The Final Preview - Alignment (Is this really the first thread?)

[ideasmith]

So far I see two problems with the alignment system:

1. It's an alignment system.

2. Half of the alignments have names that imply that additional alignments should exist.

The second problem can be solved by renaming. For the first problem, Hong works fine, if they did as good a job of making alignment easily removed as they seem to.

 

[ryryguy]

Hmm, it reads pretty well. Neutral -> Unaligned definitely makes sense.

Hearing that there is Lawful Good but not Chaotic Good, and Chaotic Evil but not Lawful Good, sounded pretty odd and perhaps a bit forced. But reading over the specific descriptions and how they fit together, it does seem to make sense. LG and CE just take up more "room" in the space; folding CG/NG into Good and LE/NE into Evil works.

If they had used new terms it might have seemed less forced on first hearing about it. But I guess there is the nostalgia reason for keeping them, as mentioned in the intro.

 

[baberg]

So it is including unaligned (unaligned is not choosing an alignment).

Ah, the great philosophical argument. When faced with a choice, is the decision not to choose a choice?

In other words, is choosing to be unaligned the same as not choosing an alignment?

 

[Incenjucar]

I honestly don't care about alignment now that it isn't a mechanics issue.

Glad it's out of the spotlight.

I'm still going to have some damned chaotic good guys though.

 

[frankthedm]

Sounds like a ploy of Lawful Evil. "Anything Chaotic must be Evil as well" sounds just like something Lawful evil would cook up, and LE has a fine tradition of hiding it's own existence.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

"Unless your DM is running a campaign in which all the characters are evil or chaotic evil, playing an evil or chaotic evil character disrupts an adventuring party and, frankly, makes all the other players angry at you."

Completely incorrect. I've played and seen plenty of evil character that didn't cause any strife in the group.

Quite frankly, the alignment hasn't been improved at all. It just went from a grid to a vaguely Z-shaped...thing.

LG NG CG
LN TN CN
LE NE CE

Was how it used to be. Now:

LG G- --
-- U- --
-- E- CE

If they wanted to simply make alignment non-mechanical, they could've easily done that. I don't see the reason for ripping out half the grid though. And the idea of rogues pushing people off good because "I'm CG!" is dumb. That type of character is STILL THERE. Now they say "I push him off a bridge because I'm unaligned."

 

[Incenjucar]

Clearly, the removal of Neutral shows that Zap Brannigan was right all along.

 

[baberg]

I don't see the reason for ripping out half the grid though. And the idea of rogues pushing people off good because "I'm CG!" is dumb. That type of character is STILL THERE. Now they say "I push him off a bridge because I'm unaligned."

Occam's Razor. Make things as complex as they have to be, then stop. Since you don't lose anything with the new LG/G/U/E/CE alignment line that you had under the box of 3e (as you just stated) why would you go beyond the line?

Make it as complex as you have to, then quit.

 

[small pumpkin man]

Ultimately, the important thing is removing all of the actual rules related to it, since it means people can write down "autobot", "sith" or "anarcho-capitalist" as their alignment, and as either GM or fellow player, I don't have to care.

 

[hong]

Ultimately, the important thing is removing all of the actual rules related to it, since it means people can write down "autobot", "sith" or "anarcho-capitalist" as their alignment,

Or possibly all three. Can you imagine how AWESOME that would be?