How I see it is that that's an apples to orangutan comparison.Rolling this back a bit, I'm reminded of an experience I had with a new player some years ago. He came to the group and, as this was a VTT game, I didn't know the guy from a hole in the ground. No worries, I'd dealt with that before. But, he insisted that his character was Chaotic Neutral. This immediately set off alarm bells in my head and I made it very clear that we played a, to use an MMO term, Player VS Environment (as opposed to player vs player) game and the group really wasn't interested in a whole lot of interparty conflict and shenanigans. The player assured me that he had no problems working with the group, but, he really wanted to be CN.
So, I agreed with the caveat that if there were problems, we'd be having this conversation again and probably a lot less politely.
Months of play went by and the player was fine. No problems. Character fit into the group pretty much without a ripple. After a few months I turned to the player:
Me: Hey, you realize that your character isn't really Chaotic Neutral right? He doesn't do anything impulsive, he's a total team player and nothing about this character says CN.
Player: Absolutely not. I'm CN. I want to be able to do whatever I choose to do. I just choose to be a team player.
Me: Yeah. Ok. But, that's not really what CN means. Your character is pretty much definitively Lawful Good. You're kind, a team player, methodical and playing a pretty heroic character.
Player: Absolutely not. I'm CN.
So, I stepped back a bit and thought about what the player was actually saying. He didn't actually care what alignment was written on the sheet. He just didn't want me to force him to do anything. He absolutely didn't want me to be able to turn to him and say, "You wouldn't really do that, it's out of character." Now, since I had and have, zero interest in forcing anything on any player, I realized that the simplest answer was to just accept what he was saying at face value and move on.
Could I have forced the alignment change? Sure. I think I would have been perfectly justified in doing so. But, that would have made the game less fun for him and wouldn't actually gain me, as DM, anything. So, I didn't. I let it go and moved on.
That's how I view these Backgrounding things. What is the DM gaining by forcing the issue with the player? The player has made it very clear that the player isn't interested in dealing with X, whatever X is. It doesn't really impact the rest of the game and it costs me nothing. Literally. It costs me nothing since now I don't have to do any work adding that element to the game. IMO, this only makes the game better. I'm not wasting my time doing something that no one at the table actually wants to do and the player doesn't have to constantly futz around dealing with it.
AFAIC, it's entirely win win.
The difference is alignment is just an internal issue for the vast majority of not all cases. Its "how I think" and "how I chose" as opposed to "how others think" and "what others do" and "how do things work in the world" etc.
"Townsfolk dont react badly to my bear or trex."
"My patron or God doesn't get involved in his clerics activitites."
"My motorcycle I drive around doesn't get stolen or messed with."
Unlike "whether I am CN or LG" which is an internal factor that **still** even if backgrounded leaves NPCs to react to the *actions* however they want. Unless in your game you have some actual mechanic that depended on alignment, in which case my bet is that's no longer a background item for you.
