Do alignments improve the gaming experience?

[N'raac]

I don't see how they don't, when the words are words taken from that vocabulary and defined, in AD&D and in 3E, by reference to real world values and moral requirements.

Real world ethics don’t enter the picture any more that real world physics match falling damage or real world fencing matches with the style used by D&D swordsmen. A simplified and abstract system is used for gameplay. Similarly, real world economics would never support a D&D economy, real world geography would poke many holes in D&D world geography, etc. etc. etc. It is no more necessary to have post-secondary training in ethical philosophy to address alignment than it is to be a geologist or geophysicist to play a dwarf, a fencer to play a swordsman, a member of the clergy to play a cleric or a black belt to play a monk. Leave the real world expertise at the door – the game is a simplified, and modified, abstract.

Where is the inconsistency? Judging that the Raven Queen hates undead and necromancers, and hence can't be honoured by raising undead, isn't a moral judgement, anymore than the judgement that you can't honour Imix by spreading the polar ice caps.

You are judging the player’s/character’s consistency with their code. If the PC follower of the Raven Queen uses an Animate Dead spell to bring back corpses to battle back the cultists of Orcus, is this action one which meets with the favour of the Raven Queen, or her displeasure?

You could. But I don't see any way of adjudicating whether or not someone is playing their PC as LG without making moral judgements

[MENTION=85555]Bedrockgames[/MENTION] covers this. You, the GM, are not making, or need not make, a moral judgment on the player or character. Rather, you are judging whether the LG power(s) from which the Paladin draws his holy powers considers his actions consistent, or inconsistent, with their own code. This is no different from assessing the use of Animate Dead I suggest immediately above, or judging that a character who believes he does the will of the Raven Queen in ending lives on earth is delusional.

In other words, for me there is no equivalence between answering the backstory question of a god's attitude to undead, or cold and adjudicating whether or not a player's play of his/her PC really exemplifies honour and heroism.

The point is to adjudicate whether that play exemplifies his deity’s concept of honour and/or heroism. Whether you consider that deity’s concept correct or incorrect is entirely irrelevant.

As I noted upthread, when I talk about the play experience I am not talking about the story.

In my view, no part of the play experience of the Samurai deciding to dice with the ogres rather than duel with them (or whatever other choice he had – you have never said) is in any way dependent on the presence or absence of alignment. It may be dependent on you as a GM not deciding that there is only one possible way anyone of one specific alignment could possibly interact with ogres, but there the play impediment is your dogmatic and straightjacketing view of alignment, not the mechanics or alignment system itself.

By the way, if you think my game is not the pinnacle of roleplaying, why don't you post some actual play accounts of your own which show alignment contributing to an awesome time?

Do I think your game is the absolute pinnacle of role playing? No. I do not think you, and you alone, hold the key to making role playing all that it can be. Neither do I think that I do, or anyone else posting here.

As to “Actual play accounts”, you and I place very different weightings on their relevance. I game to play the game, not write or read a report on playing the game. “Great moments in role playing” that I recall will not translate well into a simple posting as they will lack the tension and personalities at the table, the campaign, player and character history and any number of other items that frame the context of the specific gaming moment.

Just as “The samurai played dice with the ogres” seems, to you, a play experience that alignment would have absolutely prevented where I cannot see how alignment would impact on it in any way. I assume I am lacking the context, rather than that you are just randomly reiterating game history with no actual relevance to the impact, or potential impact, of alignment.

Where is the dilemma? You just don't gamble, or you kill the ogres.

I’m not seeing any dilemma anywhere. I would see a dilemma if the Samurai had strong reasons to engage the ogres in combat, or take some other action rather than playing dice with them, but also had strong reasons to take the approach he did, forcing him to make a difficult choice.

Instead, all I see is:

DM: There are three Ogres sitting playing dice on the verandah.

Player: Cool – my Samurai asks what game they are playing, and what wagers, if they would accept another player.

DM: Huzzah Huzzah! It is another Gold Medal Moment in the History of Role Playing!!

