D&D 4E Would you have alignment in 4e?

[Dark Psion]

Yes, it is easier to ignore a written rule than to write it yourself.

 

[JustaPlayer]

Errrr, I vote for no 4e. I guess that would in some wierd cosmic way make my votes yes, but seeing as there is no 4e in my world I didn't vote.

 

[IronWolf]

I went with Yes, it should be there. If people want to remove alignment for their game as a house rule, I think that is fine, but it is easier to remove a rule than write it as someone said earlier.

 

[Psionicist]

Yes if they change the name of "lawful" "chaotic" to something better. Otherwise no.

 

[Altalazar]

It is something that is quintessentially D&D, so yes. But I'd have it be more fluid. I really like it a lot more in 3E because they removed alot of the game mechanics about it - like the losing levels for shifting alignments, and so forth. I think that was too heavy handed. Right now, it is in there, but you can worry about it a lot less and think of it more as a loose framework for your character rather than a straightjacket.

 

[Uder]

How can you kill things and take their stuff if there's no such thing as evil?

I vote Yes!

 

[JustaPlayer]

Ok I had to vote. If good forbid there is a 4e, my answer would be yes. What there shouldn't be are spells detect good/evil/law/chaos and such. There should still be smite spells and the like but you should have to guess on your oppenents alignment and not just cast spells and kill the dude that detected as evil.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

The players in my Arcana Evolved game have no trouble identifying and battling evil despite its lack of objective ontological reality in that system. But they also have more trouble deciding which of the many factions around them are worth associating with and which are going to turn out to be trouble eventually. Without alignment, more realistic motivations aren't swamped by [descriptor] politics and people can have subtle and even self-contradictory motivations without having to deal with actual metaphysical difficulties.

Alignment is a dog that's had its day. And now it's starting to get old and hackneyed and it's time to take it out back o' the barn and put it down.

 

[zoroaster100]

I'd rather that alignment be removed from the mechanics. If there was still a section talking about alignments, that would be fine with me, but I don't want basic class abilities like paladin's detect evil and smite evil balanced in a way that require alignment. I'd rather have such abilities fine tuned so that they are balanced in a way that DMs and players that don't use alignment can use the classses/class abilities/spells/etc. without having to rebalance them. For example, paladins could have a smite ability that can be used against anyone engaged in "evil" from the paladin's perspective. I'd like detect evil and know alignment to detect only magic and outsiders with the evil descriptor, not a normal person who happens to sometimes (or even currenly) do evil deeds.

 

[Wombat]

Would I put alignment in 4e? No way.

Will it be in 4e? Yep.

Why? Because 4e will still have character classes, hit points, armour class, and the other quirky matters that make D&D, well, D&D.

Alignment, in my opinion, has never been handled well in D&D. It was put in because of Michael Moorcock, but neither the author nor Gary Gygax fully understood the implications of the Law-Neutral-Chaos axis, and people are too nervous about defining the Good-Neutral-Evil axis for fear of offending someone.

In the end, as I have stated before, alignment becomes both an Absolute and a Generalized Notion. What does Detect Evil actually detect in a human being, if human beings are not in and of themselves evil and many acts fall into the level of "well, this might be evil, but it serves a greater good"? At that point, who could be smote/smitten? Do such powers only work on this absolutely, 100% aligned with one of the moral/ethical compass points, or do they work on anyone who appears to be generally, if half-heartedly, predisposed to backing one side or another?

Even in fantasy books we find moral conundrums, ones not easily solved by "this is good, this is evil". Why, then, do so many spells, powers, magical items and the like work as lodestones of unerring accuracy in this regard? It makes very little sense, especially given the guidelines characters are given about alignment "choices".

Either alignment must become just a rigid, defined, and hemmed in as it is for the Powers That Be or it is best to simply drop it.

One may always be a Hero without having to wear a white hat in public.