Talk:Alignment Without Alignment (3.5e Variant Rule)

Ratings

Sulacu dislikes this article and rated it 1 of 4.

There are potential issues one can have with the alignment system. The ethical axis of law vs. chaos is a bit of a crapshoot at times and on many gaming tables it will shoehorn all the characters into one of like six archetypes. The answer I feel is to take a relativist approach and reduce alignment-based restrictions to their most basic level, divorced from character-building decisions entirely; helping these people is a good thing. Bringing these smugglers to justice is a lawful act. Casting this soul-ripping spell is an evil thing to do. The answer however is NOT to make more archetypes for characters to be shoehorned in. But even if I have to rate this article for its own merits; most of these aren't even alignments. They're quirks. Tropes. Things that you decide your character to be for the sake of roleplaying and that should under no circumstance be governed by rules. I mean, being a toy-loving gadgeteer doesn't say anything about howmany puppies you kissed or howmany testicles you have added to your trophy necklace this week, and sycophants are really good at singing to the tunes of others, so don't tell me that any sort of lawful alignment can't stand in for that?

Spanambula dislikes this article and rated it 1 of 4.

Alignment is like politics: some people don't care, and some people have Strong Views. Or you could say Alignment is like religion: it's not bad in and of itself but it's prone to a lot of misinterpretation which can lead to lots of arguments. I'm of the camp that says it's not broken and doesn't need fixing, just maybe some clarification for those who struggle with it. Naturally therefore, I find myself in agreement with both Leziad and Eiji-kun's comments and critiques. You could call these a bunch of things, Archetypes, Motivations, Dominant Characteristics, but none of these really function the way alignment does, and as such isn't a good replacement for it. Like Eiji said, a reader can see what you're trying to do, it just doesn't work.

Leziad opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.

This is a joke without the April Fool tags. It also conflict with everything from prestige class, enjoy being pigeonholed in an alignment if you want a class which require you to be Evil or NG). There also no balance, ideally you want two or three for each possible mechanical alignment but evil only has a single one (which is NE (making any feat or class which require LE or CE impossible to get). Overall the joke fall flat, some terms seem incorrect like Brain-Sucking (mind flayer ref?) or Gun Bunny (a slang for soldier with mortar, not sure what the joke is there), although it seem more likely I just didn't get it.

Title Change

I had to move it due to the title, otherwise the page was "Alignment With" in the "Hopefully" category, which doesn't exist. Those () marks man... -- Eiji-kun (talk) 02:16, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

About the article itself...

So looking over it, the intention is right but it's a bit of a mess. It's more all over the place than the actual alignment system and you can be sure that you probably missed something somewhere.

You might be better off with an allegiance system. It's not that you're LG, you're "aligned with celestial forces", which covers however wide a swathe. You're not LN, you're "aligned with nation X", and follow their laws. And so on and so forth. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 02:20, 4 July 2016 (UTC)