The rules for adjudicating a paladin require me to judge, of every action taken, whether or not it is evil, or lawful.

I suppose that has a grain of truth, in the same manner you must judge success or failure of each action the players take. Most require no real effort, though. I do not roll to see if they cut themselves shaving, get out of bed without stubbing their toe, get the mug from table to mouth without spilling down their jerkin, etc. Most actions don’t have such a ring of Evil or Chaos that they merit any judgement.

Gary Gygax tells me to track the alignment of the PCs on the alignment graph, on the basis of the actions they perform.

I somehow don’t envision EGG leaping forth from the GM screen stating “That’s it – you turned left, then right, now left again in this maze. You are Chaotic and forevermore a fighter – you blew it, FORMER paladin!”

I take, it, then, that you regard the events and decisions I referred to upthread as in much the same ballpark as tying a shoelace or eating breakfast.

Most have been provided with no context whatsoever which would make me see them being impacted, much less impeded, by alignment rules, so from a moral perspective they show up as pretty much the same ballpark as tying a shoelace or eating breakfast, yes. They probably made for more exciting gameplay though.

That on its own tells me that you don't understand the experience of RPGing the same way I do.

Just to be clear, are you asserting our styles are different, or that your understanding is somehow superior?

Those terms are not part of the game vocabulary, no.

Yes, actually, they are. Paladins can Detect Evil, not Sense Nice Guys. Many spell functions vary depending on Good, Evil, Lawful or Chaotic. You seem to flip flop from using the terms as we might perceive them in English (asserting they cannot actually be defined in any real manner without inappropriately applying your moral judgment in opposition to that of the players) to using them as defined in game (where they again can be used only for inappropriate moral judgments). Then you tell us how your games make use of classic tropes like Good struggling against Evil.

You are running together two different things here. I had her change her mind. I didn't have to decide whether or not it remains true of her that she's a resolute defender.

So she had no real personality, just whatever struck your whims? She could just as easily had a mid-afterlife crisis and taken off on a sporty red pony with a cabana boy? Or were her actions judged in light of some existing personality drawn from the manner in which she was described in the module.

If the GM tells me that the table is 21 feet around and 7 feet across, it follows that the value of pi is 3, I guess. Maybe you can make sense of that. I can't.

I don’t make a habit of precisely measuring the dimensions or assessing the mathematical precision of those provided to me, no. Can you provide an example where the dimensions of a circle have required greater precision due to a significant in-game issue?

OK. Why not?

Is it truly your premise that characters behaving in character is a straightjacket which frustrates any form of good game play? That an RPG can only really have any interest if the characters are insane, making random decisions having no rhyme or reason? My characters have actual personalities and behave in accordance with them. Their views are shaped and changed by experience, but they have a starting point, and they don’t randomly shift in attitudes making their likely responses virtually always impossible to predict, nor do they coldly, rationally analyze every choice that comes before them and assess the tactically best choice, with no biases, personality traits or human foibles entering into it. If that is your measure of good characters to create great gaming then we have very little in common to form any basis for discussion. [And by the way, that makes all the characters CN, so we still have alignment.]

You are claiming gameplay such as you have described would be impossible if the game had used alignment. I am saying that alignment as written would not prevent or impede this great gameplay. I am not trying to sell you on what alignment would add to your game. I am trying (and failing) to understand why you think it would have detracted.

 

[Sadras]

But a mechanic which results in opposite interpretations, both of which are supported by the mechanic, is a poorly written mechanic.

In 3.x three methods were reflected within the DMG (page 212) regarding the appearance of magical items (two of which are exact opposites) and both are supported by the rules. I do not consider it a poorly written mechanic.

 

[pemerton]

I immediately jumped to the scenario that some other character had already chosen to use the RQ as described and that this one wanting the change would mean their was a contradiction in back story. Assuming they were the only PC with her intimately tied to their concept it works great.

I reckon that even if there was another player involved, in the real world some sort of compromise or higher synthesis could probably be worked out. But this is the sort of thing where, in my experience at least, there are no generic abstract answers. You work it out via actual discussion among all the participants.

