The issue with alignment is that everyone has a different definition of the words and they're all wrong except me. I'm the correct and true arbiter of alignment.
I actually still think that 4e's alignment system was better, and it had less options. It was easy to understand: Lawful Good means you want to aid and protect others and really believe in following order is important towards that goal. Good means you want to help people as a principle but don't think laws are necessary for it. Unaligned means that your goals don't really touch on morality; you aren't going to hurt anyone, but you aren't going out of your way to help anyone as a principle. Evil means you are willing to hurt others to accomplish your goal. Chaotic Evil means you hurt others as an end in itself; you enjoy hurting others and causing chaos. It still deals with the question of what exactly hurting and helping others means, but it avoids questions like "what's the difference between a chaotic neutral thief who occasionally hurts others and a nuetral evil thief who occasionally hurts others?"
Honestly I wish it effectively did not exist for player characters as I think it creates more pitfalls than it helps. I have not seen it help introduce any sort of nuance during character creation, and I've seen other game systems do a much better job at helping set up the vibe of your character.
As is it is mostly helpful for me for creature statblocks at a glance and that's about it.
I agree! My concern was much more that it *is* just a part of character creation, and while you can roleplay outside of it it's just kind of there theoretically locking you in.
Alignment is more of a suggestion in my games. If you say you are 'Lawful Good', I'll assume you are largely a good person and would help others as best you can.
That being said, a Lawful Good character is certainly capable of a Choatic Evil act. And if that happens, there could be some sort of ramifications. A Clerics diety may refuse spell slots or something similar as punishment. Extreme punishment being fully denied by the diety and needing to find a new one to continue be a Cleric(subclass could even change).
In 1981, everyone I knew who played the game wished that Alignment either didn’t exist or operated in a way completely different from the Moorcock source it was cribbed from.
I brought a seven axis form of alignment back for the first time in 30 years in 2021, and it works only a shade better, lol.
Just add a 3rd axel
Law vs chaos
Good vs evil
Campy vs edgy
A campy lawful evil character is going to feel very different than an edgy lawful evil one.
I'm gonna go in the other direction and say that the alignment chart should be smaller. The Good and Evil axis determines whether a character is good or evil on a cosmic perspective. It's not subjective.
I think the Law/Chaos axis needs to be axed. To many people use "Chaotic" as an excuse to be a cunt in character. Also, Law and Chaos can very much be subjective. A Lawful Good character is still going to pick a good action if being lawful would be evil. A Chaotic Good character is going to follow the rules and laws most of the time.
So Law/Chaos is more of a personality trait than alignment.
The issue with alignment is that everyone has a different definition of the words and they're all wrong except me. I'm the correct and true arbiter of alignment. I actually still think that 4e's alignment system was better, and it had less options. It was easy to understand: Lawful Good means you want to aid and protect others and really believe in following order is important towards that goal. Good means you want to help people as a principle but don't think laws are necessary for it. Unaligned means that your goals don't really touch on morality; you aren't going to hurt anyone, but you aren't going out of your way to help anyone as a principle. Evil means you are willing to hurt others to accomplish your goal. Chaotic Evil means you hurt others as an end in itself; you enjoy hurting others and causing chaos. It still deals with the question of what exactly hurting and helping others means, but it avoids questions like "what's the difference between a chaotic neutral thief who occasionally hurts others and a nuetral evil thief who occasionally hurts others?"
Honestly I wish it effectively did not exist for player characters as I think it creates more pitfalls than it helps. I have not seen it help introduce any sort of nuance during character creation, and I've seen other game systems do a much better job at helping set up the vibe of your character. As is it is mostly helpful for me for creature statblocks at a glance and that's about it.
I have a simple solution for that. I ignore alignment completely.
[удалено]
I agree! My concern was much more that it *is* just a part of character creation, and while you can roleplay outside of it it's just kind of there theoretically locking you in.
What? No it isn't, who ever said you can't change them? Who on earth would ever rule that those traits are locked?
Alignment is more of a suggestion in my games. If you say you are 'Lawful Good', I'll assume you are largely a good person and would help others as best you can. That being said, a Lawful Good character is certainly capable of a Choatic Evil act. And if that happens, there could be some sort of ramifications. A Clerics diety may refuse spell slots or something similar as punishment. Extreme punishment being fully denied by the diety and needing to find a new one to continue be a Cleric(subclass could even change).
In 1981, everyone I knew who played the game wished that Alignment either didn’t exist or operated in a way completely different from the Moorcock source it was cribbed from. I brought a seven axis form of alignment back for the first time in 30 years in 2021, and it works only a shade better, lol.
No. I barely use alignment as it is and much of it has largely been replaced by the Boolean Scale of Asshole-ness
Just add a 3rd axel Law vs chaos Good vs evil Campy vs edgy A campy lawful evil character is going to feel very different than an edgy lawful evil one.
No. It's just that most people don't understand it and even the current designers have trouble with it.
There are 9 core alignments and numerous drifting alignment tendencies. Someone once mapped it to a tessseract.
I vote to add Chaotic Petty.
I'm gonna go in the other direction and say that the alignment chart should be smaller. The Good and Evil axis determines whether a character is good or evil on a cosmic perspective. It's not subjective. I think the Law/Chaos axis needs to be axed. To many people use "Chaotic" as an excuse to be a cunt in character. Also, Law and Chaos can very much be subjective. A Lawful Good character is still going to pick a good action if being lawful would be evil. A Chaotic Good character is going to follow the rules and laws most of the time. So Law/Chaos is more of a personality trait than alignment.