Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 itsdawsontime Jun 24, 2008 15:15:25	Now it seems to me that alignment in 4e isn't as big of a role as it was in the past. What my brother and I are trying to do is integrated a feel from 3.5 into 4e for alignment. I would gladly like to hear any persons input or advice on this situation. Thank you.
#2 sixteen_sided_die Jun 24, 2008 16:15:13	Now it seems to me that alignment in 4e isn't as big of a role as it was in the past. What my brother and I are trying to do is integrated a feel from 3.5 into 4e for alignment. I would gladly like to hear any persons input or advice on this situation. Thank you. I think it's alright as is in 4th. Because, be honest, could you really tell a Neutral Good from a Lawful Neutral a good portion of the time? Not terribly. Lawful Evil and Neutral Evil were pretty close in motivation and action too. And Chaotic Neutral was just an excuse to do random things at will. Most of my players (especially towards the end of 3.5) kept opting for "True" Neutral so they weren't suspect to alignment-based "bad stuff" So I think Unaligned is a valid catch-all for the ones WotC lumped into it, in all honesty.
#3 docaquatic Jun 24, 2008 16:29:50	Yeah, I like how they lumped some alignments together (CG and NG, LN, N, CN, and LE and NE) and included a lot fewer alignment-based effects. It's mostly a vestigial legacy mechanic at this point, and an easy way of showing motivation than something game mechanics interface with, and I really like that. It simplifies the system in a good way and adds more room for conflicts with people of the same or similar alignment.
#4 xavon Jun 24, 2008 21:45:00	Personally, I hate 4E alignment. One can take it to mean that LG is either more or less good than G, and CE is more or less evil than E. I don't care for either suggestions. I prefer G, E, N, and U. Or the full 42 variations of the old dual axis system.
#5 itsdawsontime Jun 26, 2008 15:27:59	I see what all of you are saying. This is our house rule for now and it would be great to hear some input: "You can choose from 3.5e alignment, 4e alignment, or not care" Essentially in 4th I take the alignment to be more of a description of your character, where in the past it affected many things. Now it does not really focus on the alignment as it does the character as a whole. So essentially, if a player chooses 3.5e alignment, that character chooses to flaunt their alignment off and acts specifically to that alignment. If a player chooses 4e alignment, that character has an a lot of leeway with the alignment and is more concealed. Finally, if they don't care about alignment, basically they care not to share with anyone their beliefs. Anyone's opinion on that?
#6 kainhighwind Jun 26, 2008 18:45:56	Wow, that sounds like religion to me O.o ..... sounds good for the game though
#7 MrCelsius Jun 27, 2008 15:02:49	I think 4e did a stupid thing in limiting the alignments, but a great thing in rendering them almost entirely irrelevant to gameplay. I've always liked the old alignment system as a sort of character short-hand, or a sketched outline on which to build. Vague enough to be useful, but too vague to play well with firm rules. In light of this, I plan on pasting the particular alignments from 3.5 onto the mechanic of 4e. Full spectrum of Good/Evil crossed with Chaos/Law, with True Neutral representing the older sense of someone who reveres balance (deliberately TN) or has no strong disposition (naturally TN), and Unaligned as the term for people who don't care or whose choices haven't tended one way or another (Unaligned by happenstance) or haven't lived lives that give them room to express their alignment (Unaligned by default). Reading through the books, I don't think I've seen any mechanics that call upon alignment, but I seem to recall the alignment description suggesting good/evil effects, but I see no reason any such couldn't play well with the 3.5 alignment axis.
#8 tequila_sunrise Jun 27, 2008 23:07:04	I see what all of you are saying. This is our house rule for now and it would be great to hear some input: "You can choose from 3.5e alignment, 4e alignment, or not care" Essentially in 4th I take the alignment to be more of a description of your character, where in the past it affected many things. Now it does not really focus on the alignment as it does the character as a whole. So essentially, if a player chooses 3.5e alignment, that character chooses to flaunt their alignment off and acts specifically to that alignment. If a player chooses 4e alignment, that character has an a lot of leeway with the alignment and is more concealed. Finally, if they don't care about alignment, basically they care not to share with anyone their beliefs. Anyone's opinion on that? My opinion of your house rule is the same as my opinion of 4e RAW alignments: alignment still DOESN'T MATTER. I honestly don't know why page space was wasted on alignment if it doesn't actually affect anything, and no offense but I don't know why you're spending time and energy to house rule something that still just doesn't matter. TS
#9 squarecircle Jun 28, 2008 0:01:06	My opinion of your house rule is the same as my opinion of 4e RAW alignments: alignment still DOESN'T MATTER. I honestly don't know why page space was wasted on alignment if it doesn't actually affect anything, TS WotC thought it was a sacred cow. To many players, it probably is. To me, it isn't. I hate alignment, I've always hated alignment ever since OD&D (okay back then I simply didn't care or know better, but still, I've never been a *fan* :P ).