Thanks for all the time you've put into your responses in this thread.

No worries at all, and likewise. I've enjoyed reading and replying to your posts.

 

[pemerton]

it is a judgement, and a moral one, but it doesnt have to be the GMs own personal morality.

I didn't meant to imply that it did.

I'm pretty sure that I understand your approach to alignment, though I don't myself use it or want to use it: the alignment descriptors + GM interpretation and world design establish a notional idea of Good, Evil etc, and the idea of playing to a certain alignment (espcially relevant to clerics and paladins) is to keep your character true to those ideas.

No one, on your approach, is supposing that those ideas are "true" accounts of good or evil. That's why I personally don't like it: I don't get to play my conception of (say) an honourable warrior or a loyal samurai; I'm exploring someone else's (primarily the GM's).

 

[pemerton]

Real world ethics don’t enter the picture any more that real world physics match falling damage

When a rulebook tells me that "good character respect human rights" (Gygax) or that "good characters are exactly that" (AD&D 2nd ed PHB) or that "good characters are altruists who avoid harming others" (slightly paraphrased 3E SRD) I assume they are using the words in the definition in their ordinary (ie real world) sense.

You are judging the player’s/character’s consistency with their code.

No I'm not. I'm judging whether or not a candidate PC's mode of worship (in this case, killing people than animating them as undead) makes sense as a way to honour their god, based on the backstory about their god.

If the PC follower of the Raven Queen uses an Animate Dead spell to bring back corpses to battle back the cultists of Orcus, is this action one which meets with the favour of the Raven Queen, or her displeasure?

I don't know. How would I answer this outside of actual play? Why would I want to?

So she had no real personality, just whatever struck your whims?

Where did this come from? What I said was that, having roleplayed the encounter, I do not need to then decide whether or not it is true of the (now dead) angel that she remains a "resolute defender". What does that tell us about whether or not she had a personality?

Is it truly your premise that characters behaving in character is a straightjacket which frustrates any form of good game play? That an RPG can only really have any interest if the characters are insane, making random decisions having no rhyme or reason?

In the real world, people live their lives without either (i) being random or insane, or (ii) having a character description that they adhere to. In fiction, authors write characters who are neither (i) random or insane, or (ii) fully described in canoncial terms from which the author does not depart. Roleplaying can be like that: writing new stuff rather than following prelaid tracks. And that's what I prefer.

The point is to adjudicate whether that play exemplifies his deity’s concept of honour and/or heroism.

Whose point? Not mine. I don't use alignment mechanics, remember.

In my view, no part of the play experience of the Samurai deciding to dice with the ogres rather than duel with them (or whatever other choice he had – you have never said) is in any way dependent on the presence or absence of alignment.

What about the bit where the decision to do so was not motivated by a concern with how the GM would classify that behaviour according to alignment descriptors? That's the part of the play experience I've emphasised that you have said nothing about.

Many spell functions vary depending on Good, Evil, Lawful or Chaotic.

Not if you're not using alignment in your game!

Then you tell us how your games make use of classic tropes like Good struggling against Evil.

I don't think I actually made such an assertion, but in any event that trope is at least 4000 years older than the alignment mechanics, so I don't think it relies upon alignment in order to be deployed.

Most have been provided with no context whatsoever which would make me see them being impacted, much less impeded, by alignment rules, so from a moral perspective they show up as pretty much the same ballpark as tying a shoelace or eating breakfast, yes.

Just to be clear: you don't see how any of these might carry more weight, at an RPGing table, than tying a shoe lace or eating breakfast?

