Alignment has been mostly abandoned in 4th edition. Why? Many reasons, but we’ll focus on one; player choice. In previous editions, alignment was a tool for determinism and obedience. A good character did good things because he was good. Likewise for evil. If you did something that went against your alignment, the punishment was severe! The gods themselves could come after you to set you straight or put you down. You chose your alignment in earlier editions and D&D and you obeyed that alignment.
Alignment as forced behavior is a concept that has broken down over the years. In 4th edition, alignment is threadbare at best. Gone are the nuanced slices of goodness, evil and neutrality. Alignment in 4th edition as a backdrop, as a guide to where your character’s personality trends. I can’t honestly say I disagree with that stance. Alignment has traditionally been more of a stick and less of a carrot as it has existed in D&D’s iterations.
Could it be more? I’ll say yes. Going with the theory that power is personality, linking alignment and powers is a natural fit. Currently alignment provides basic information on your character’s morality. I am good, I am unaligned, I am evil. In the current state, is there even any reason not to be unaligned? You do some good, some bad, and you don’t have to feel guilty about it. Why have alignment at all if there is no true expression of it? My thought is that you can make alignment a true part of your story’s myth without forcing players into restrictive molds. Powers provide a method of expressing how you are good, neutral or evil. Are you cruel? Are you a conniver? Do you worship law and order? Or do you champion freedom? Powers extend and express your alignment.
I’ll take this further: You can express alignment as an in-game element. Make alignment concrete by tying it to your world’s in-game philosophies or symbol system. A symbol system you use could be the Zodiac system, or anything that represents iconic archetypes for nature and personality. Characters then are no longer good or evil or unaligned; they are an incarnation of Ares, or Pisces, or Leo. The related powers express your character’s connection to this symbol.
Because we like to show and not just tell, Ryven has developed the Zodiac alignment system to illustrate; expect the first half on Friday.
In the meantime, how have you used alignment in your 4e game? Share with us.
A Jack of All Trades ,or if you prefer, an extreme example of multi-classing, Gamefiend, a.k.a Quinn Murphy has been discussing, playing and designing games straight out of the womb. He is the owner and Editor-in-Chief of this site in addition to being an aspiring game designer. As you would assume, he is a huge fan of 4e.
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We totally ignore it. Except that I occasionally make fun of my players by pointing out how all their actions as a group fit Lawful Evil when most of the individual characters like to say they’re Chaotic Good.
I’ve always used alignment in all of my dnd games as more of a starting point for the players to think about how they would start out playing their characters but wouldn’t require them to “stay the course”. Then over the course of adventures the players would sway back and forth on a point system (usually 10 pts to either side of neutral 1 pt in either direction for a particular “act”) and depending on how further they would stray various results would ensue. Now those results usually had some good and bad things associated with them, for example clerics who strayed from the path of good(or evil) could find themselves limited in spells able to cast because they lost the direct link to their gods, conversely those other deities that the character was slipping toward might then start to communicate and grant terrible powers to the pious. Its terrible fun to see a player in agony of doing what is right or succumb to evil powers that be to furhter his or the parties agendas. Also typically when in major urban areas as a side adventure or two the cleric might find out that his former deity had communicated with local clergy and sent them out to find the cleric in question and attempt to bring him back into the fold or attempt the cleric to become “born again” per se. Its devilishly fun to see chase scenes erupt as the cleric or party members attempt to keep the cleric from his brethren as they find they like the clerics new forbidden powers. You can play the same scenario with a evil doing good deeds and such. I guess the point I’m trying to make is that keeping alignment fluid can lead to some interesting play sessions. Of course that’s just my two cp’s
@swordgleam adventurers do have a way of leaning towards that from a certain perspective, don’t they?
“It’s something different from us!”
“Kill it and get the XP!”
“Raaargh!”
@david I am of the opinion that alignment should never be punitive. You get rewarded for acting within alignment but never punished for “transgressing”. Having said that, I love giving alignment a role in my game. Over at Obsidian Portal I am running a game called “The Devil, Divine”. Basically, there is a creature that is half angel/half devil, and the players (conveniently pslit between good and evil) can influence what direction he takes later. We’re doing the next session this weekend and it’s been a lot of fun thus far.
You’re right, alignment definitely needs to be something more. As it stands in D&D, it’s very flat, one-dimensional. That doesn’t give real-life morality a whole lot of justice, to be sure. There’s many, many facets of the concept of “alignment”, and that should be reflected…so I like this idea of having a characterized alignment.
One of my favorite “alignment” systems is in White Wolf’s games, where you select a Virtue and a Vice (modeled after the traditional 7 Virtues and 7 Vices) for your character. You gain major benefits for following your Virtue in the face of bad stuff, even sacrificing to follow it, and you gain minor benefits for succumbing to your Vice. Is that cool or what?