#10 tequila_sunrise Jun 28, 2008 9:48:24	WotC thought it was a sacred cow. To many players, it probably is. To me, it isn't. I hate alignment, I've always hated alignment ever since OD&D (okay back then I simply didn't care or know better, but still, I've never been a *fan* :P ). I actually love alignment being a very real and [nearly] tangible thing; the only thing about 4e that really bugs me is that they used valuable page space on it but didn't put in any mechanics that make alignment actually matter. So I homebrewed my own. Anyway I'm just wondering why Itsdawsontime & Bro bothered to modify a now completely abstract set of descriptors, as much as I'm wondering why WotC wasted page space on something that has zero impact on the game. I mean, alignments are now not even fluff text because nobody in the game world has any concept of alignments. No more outer planes to physically demonstrate the differences between alignments, no more Smite Evil as a roundabout alignment-detection method, no more Detect Evil to find an ideal target for Holy Word; alignment is now just something that players write on their character sheets and never reference again, in or out of character. TS PS: I'm not sorry that Detect Evil is gone, I just used it to demonstrate my point.
#11 steerpike7 Jun 28, 2008 9:53:38	My opinion of your house rule is the same as my opinion of 4e RAW alignments: alignment still DOESN'T MATTER. I honestly don't know why page space was wasted on alignment if it doesn't actually affect anything, and no offense but I don't know why you're spending time and energy to house rule something that still just doesn't matter. TS In some people's games, it can matter. Mine for instance. If it doesn't matter in yours, then why are you spending time and energy responding in an alignment thread?
#12 tequila_sunrise Jun 28, 2008 13:24:27	In some people's games, it can matter. Mine for instance. If it doesn't matter in yours, then why are you spending time and energy responding in an alignment thread? Because I want to know how it matters in other people's games, so please do tell. TS
#13 itsdawsontime Jun 28, 2008 16:09:12	So I homebrewed my own. I'm interested to see this. Anyway I'm just wondering why Itsdawsontime & Bro bothered to modify a now completely abstract set of descriptors, as much as I'm wondering why WotC wasted page space on something that has zero impact on the game. The reason is we are trying to convert our 3.5 ed characters into 4th ed for a campaign. The 3.5 edition was influenced a lot by alignment and we are trying to tie it in in an odd sort of way. There will be some things that affect alignment in the campaign. Which is why we are trying to create a small system for it.
#14 mplindustries Jun 29, 2008 3:00:18	I'm interested to see this. The reason is we are trying to convert our 3.5 ed characters into 4th ed for a campaign. The 3.5 edition was influenced a lot by alignment and we are trying to tie it in in an odd sort of way. There will be some things that affect alignment in the campaign. Which is why we are trying to create a small system for it. Um, the new alignments folded a lot of stuff together, and its very easy to convert without a new system. LG --> Lawful Good NG, CG --> Good NN --> Unaligned LE, NE --> Evil CE --> Chaotic Evil The only tricky parts are LN and CN. I would argue that CN will pretty much all end up Unaligned, though the rare few might be Evil or Chaotic Evil. They most assuredly wouldn't become either version of Good, though. Lawful Neutral is harder, if only because it was so poorly defined. It always felt more like a planar alignment for robots (er, constructs ;P) than a personal alignment. I think they, too, would be Unaligned, but some could be Lawful Good or Evil, if they were already leaning in one direction and chose Lawful Good because they weren't sure. I suspect, however, that most Lawful Neutral characters were probably monks who weren't allowed to be True Neutral. Anyway, since you have to homebrew in a way for the alignment to have an impact, I think it'd be just as easy, if not easier, to homebrew in effects that only matter to the new 5 alignments, rather than the old 9. Its pretty much the same anyway, it just cleans up the definitions and actually gives players who don't care an out (Unaligned). The only thing about the new system that bugs me (and only minorly so because I don't really care about alignment in general), is how many of my characters would end up Evil by the new system (most if not all of them). Evil is so easy now. Heck, by their definition, I'd be approaching that alignment in real life. They made a disturbing political statement by what they considered evil...
#15 tequila_sunrise Jun 29, 2008 17:14:27	I'm interested to see this. This is my thread of homebrew powers that interact with alignment: http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1047906 There will be some things that affect alignment in the campaign. I'm interested in this. TS