* a samurai PC, travelling to an ogre stronghold in the mountains, has treated with them, and played civilised games of dice, in order to ensure that they do not join forces with the enemies of his clan;

* one PC has sacrificed another to a dark god as part of a total betrayal of team A (for whom the PCs were working) in favour of team B (for whom the PCs then commenced working);

* a PC has sold out his hometown to invaders in order to raise the money to repurchase his home which he had lost because he couldn't finance his drug addiction; then, having found love, has got clean of drugs; then, having lost his love to violence, has suffered a brief relapse, before rededicating himself to higher causes and persuading his world-wide order of wizards, against the views of its highest leaders, to oppose policies of racial supremacy and enslavement;

* the PCs have rebelled against the heavens to save the mortal world from the consequences of a foolish pact the gods had entered into at the beginning of the world;

* a PC, by means of impassioned argument, has persuaded an angel who was a "living gate" to the demiplane entrapping an exiled god that the only way to save the world and redeem the heavens was to permit the PC to strike her down, so that the PCs could then journey through the gate that would open about her dead body in order to learn the exiled god's secrets;

* a drow servant of chaos has worked with fellow Corellon-worshippers to oppose Lolth, because she (like the rest of the Abyss) taints the purity of chaos - change and transformation - with lies and pointless destruction;

* a servant of the gods has implanted the Eye of Vecna in his imp familiar as part of his attempts to balance various loyalties and liabilities to Vecna, to Levistus and to the other entities with whom he has a complex web of relationships (the same PC has also been forbidden by his allies from wielding the Crystal of Ebon Flame, which houses the essence of Miska the Wolf-Spider and perhaps Tharizdun too; but he has stored it in a Leomund's Secret Chest so that he can recover it at speed if necessary);

* the PCs, in play, have found the Asmodeus-worshipping duergar of the Underdark to be some of their most dependable allies;

* a paladin of the Raven Queen has discussed theology with the Whips and Lashes in the Shrine of the Kuo-toa, and has thereby been able to save the rest of the party from being caught and sacrificed to Blibdoolpoolp;

* the PCs have redeemed a fallen paladin of Pelor from his enslavement to a devil and his subsequent leadership of that devil's cult, so that he could return home a hero;

* in one particular campaign, both times the party encountered a hostile bear, at the behest of one particular player (and his PC) the bear was able to be tamed without being seriously hurt, leading to a situation (as that player said) in which "I feel good about not having killed that bear".​

If that's really so, it's no wonder we approach RPGing so differently.

 

[Feldspar]

My first post looked at the 1st edition version of alignment and if it brought anything to the discussion (and I hope it did) its to stress that alignment referred to a player having aligned themselves with a plane or planar power.

To recap my position, the inhabitants of, for example, a CG plane aren't CG just because of how they think and act. Threads of chaos and goodness comprise the weave of their very beings; it is their nature and instinct to think and act in a CG manner. When aligning themselves to a plane, the characters acquire not just a language but are touched by some essence of that plane. We can conceive of a NE NPC that has committed abhorrent acts and/or has a depraved, sickening worldview. But the acts/worldview would not be why a Detect Evil spell would reveal the NPC as evil; they would be revealed by Detect Evil because their alignment is NE. That may sound kind of tautological but the key in this system is to see that alignment isn't just a summarized way of describing a character, its an actual tangible thing about them. That's why they speak an alignment language and that's why a spell like Holy Word would affect them.

It would certainly fair at this point if people pushed back on this viewpoint as merely being my interpretation and not supported by 1st edition RAW. But if there's a better, more coherent, interpretation I'd like to see it. This is what I get from reading between the lines and it provides a usable framework for mechanical issue of spells interacting with alignment.

I think the flaws in that system have already been discussed, so no need to go into them again. Okay, maybe just one more: during his early, ersatz Gray Mouser years, Gygax's hero of the balance (Gord the Rogue) appears to be unaligned. The 1st edition alignment system was ill fit for the kind of adventuring Gord was doing at that time.

I assume dissatisfaction among the player base led to the changes in 2nd Edition. But the result is a mix of looser, more relativistic, more human (as opposed to rigidly planar) alignment guidelines with the same crunchy bits (except the languages, heh) and which, as a system, is fundamentally incoherent.

That the DM is the adjudicator of Good and Evil:
In the 2e PHB "Good" is described as

• honest, charitable and forthright
• People are not perfect, so few are good all the time.
• There are always occasional failings and weaknesses.
• Goodness has no absolute values.
• Differing cultures impose their own interpretations on what good and what evil is

I think everyone can all agree the above is a simple definition, it is not astrophysics.

