D&D (2024) One D&d and alignment: new approach

[Charlaquin]

Those seems like two sides of the same coin to me.

When it matters, It really matters.

Does it, though?

I think it’ll matter a lot next year with Planescape. Meanwhile, I’m here off in Wildspace avoiding killer clowns and buying junk from not-quite-so-LE Illithids…

I doubt it will matter much, if at all. I mean, certainly it will get talked about a lot, but in terms of what alignment a given creature is having any sort of mechanical impact? I expect it will be minimal.

 

[Marandahir]

Does it, though?

I doubt it will matter much, if at all. I mean, certainly it will get talked about a lot, but in terms of what alignment a given creature is having any sort of mechanical impact? I expect it will be minimal.

Oh, for sure. But did it matter that way in 4e either? I don’t think it did. Just narratively.

 

[Tonguez]

Alignment is an overrated and misusued feature of DnD that needs to go
if someone really wants their character to be devoted to good or chaos. Or neutrality then fine, list it as an ideal, but beyond that meh

 

[Oofta]

Alignment hasn't been a straightjacket for a while now, I don't expect it to change. They'll jchange monster alignments to have qualifiers like "typically" or "frequently" because it wasn't clear before that alignments were just the default. For PCs it will remain one of many descriptors that are only as important as the players decide.

 

[MarkB]

Whoever wrote that post was either confused or lying. The playtest packet is freely available and not very long at all, I recommend reading its contents yourself if you want to discuss them. You’ll find that they contain nothing at all about alignment.

They don't contain anything about character alignment. They do mention alignment as a planar concept. The entry for Ardlings specifies them as having ancestors from either the Chaotic Good, Lawful Good or Neutral Good planes.

So, alignment for PCs may or may not be a thing. But alignment as an in-game concept definitely is.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

BIFTs was so poorly thought out and implemented. I mean, its essentially a different paragraph, with 4 not necessarily related items, for each character that folks are supposed to some how remember. Alignment at least had definitions and a general application which allowed for a myriad of personalities and character types. BIFTs, when folks bothered to use it, just reduced characters to sit com class levels of caricaturization. A revision is the least of its needs.

I've used them in all of my campaigns, and they've always been useful. They're mainly just to give you an idea of who your character is when you're making them, not the be-all and end-all of who your character is (and will be) for the entire campaign. And it's way better characterization than picking D&D's version of Zodiac signs that are entirely subjective and practically useless for meaningfully characterizing a PC or NPC.

 

[payn]

I've used them in all of my campaigns, and they've always been useful. They're mainly just to give you an idea of who your character is when you're making them, not the be-all and end-all of who your character is (and will be) for the entire campaign. And it's way better characterization than picking D&D's version of Zodiac signs that are entirely subjective and practically useless for meaningfully characterizing a PC or NPC.

So, ironic.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

So, ironic.

Care to elaborate?

 

[cbwjm]

on my last two characters I didn't even write down alignment.

it's that useful in our games.

I never bother writing it down either. For the games I've run, it's come up once and that was only because I was running an old game which had something trigger depending on alignment. Otherwise, I never really worry about it.

 

[edosan]

Alignment is such an iconic D&D thing that they’ll never get rid of it. It would be like they changed the six ability scores or something. They‘re just not going to do something that out of the box.

That said, I’d be overjoyed if they did. If they’d toss it out in favor of something really useful for role playing - something better thought out than BIFTs - I‘d see that as a good step.