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

[small pumpkin man]

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

Actually I'm having trouble, but it is awesome.

 

[Ghaerdon Fain]

The reality is that the thunder has been stolen WotC, yuppers illegally, and apart from DDI, any new information is well... meh. What's the alignment for piracy? CE? Glad you kept it then.

 

[Fifth Element]

The new alignment system is probably the worst thing WotC could have done.

Really?

Renaming neutral into unaligned is ok (although smells like a placebo to me), but why this unsymmetric system? Why does LG have to be different than G or CG? And why is CE special compared to normal or LE? (Insert you favorite real world example here).

Why a symmetric system? Symmetry for the sake of symmetry isn't valuable. Good riddance to it.

LG doesn't have to be different from G. It just is, based on the design decisions they made.

But the big question is, why have an alignment at all? When there really are no mechanics tied to it and you can't even reference it in game with detect spells then having an alignment is pointless and will never be used again after the character creation.

Why? Because they felt it added some value to the game, and was easily-ignored enough that those who dislike using it can simply ignore it. Removing the mechanical effects is a good thing - precisely because you can junk alignment without having to worry about screwing up a bunch of other moving parts.

But I guess all this mechanical alignment effects will be added to 4E by a splatbook sooner or later.

Unlikely. The Complete Book of Alignment would not be a hot seller.

 

[Fifth Element]

The reality is that the thunder has been stolen WotC, yuppers illegally, and apart from DDI, any new information is well... meh. What's the alignment for piracy? CE? Glad you kept it then.

I think for most people it would be Unaligned actually.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Damn, there will still be alignment threads. Why, WotC, why?!!

 

[lutecius]

Damn, there will still be alignment threads. Why, WotC, why?!!

So that you can read and post in them?

 

[Doug McCrae]

the old alignment system gave DnD a philosophical depth that every other game lacked.

I disagree. RuneQuest is far superior in terms of giving PCs cultural belief systems. The only rpg I've read that had some genuine philosophical ideas (in the academic sense) is Mage. Planescape is a joke, taking purely theoretical positions, such as solipsism and laughably thinking they could be used as a system for living.

 

[Derren]

Why a symmetric system? Symmetry for the sake of symmetry isn't valuable.

Not for the sake of symmetry but for the sake of logic. Why must LG be a different alignment than all other good alignments (including CG)

Why? Because they felt it added some value to the game, and was easily-ignored enough that those who dislike using it can simply ignore it. Removing the mechanical effects is a good thing - precisely because you can junk alignment without having to worry about screwing up a bunch of other moving parts.

When all its true which I hear about alignment then there are no mechanics which reference alignment and there are no detect spells which the creatures in D&D can use to find out the alignment of someone else. So when the alignment of a creature can't be detected and doesn't have a behind the scenes effect, what value can it have? Its about as valuable as deciding which "Hurz Factor" a PC has, a arbitrary value (which I made up on the spot) which doesn't do anything except taking up space on the character sheet and will never be mentioned again after character creation. This kind of alignment is even less valuable than the hair colour which can at least be seen in game.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Not for the sake of symmetry but for the sake of logic. Why must LG be a different alignment than all other good alignments (including CG)

When all its true which I hear about alignment then there are no mechanics which reference alignment and there are no detect spells which the creatures in D&D can use to find out the alignment of someone else. So when the alignment of a creature can't be detected and doesn't have a behind the scenes effect, what value can it have? Its about as valuable as deciding which "Hurz Factor" a PC has, a arbitrary value (which I made up on the spot) which doesn't do anything except taking up space on the character sheet and will never be mentioned again after character creation. This kind of alignment is even less valuable than the hair colour which can at least be seen in game.

You mean a short descriptor describing a character stance on the world and his relationships to others is less useful then his hair color?

Maybe you're right. I am not a fan of alignment systems.

 

[Gargoyle]

If it were up to me, I would have removed alignment completely or stripped it down to Good, Unaligned, and Evil. I've always felt that alignment fails as a roleplaying tool because experienced players don't need an alignment crutch to roleplay well and inexperienced players didn't understand the system.

But thankfully it was not up to me.

Alignment is dead for those who want to ignore it. I can house rule the entire system out easily if I want to. I don't have to worry about dozens of spells, magic items, and class abilities, etc.

But it's still there in a more limited form for people who want to create feats/classes etc with alignment restrictions. And I like the idea of characters such as paladins with Lawful Good alignments and demons who are truly inherently Evil instead of just evil. So I don't think I'll house rule it away at all.

It's the best of both worlds and one of the best changes to D&D.