Simple or simplistic? If Goodness is not absolute, if different cultures might disagree as to whether an individual was good, then how is one supposed to adjudicate the effects of spells like Unholy Word or Protection from Good? And since 2nd edition defines Evil as the antithesis of Good and subject to interpretation across cultures as well, we have the same problem with the more conventional versions of those spells. So, lets imagine a case of cultural differences where an npc which considers itself good would be considered by you to be evil - does your Holy Word blast them?

What if you didn't know anything about the npc, didn't even know that they were there? Say you cast Holy Word at some mindflayer not knowing that within the area of effect, unseen by you, was a bound prisoner (the npc) that the mindflayer was saving for a midnight snack. I balk at the notion of a spell which, in an instant, could rifle through the npc's mind to assess both everything they have ever done as well as the tenets of their personal philosophy and then compare these to the standards of the caster to decide whether the npc is someone that the caster would not approve of and would want smote. That's asking a bit much, even for magic.

I suspect the first counter argument to the situation where two cultures each think themselves good and the other evil will be that one actually is good while the other only *thinks* it is good but is in fact evil. This approach has its problems though. What happens when members of that evil culture make use of alignment detecting/effecting spells? Would they not, upon any kind of self introspection, find their own self contradiction? Or do we have the full Gygax/Orwellian thing were they actually define "Good" as bad and "Evil" as good and run around proclaiming things like "we shall deliver this land from the tyranny of Good and bring to it the beneficence of Evil"? Or do they somehow, by accident or whatever, just have it all backwards and whenever they cast Detect Evil they're really casting the reversed version Detect Good, but just don't realize it?

Whether an individual campaign wishes to explore the nuances and gray areas of moral relativism is a matter of personal preference. I can't, however, figure out a way to reconcile that approach with spell mechanics. Fortunately, there seems to be relatively few spells in second edition which interact with alignment. Holy Word, Detect Alignment and Protection From Evil are the ones that jump out at me.

3rd edition, however, ratcheted up the mechanics. To simply remove all relevant spells drops 4 domains and large chunk of the spell list. There are alignment specific spells at nearly every level and many occupy key niches as damage dealers or protections. This presents a big stumbling block to running a "shades of gray" kind of campaign. Some fine rules surgery is called for rather than gross amputation.

The descriptions of good and evil in 3.x don't have the kind of moral relativist language that's seen in 2nd edition. So, if you view 3.x definitions of good and evil as universal then at least the system escapes the charge of internal inconsistency that I level at 2nd ed. But it does mean that it doesn't support certain types of campaigns and that's a shame.

Look at the Eberron campaign setting for example. 3.x alignment mechanics seem, to me, to completely cut off at the knees some what the setting was trying to deliver in terms of moral complexity. Keith Baker presented the example of a Lawful Evil inquisitor of the Silver Flame. This made, and still makes, no sense to me. The Silver Flame is dedicated to fighting Evil. A simple Detect Evil would reveal to the caster the unassailable FACT that the inquisitor is Evil. By definition the church must oppose them. That may mean rehabilitation or expulsion, as opposed to death, but certainly the church cannot allow any provably evil person to represent the church or have any authority in it.

To allow the use evil means for the greater good is to concede that evil has use, has merit of a kind. It is a kind of endorsement of evil; it says that evil is a legitimate approach to an end and has a place at the table. But that seems completely antithetical to the mission of the Church of the Silver Flame. The key here is that its not just disapproval of the methods or thinking that the inquisitor has gone too far. Its that we have magic that can tell you flat out "HE IS EVIL". And given the duties of such inquisitors, they would surely be under regular scrutiny using the strongest magical means available. Were you an inquisitor, would you not wish to be tested yourself? To gain the peace of mind that you continue to act in righteous and correct manner?

