Alignment, use it or not?

[TenseAlcyoneus]

I'm a player. I'm not a DM nor am I a rules lawyer. But, I get quite irritated at players that do not respect their alignments. I get even more peeved at DMs that do not enforce alignment.

If we aint goin' to role play it, why bother with it at all?

 

[arwink]

Because without it adjudicating how holy and unholy weapons damage people gets tricky

One of the advantages of 3e is the fact alignment is fluid. If someone's not playing what's on their sheet, change it. Easy to fix.

 

[Draxus the Tainted]

I don't like alignment in the sense of how the PC's behave, but it works for stuff that depends on alignment such as spells. I think the problem is that when they described the alignments in the PHB, they generalized to much and made a narrow path for each alignment. They should have made each alignment a little more broad and flexible. But that's nothing a house rule can't fix...what's another house rule?

 

[EricNoah]

Welcome to the boards!

I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that roleplaying isn't just about alignment -- it's about personality, race, background, character concept, to some degree your stats (particularly Int, Wis and Cha), stuff like that as well.

Some players like a little alignment "hook" to hang their PCs motivations on. Some don't really pay that much attention to it. Some actually feel it gets in the way of their roleplaying.

Do you feel that someone is getting away with something by not adhering to their stated alignment? That sometimes happens with paladins and other alignment-restricted characters. Like the guy got the powers of a paladin without paying the price or something. Can you share more details?

 

[Desdichado]

I'm a player. I'm not a DM nor am I a rules lawyer. But, I get quite irritated at players that do not respect their alignments. I get even more peeved at DMs that do not enforce alignment.

If we aint goin' to role play it, why bother with it at all?

I'm a player and a DM. I think alignment sucks. If you ain't gonna roleplay it, why bother with it at all? I don't.

 

[shilsen]

I'm a player and a DM, and I use alignment. It's a useful tool, but secondary to character.

When I'm DM-ing, the players play their characters as they wish, and I assign (or change) alignment as appropriate. When playing, I create my PC's character, find what alignment comes closest to it, and pick that one. If the DM thinks my in-character actions require a change of alignment, then that would be fine. It's never happened thus far.

 

[Umbran]

I get even more peeved at DMs that do not enforce alignment.

Alignment, to my way of thinking, isn't something you enforce, it's something the character becomes. Alignment is a result of character action. It is the long-term average of motives and behavior. The character acts in the way the player wishes. That results in the character having some alignment.

If his behavior doesn't match certain class restrictions he's got, well, he suffers the results. But otherwise, there's not much to enforce.

 

[Ace]

I'm a player. I'm not a DM nor am I a rules lawyer. But, I get quite irritated at players that do not respect their alignments. I get even more peeved at DMs that do not enforce alignment.

If we aint goin' to role play it, why bother with it at all?

I use it reluctantly

In my next game I will proabaly skip it though

 

[Lord Pendragon]

A PC's actions determine his alignment. His alignment does not determine his actions. So long as you remember that, alignment is a fine system. It provides a simple way for someone''s morals to determine "compatable" and "incompatable" magics.

 

[David Argall]

alignments are useful

The central purpose of alignment is to give us an excuse to go around killing things. In a world where good & evil are indefinite, typical PC behavior would end in a life sentence [which likely would not be very long]. Alternately the PC could just wait until the monster is doing something evil before attacking, which means he gets the fireball off instead of you. That does not look conducive to long term PC survival either.