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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 4941132" data-attributes="member: 2067">I've never had a major problem with alignment. I was a little tetchy when I first read the 2e PHB, but I got over it the moment I discovered Planescape and saw what the alignments were capable of representing. Now I kind of like the system, because what I saw at first as a roleplaying straightjacket (which is kind of was in 2e) became a rich, multi-faceted element of the world. Morality held a sort of magic all its own, and the alignment system didn't so much tell you how you had to be as described how you happen to be (and it was not a precise science, either -- there was no cosmic tallying system, and people could be considered Lawful Good and be very morally ambiguous). It tethered your character's life to a meaning for that life, and a way of looking at the great mysteries of the world. Alignment answered fundamental existential questions about your character, and gave them a team to fight for.But I totally understand the problems with it.It happens whenever people get knee-deep in moral muckity-muck, and so it was bound to happen with any system that called out "good" and "evil," no matter how codified, because the codification, and peoples' casual use of the terms, are going to be different. It happens with 4e still, it just doesn't ever actually matter at the table (which I see as something of a flaw, though an understandable choice). The only way to get rid of the problems with alignment are to jettison it entirely, which, again, 4e lets you do very easily. My position, in the games where I use alignment (because it's certainly not appropriate for every game, though it is pretty appropriate for heroic fantasy), is to have people describe their actions and personality, and I will decide where on the alignment scale that fits, and my decision is the only one that matters. If you want to change alignment, I will give you opportunities to change yoru character's behavior, to choose actions consistent with other alignments, and I will telegraph to you, in-character and out, how that decision will play out. I love moral ambiguity, used simultaneously with alignment. It's such a juicy contradiction that I can't help but be fascinated by it. It works surprisingly well. Yeah, it occasionally requires some mental gymnastics, but I find that pretty fascinating and amusing myself.I also find it kind of annoying to write something on a character sheet that never gets used. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> Iconic as it is, 3e was right: if you don't use alignment, you may as well just get rid of it. 4e does not use alignment. They probably just should've ditched it. They tried to fix it, and really just messed it up a bit. Those who don't like alignment still don't use it (just like 3e), and those who like alignment now lack the interesting options and richer potentail of the dual-axis system. I'm OK with alignment. It doesn't belong everywhere, but I like it in heroic fantasy, and I like playing with the questions it raises in-game. I think it should have some actual mechanical effect (even if it's limited). But I do understand why people don't like it, and I think they should certainly have the option to not use it. I think alignment should be like psionics: it's something you can add to your game, but something you never have to have. What you might do for 4e, aside from restoring the dual-axis system, is make alignment mechanics something like a "switch" that a player can turn on and off. An "alignment feat" might allow them to add the raw force of their alignment onto their powers (something like an energy substitution), or might give a power a certain effect once an encounter or something (A "good" feat might let you take damage for an ally, or it might enhance your attack against an Evil immortal, or somesuch). If you take a good feat, you can't take evil, and the same for Law vs. Chaos, but you could take Chaos and Good or Chaos and Evil or Law and Good or Law and Evil. There's totally room to add more dimension to alignment in 4e. Heck, just restoring the dual-axis system and putting the old 3e alignment spells in as rituals should go a long way toward making it feel more right. But if you don't want it, that shouldn't be a problem, either.</blockquote>

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