This is why I was so happy to see 4th edition remove crunchy alignment mechanics. I'm not quite sure I get the change from a 9 to 5 alignments, but I also don't see anything preventing a DM from going back to the 9 alignment grid in 4e. If you wanted the Gygaxian style "players are pawns, agents and proxies in the never ending wars of the planes" that seems a matter style and tone. You no longer have mechanics like Holy Word and Detect Evil, but is that really a big loss? Are there folks in the pro alignment camp *because* they find those spells compelling and interesting? My impression is that most of the benefits people feel they gain from having alignment in their game still exist even if the characters don't have access to those kinds of spells and mechanics.

I've mainly been discussing spell mechanics. I feel that a dividing line can be drawn between those and the fluffier side of alignment (plus paladin/cleric alignment restriction issues which strictly speaking are mechanical) and I'll talk about them in another post. I've attempted to answer the thread's basic question, with regards to the crunchy bits, to show that they do not improve the gaming experience. They can limit the type and style of campaign that can be played. There's also the problem of there being many different interpretations of how alignment should work. That the description of alignment has changed from version to version I think proves that. Even within one version of the system I think there is still legitimate debate over, for example, whether ethos alone can set ones alignment or whether it is actions that truly matter. Remove those mechanics and you remove opportunities for disputes over alignment to create conflict among the participants.

 

[Hussar]

In 3.x three methods were reflected within the DMG (page 212) regarding the appearance of magical items (two of which are exact opposites) and both are supported by the rules. I do not consider it a poorly written mechanic.

But those are simply three different rules. No one would look at any one of those rules and then rule in the opposite manner and still be right under any one of those rules. I'm not actually sure what rules you are referencing, but I would be very surprised if you would choose to have multiple versions in play in a single campaign.

Same goes for some of the other examples brought up here. What happens to a bag of holding when opened underwater? I actually don't know. I imagine that the weight of the water might actually be too much for the bag, but, I certainly haven't done the calculations. However, I really don't see a lot of room for interpretation here. That's just math. Is the interior volume of a Bag of Holding large enough that filling it with water would cause it to break?

 

[pemerton]

I'm not quite sure I get the change from a 9 to 5 alignments

Another good post.

On the 4e alignment spectrum (not grid), the idea is to frame alignment within the default cosmology.

4e's default cosmology, unlike (say) Planescape, is not relativist: it makes an assertion that chaos is a source of destruction, and the divine order is the prime source of wellbeing.

Alignments relate to this cosmological premise: LG is about overt commitment to divine order (and its earthly reflection) as a source of wellbeing, G is about an overt commitment to wellbeing, UA is where all the cynics or indifferent or careless or doubters are (among the gods this includes Corellon as a doubter and the Raven Queen as a cynic), E is where ordinary villains are, and CE is where demons and primordials are.

If you ignore alignment (as I do), it makes it easier for the players to question the premise of the default cosmology (ie in doubting, say, Bahamut or Moradin they don't have to think of themselves as repudiating goodness). But it's still hard for them to avoid taking a stance one way or another in relation to the relationship between divine order, chaos and dissolution. Which is part of what I like about the default cosmology.

 

[Sadras]

I'm not actually sure what rules you are referencing

Rules of how magical items appear in ones campaign : distinct, mundane or a mix.

No one would look at any one of those rules and then rule in the opposite manner and still be right under any one of those rules.

I could rule that magical items appear mundane in this human-centric campaign, and then one day the PCs come across elven magical items and they would appear distinct as a way for me, the DM, to reflect the difference in magic from race to race. As for ruling in the opposite manner - alignment is subjective from campaign to campaign as it does take on the preconceptions/backstory of the setting.
Some DMs are more strict others are more lenient - some play a dragon in combat intelligently and some play the dragon as just a large orc with a greater number of abilities. Both forms of play are accepted by the rules. I could provide the dragon treasure and you might decide the dragon doesn't have any treasure for whatever narrative purpose. Same with mechanical alignment. I do not agree with you that alignment is the only subjective mechanic, and unlike you and as I have and others have stated this is a feature of the game.

.....but I would be very surprised if you would choose to have multiple versions in play in a single campaign.

This highlights to the consistency of the DM which was answered by @Bedrockgames previously. Whether you have multiple DMs or not, it requires consistency similar to that of any houserule.

