although there are 5 alignments in both WHFRP and 4e, the choices between alignments are not the same. This is key.

Consider if there were 5 different alignments in 4e: LG, NG, CG, LN, CN. If you wanted to play an evil or neutral character, you'd be forced to shoehorn him into an alignment that doesn't fit him at all. Can we all agree this would be bad?

That is a severe version of the problem with 4e's alignment system: it has few choices for alignment and they are bad choices. This forces characters to be shoehorned into descriptions which do not fit them.

This only happens if alignment is still viewed as an external idea. As in, "hey look at that person and what he is doing, he must be evil".

In 4e, a person could be "evil" in his actions but be "Lawful Good" in his alignment based on his own personal view of the world.

 

[Monkey Boy]

I think WHFRP's system is very different. For example, Chaos is not Chaotic Evil. All the Chaos Gods combine both positive and negative aspects, even if they are generally the bad guys. Chaos is much more like CN in 3.5. So although there are 5 alignments in both WHFRP and 4e, the choices between alignments are not the same. This is key.

Last time I checked, and I'm running it at the moment, WFRP 2e does not have alignment. They abandoned the idea and to be frank I don't miss it. Alignment just isn't the big deal in WFRP that it is in DnD.

 

[eleran]

On further reflection, I do like the move of evil deities to the DMG. It gives me a little more control over story elements related to evil deities. And since I plan to have a paragon tier story arc concerning the dreams delivered by an evil deity, this makes me happy.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

Thanks for explaining WFRP alignment.

It's very obviously NOT the D&D 4e system. It is again an alignment system that over-disparages Law and can't envision noble good.

 

[Mouseferatu]

For the record, I'm not claiming the 4E alignment system is perfect. Personally, I'd have much preferred if it was Good/Evil/Chaotic/Lawful/Unaligned, without the L(G) and C(E) descriptors.

But c'est la vie.

 

[Deep Blue 9000]

This only happens if alignment is still viewed as an external idea. As in, "hey look at that person and what he is doing, he must be evil".

In 4e, a person could be "evil" in his actions but be "Lawful Good" in his alignment based on his own personal view of the world.

I don't understand your point. Are you talking about an evil villain thinking he's the good guy? Because that was possible under 3e. And presumably under 4e as well.

Last time I checked, and I'm running it at the moment, WFRP 2e does not have alignment. They abandoned the idea and to be frank I don't miss it. Alignment just isn't the big deal in WFRP that it is in DnD.

Ah, OK. I don't know anything more about the rules of the RPG than what ruemere posted. And in fact I agree with WHFRP not having alignments. It's too GRIM AND DARK for anything other than Gray-Black morality.

 

[Sojorn]

For the record, I'm not claiming the 4E alignment system is perfect. Personally, I'd have much preferred if it was Good/Evil/Chaotic/Lawful/Unaligned, without the L(G) and C(E) descriptors.

But c'est la vie.

Intriguing.

 

[Lackhand]

For the record, I'm not claiming the 4E alignment system is perfect. Personally, I'd have much preferred if it was Good/Evil/Chaotic/Lawful/Unaligned, without the L(G) and C(E) descriptors.

But c'est la vie.

You've seen the books, I haven't.

But Paladins need an alignment (er, as in, the Good kind of Paladin) that is distinct from reg'lar old good. There are a few ways of making it distinct -- double-plus good, Lawful Good, Paladin-flavor good -- but if you have an alignment system, the trope of Holy Knight is helped by having an alignment for it.

Having Good encompass the Holy Knight figure _and_ the Robin Hood figure is a bit much; besides, Chaos vs Law is always the more contentious part of the alignment debates. So I'm kind of glad it's not Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos.

Now, if they had renamed Lawful Good and Chaotic Evil to be different terms (Honorable and Demonic, say?) or just given the fracking four paragraph excerpt of the definition of the alignments, I guess we wouldn't be having this conversation