No alignment system? Is this D&D?

[Millennial_KiwiGamer]

Alignments are important staples of how to play your character. No wonder Pathfinder is so much more popular these days, what the heck is happening to this?

[Metallicus]

It’s part of the new ‘woke’ DnD where everything is bland and vanilla. It’s soulless DnD and this is what WotC has done to the once great franchise.

[Millennial_KiwiGamer]

Originally posted by Metallicus:

It’s part of the new ‘woke’ DnD where everything is bland and vanilla. It’s soulless DnD and this is what WotC has done to the once great franchise.

Rather sad. Alignment is such an important part of character building. I guess too many Lawful Stupids have been ruining games

[Hobocop]

Just FYI, Pathfinder is doing away with alignment in their newest refresh of 2e. It's lost its purpose as a roleplaying tool when you have other avenues such as backgrounds and bonds/flaws/personality traits instead.

[Millennial_KiwiGamer]

Originally posted by Hobocop:

Just FYI, Pathfinder is doing away with alignment in their newest refresh of 2e. It's lost its purpose as a roleplaying tool when you have other avenues such as backgrounds and bonds/flaws/personality traits instead.

The 2E books I own have Alignments and the refresh is fully backwards compatible. So that means proper 2E games will still use Alignments if they choose.

[RealDealBreaker]

Originally posted by Lord_Dweedle:

Originally posted by Metallicus:

It’s part of the new ‘woke’ DnD where everything is bland and vanilla. It’s soulless DnD and this is what WotC has done to the once great franchise.

Rather sad. Alignment is such an important part of character building. I guess too many Lawful Stupids have been ruining games

Not really, alignment was always supposed to be descriptive rather than prescriptive. That is, alignment was supposed to be an abstracted reflection of a characters beliefs and actions. In practice, it was only ever used to handcuff players to established tropes or create arguments as players and DMs argued over whether a [insert alignment] would do [insert action] (which is a prescriptive application of alignment that is not in line with what alignment is supposed to have been).

What 5e does instead is focus on ideals, bonds, and flaws as a short-hand for a character's personality and values. Technically alignment still exists in the tabletop game but it only has a few (rare) mechanical interactions with the rules. For example, not even the spell Protection from Evil and Good actually uses alignment in it's text (it instead protects against various creature types like celestial, fiends, fey, elementals, aberrations, and the undead).

[Incunabulum]

Originally posted by Lord_Dweedle:

Alignments are important staples of how to play your character. No wonder Pathfinder is so much more popular these days, what the heck is happening to this?

1. hardly anyone ever used alignments anyway.

2. Morality is to squishy to fit in the 9 box grid. And its not a good grid anyway.

[Rusted Metal]

Thank god, i don't need someone elses subjective take of morality in a roleplaying game.

Pathfinder king maker and wotr, just proves that a system like that is rather moronic in nature and anti-roleplay.

[Amazingly Randy]

just play the game you nerd.

[Millennial_KiwiGamer]

Originally posted by Rusted Metal:

Thank god, i don't need someone elses subjective take of morality in a roleplaying game.

Pathfinder king maker and wotr, just proves that a system like that is rather moronic in nature and anti-roleplay.

Excuse me? Kingmaker and Wrath are among the greatest CRPGs on the market and excellent takes on Pathfinder.

[Rusted Metal]

Originally posted by Lord_Dweedle:

Excuse me? Kingmaker and Wrath are among the greatest CRPGs on the market and excellent takes on Pathfinder.

The games are good, buggy, but good.

The alignment system however is terrible, once again morality is subjective, imposing what you believe to be morally right on others is just plain bad.

[Hobocop]

Originally posted by Rusted Metal:

The games are good, buggy, but good.

The alignment system however is terrible, once again morality is subjective, imposing what you believe to be morally right on others is just plain bad.

Alignment, at least in Wrath, is also massively overshadowed by the mythic paths in terms of their actual roleplaying impact. You could probably remove alignment from the game and not notice if not for the hackneyed tie-ins with class mechanics.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

'Lignment is bupkis.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Originally posted by Lord_Dweedle:

Originally posted by Rusted Metal:

Thank god, i don't need someone elses subjective take of morality in a roleplaying game.

Pathfinder king maker and wotr, just proves that a system like that is rather moronic in nature and anti-roleplay.

Excuse me? Kingmaker and Wrath are among the greatest CRPGs on the market and excellent takes on Pathfinder.

KM was the worst crpg I've ever played.

[SpaceNvader]

Oh noes they took a stat off my spreadsheet!

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Originally posted by RealDealBreaker:

Originally posted by Lord_Dweedle:

Rather sad. Alignment is such an important part of character building. I guess too many Lawful Stupids have been ruining games

Not really, alignment was always supposed to be descriptive rather than prescriptive. That is, alignment was supposed to be an abstracted reflection of a characters beliefs and actions. In practice, it was only ever used to handcuff players to established tropes or create arguments as players and DMs argued over whether a [insert alignment] would do [insert action] (which is a prescriptive application of alignment that is not in line with what alignment is supposed to have been).

What 5e does instead is focus on ideals, bonds, and flaws as a short-hand for a character's personality and values. Technically alignment still exists in the tabletop game but it only has a few (rare) mechanical interactions with the rules. For example, not even the spell Protection from Evil and Good actually uses alignment in it's text (it instead protects against various creature types like celestial, fiends, fey, elementals, aberrations, and the undead).

You, sir, deserve an award.