 

[N'raac]

No I'm not. I'm judging whether or not a candidate PC's mode of worship (in this case, killing people than animating them as undead) makes sense as a way to honour their god, based on the backstory about their god.

I don't know. How would I answer this outside of actual play? Why would I want to?

OK, first off, “I won’t answer a question about how the game would play because it must be answered in actual play” gets stale really fast. We are discussing how alignment influences, detracts from or enhances play, so we actually do have to assume play in order to do so.

So, the player has just levelled up and is considering using the spell Animate Dead which has just become available to him,. He envisions his character as a devout follower of the Raven Queen. That is the character concept he wants to play. His question is whether the animation of the dead to oppose Orcus, or otherwise serve the goals of the Raven Queen, is acceptable, a grey area or unacceptable, based on the backstory about his god. Your answer seems to be “well, why don’t you try it out and see”.

But that wasn’t the answer when a character who takes lives in devotion to the RQ was raised. That was just inconsistent with the backstory of the god. Or, in reality your interpretation of the very limited backstory present in the rules, which differs from mine on several points. I don’t see how those inconsistencies are any less likely, or any more palatable, then differences in interpreting alignment structures.

In the real world, people live their lives without either (i) being random or insane, or (ii) having a character description that they adhere to.

In the real world, their character description is not written down, it is them. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X had very different views on how to achieve the same lofty goal of racial equality. Would you easily mistake one’s character for the other’s?

In fiction, authors write characters who are neither (i) random or insane, or (ii) fully described in canoncial terms from which the author does not depart.

Actually, many authors refer to their characters “writing themselves”, and being unable to write about some action they had previously envisioned them taking because it was simply “not in their character” as the characters grew. Where writing is shared (not the case with PC’s), my understanding is that “character bibles” are pretty common. So are editors whose job includes seeing the bigger picture.

Roleplaying can be like that: writing new stuff rather than following prelaid tracks. And that's what I prefer.

Again, you have this odd binary viewpoint that either there can be no character description or the character is rigid and straightjacketed. That makes it tough to find any common ground. And why isn’t a RQ devotee believing he acts as the Hand of Fate in cutting some lives short, or who believes use of Undead to achieve the RQ’s goals to be acceptable, not perceived as “writing new stuff rather than following prelaid tracks”?

Whose point? Not mine. I don't use alignment mechanics, remember.

My statement asked you to adjudicate whether specific play exemplifies the deity’s concept of honour and/or heroism. Whether or not we are using alignment, we can have a deity of honour and heroism, can we not? Assuming that deity is, in some way, directly influential, that deity’s concept of honour and/or heroism must be determined in some way, whether alignment mechanics are in play our out of play. A deity of Honour and Heroism modeled after the philosophy of King Arthur seems like he would have a very different vision than one modeled after the philosophy of Mahatma Ghandi, regardless of whether alignment mechanics are in play.

It seems odd that you can easily judge whether the Raven Queen approves of murder, or of use of the undead, but you cannot make any judgment on honour or heroism.

What about the bit where the decision to do so was not motivated by a concern with how the GM would classify that behaviour according to alignment descriptors?

That may be how your games play out. It is not how mine play out. As I have said before, if the GM or players are going to obsess over classifying each and every choice into alignment boxes, and rigidly specify that there can be only one proper choice for each alignment, then that is poor play and poor GMing, not a poor rules set or mechanic.

I have not seen alignment used to overwhelm the play experience as you seem to assume it automatically must, so I say nothing about it. It is not an automatic or desirable aspect of an alignment system, nor is it one I have ever experienced.

Not if you're not using alignment in your game!

As a simplistic example, then, tell me how the Paladin’s detect evil and smite evil abilities either function or are replaced in an alignment-free version of a 3.5e game? Does the Paladin simply say “I use my Detect Evil ability to classify that fellow as Evil, and then I Smite him”?

I don't think I actually made such an assertion, but in any event that trope is at least 4000 years older than the alignment mechanics, so I don't think it relies upon alignment in order to be deployed.

