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

[delericho]

Yes, absolutely.

Alignment has been a feature of D&D since the start. It forms a huge part of the distinctive flavour of the game. Granted, it doesn't suit every campaign, but I'd much rather have it and be able to remove it than not have it and have to put it back in.

I would, however, like to see guidelines for doing without in the DMG.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

There's no "...And twice on Sunday!" option. Obviously a flawed poll.

 

[Acid_crash]

I voted no simply because I disagree with how the alignments are done in the first place.

One, no mechanical results of having an alignment.

Two, to me they restrict roleplaying instead of being a guiding and helping hand. I've been in more games where people argued about alignment than actually roleplayed. So I nix them in my games.

 

[Turjan]

Take away "evil" from "evil wizard", and you've lost a lot of information. Now do that to the entire monster manual. Ditching alignment is suddenly not such a hot idea....in fact, it's outright dumb.

Sorry, but this is a non sequitur, even a double one. Even if you remove the alignment mechanics from D&D, you can describe an "evil wizard" as "evil wizard". Removing the alignment mechanics from D&D does not eradicate the word "evil" from the English language or the concept of "evil" from the discussion of moral standards. The only thing that changes is that there might be several moral standards and several slightly different concepts of "evil". The basics don't just vanish. The same is true for the monsters in the MM; do you need a CE descriptor next to the description of a monster of which you are told it likes to eat travellers in order to recognize it as an opponent? This brings me to the conclusion that the "dumb" remark was completely uncalled for.

 

[Conaill]

Yikes no! I've played in plenty of non-D&D games with a strong "Good vs Evil" theme. There's no reason to hardwire an alignment system into the game mechanics though.

What's next - have extra axes for "Honor vs Dishonor", or "Nature vs Culture", because those are common themes in fantasy literature as well? Just because something is a common theme doesn't mean you need to have special mechanisms to deal with it. Otherwise, you may as well add a "save the princess" mechanism to the rules as well...

[Edit: I cn't speel]

 

[SkidAce]

Wow, taking stuff for granted much are we???

Like a class, an alignment tells you with a single word masses of information that are directly relevant to how you should play that character. It's not sophisticated, but rather it's shorthand, so people take it for granted and think they're above it, ignorant of the large amount of work it's doing for them and the space it's saving.

Take away "evil" from "evil wizard", and you've lost a lot of information. Now do that to the entire monster manual. Ditching alignment is suddenly not such a hot idea....in fact, it's outright dumb.

And it does have a mechanical purpose; it tells you who suffers from Protection from Good.

The way it's implemented is another matter (e.g. the straightjacket approach), but again, the concept should not necessarily be dropped because the implementation is shoddy.

Given that whenever a convenience like this or the class-based system comes up and everyone wants to ditch it, or the implied setting as a whole, ignorant of the huge amount of work it's doing for everyone, I'm rather glad that you guys aren't designing 4E!

Quite frankly? Sheesh Merric, maybe we should do away with monster names too, there's no mechanical reason for them either! None of these mechanically irrelevant tags like "goblin" or "red dragon", we'll call them all "Monster" and be done with it...

Well said...and saved me a lot of typing.

 

[mhensley]

No matter what anyone thinks, alignment will be present in 4e because it is a big part of the minis game. And the minis game will probably become the tail that is wagging the d&d dog. By that I mean that it probably makes more money for wotc than the rpg does and future rpg development will done to support the minis - not the other way around.

 

[EdL]

I voted no, because there wasn't an 'other' option. My main problem with alignment is that (IMO) its too vague. I agree that the Palladium system is better, but even that needs one or two more entries. I'd much prefer that alignment were given a (short) chapter as optional rules with various methods of implementation.

Of course, it will undoubtedly be in 4e... more or less as is. But one can dream.

 

[Storyteller01]

I voted yes. Seen too many games where the character became a collection of numbers that ran around doing whatever the player thought they could get away with. Having an alignment is a nice reminder.

 

[JVisgaitis]

How does it improve the game?

Well for good players it gives them context and allows all of the neat weapons and abilites like smite and such. It also adds a roleplaying element as through alignment you can find more easily find your own character's place in the world and better understand your character and how he will react to certain situations.

The bad thing is it often ends up as a crutch or an excuse. Such as, "Well I kill that dude because I AM Lawful Evil." I see the argument from both sides. I've seen it work tremendously well, and I've seen it ruin games (at least my experience in games).

I think I'm with Teflon Billy in saying yes, keep it as an optional rule.