I think alignment plays to the trope. I also maintain that, if we lack Good or Evil, a battle between them seems unlikely. If we remove all rules for melee combat, do we still have melee combat in the game because it existed before the rules did?

Just to be clear: you don't see how any of these might carry more weight, at an RPGing table, than tying a shoe lace or eating breakfast?

I see them carrying considerable weight in game. I see many of them carrying much less, if any, weight in addressing issues of alignment. As well, the ones I do see impacting on alignment are ones where I would not see the character as a “force of justice and righteousness” regardless of any alignment system, and having the character continue to receive powers granted by a deity of Truth and Justice would, for me, disconnect me from the game.

To the ones I do see an alignment issue:

* one PC has sacrificed another to a dark god as part of a total betrayal of team A (for whom the PCs were working) in favour of team B (for whom the PCs then commenced working);

Dark God and human sacrifice both strongly imply Evil to me, so definite alignment issues there. I would have a tough time accepting that one PC being a force of good and righteousness. I would have no difficulty envisioning him as a loyal and valued servant of the Raven Queen. I do not see how an alignment system would prevent the gameplay. Either the character was not Good to begin with, or he has slid into neutrality or evil.

* a PC has sold out his hometown to invaders in order to raise the money to repurchase his home which he had lost because he couldn't finance his drug addiction; then, having found love, has got clean of drugs; then, having lost his love to violence, has suffered a brief relapse, before rededicating himself to higher causes and persuading his world-wide order of wizards, against the views of its highest leaders, to oppose policies of racial supremacy and enslavement;

Sounds like a character whose life has seen a lot of change, and one whose alignment may have changed more than once. So what? I would also suggest addiction can override other aspects of personality, and actions taken under addiction are not necessarily reflective of any actual moral compass, but of the influence of the addiction itself.

* a drow servant of chaos has worked with fellow Corellon-worshippers to oppose Lolth, because she (like the rest of the Abyss) taints the purity of chaos - change and transformation - with lies and pointless destruction;

You keep using “Chaos”. This seem like a conflict between Good and Evil focused through the lens of Chaos – no different between a LN character supporting an LG order of Paladins in opposing LE devils. Again, while I see trappings of alignment, I see no indication alignment would have been detrimental to the play.

* a paladin of the Raven Queen has discussed theology with the Whips and Lashes in the Shrine of the Kuo-toa, and has thereby been able to save the rest of the party from being caught and sacrificed to Blibdoolpoolp;

To the extent I see any actual alignment issue here, it would be the existence of a Paladin of the Raven Queen, who strikes me as not at all a benevolent deity. If a Paladin is a Paragon of Goodness, I would not envision Paladins of unaligned deities. More on the RQ’s morality below.

* the PCs have redeemed a fallen paladin of Pelor from his enslavement to a devil and his subsequent leadership of that devil's cult, so that he could return home a hero;

Again, you seem to think a specific alignment would require or prevent this. I don’t. Alignment is not a straightjacket.

Alignments relate to this cosmological premise: LG is about overt commitment to divine order (and its earthly reflection) as a source of wellbeing, G is about an overt commitment to wellbeing, UA is where all the cynics or indifferent or careless or doubters are (among the gods this includes Corellon as a doubter and the Raven Queen as a cynic), E is where ordinary villains are, and CE is where demons and primordials are.

I would describe the Raven Queen as amoral. Fate and Death are neither good nor evil, they simply are. So is she. She is neither benevolent nor malevolent, just as Fate and Death are neither kind nor cruel.

If you ignore alignment (as I do), it makes it easier for the players to question the premise of the default cosmology (ie in doubting, say, Bahamut or Moradin they don't have to think of themselves as repudiating goodness). But it's still hard for them to avoid taking a stance one way or another in relation to the relationship between divine order, chaos and dissolution. Which is part of what I like about the default cosmology.

To me, this seems far less a repudiation of alignment than simply a relabeling under a different system. We don’t have LG. Instead, we have “Divine Order”. So what? Weren’t you the one alluding to a rose by any other name?