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See my post just before your own.

Yes, devils are, in many ways, more horrendous than demons. No, it's quite clear that the game is not limited to internally consistent ideas. I don't share your enthusiasm for this fact. Inconsistency itself is not what makes something cool, it isn't necessary for creativity, so there's no...

I don't think demons must be stupid. Far from it, many of them should be portrayed as cunning. But I still can't see them crafting anything. I'd be much more willing to buy it if the demons corrupted clockwork horrors after they were created by someone else. That is in line with demons, and it...

Demon Lord of Daffodils? Demon Lord of Justice? Demon Lord of Virtue? No.

I don't have much of a problem with changing canon if you change it into something cool. I don't see that here. Perhaps... but a demon lord of alchemy and artifice? It's the like the difference between evil people using healing on themselves (nothing unusual about that) and having an evil god...

A tangent: There's a demon lord of alchemy and artifice? I remember just before the release of 4e when WotC said they wanted to further distinguish between devils and demons, so they made the latter be all about destruction without much, if any, subtlety. Now they engage in crafts?

In retrospect, this may be what some others have been pointing out, but you make the point quite clearly. While my system may have some advantages, it comes at a cost of other aspects of the (current) alignment system. That's definitely something I have to take into account. Given that each of...

Yes, the former view does not work with my system. FWIW, I don't think I'd accept the latter either. Generally, I prefer to attribute the labels "good" and "evil" to actions rather than people. I'm just as happy to say that someone is good (even exemplary) in certain contexts but downright nasty...

I fully agree. But this does not change the fact that according to the PHB definitions of Good and Evil, Jasper was good towards halflings and evil towards non-halflings. His motivations, justifications, and self-perception are a separate issue. Does anyone actually believe that the D&D...

But given that I (as the player) am the subject making the decisions about how the character acts based on alignment, there shouldn't be any problem with subjectivity in the description. After all, I've given fairly in-depth descriptions of my characters' personalities to my groups, and some of...

First it was people addressing my title without reading my post. Now it's people not reading the thread. I've played without alignment. I don't find it at all difficult to houserule 3.5 in this way, and it plays great. I've also played with alignment. It adds something that I like. I don't take...

Okay, good point. My proposal would make things more difficult when it comes to the mechanics. One way of handling that is to go back to the older style of Detect Evil and Protection of Evil, where the spell doesn't function based on an individual's alignment, but rather detects and protects...

I wouldn't list an alignment for "every group, race, or individual one has or might encounter". It's a matter of what group the character identifies most strongly with. For example, an elf wizard may identify very strongly with other elves, while another elf wizard sees his identity as a wizard...

Yes, while it's not explicitly stated in the original rules, that's the best way to make sense of it (especially when you try to figure alignment languages). Excellent point. You're right, it could very easily get out of hand. However, I wouldn't want to put any sort of artificial limit on it...

Which is exactly how I've always approached my characters. Hence Jasper's behaviour seeming "inconsistent" to those who take alignment too seriously. I just used him as an example to illustrate my point. While I've sometimes played the game without alignment, I don't think that its limitations...

It's not exactly the same. The allegiance system did not specify how one would behave towards those in the out-group.

Read beyond the thread title.

(I'm reposting this from The Piazza.) I read an interesting article today, called "Would you give you life for your group?", which reports on preliminary research on the psychology of group loyalty and what might make people become willing to sacrifice their lives. Basically, researchers found...

I'm generally unimpressed with WotC, but that's not why I don't play 4e. I don't play 4e because I'd prefer to play either Pathfinder or Castles & Crusades (and a few others, although these are the games I'm currently quite interested in). If they make a game that suits my tastes, I'll invest in...

Just cut them out. Remove the alignment domains. Remove the various detect and protection from spells. (You can keep detect evil and protection from evil, but define "evil" as "hostile intent" or some such thing.) The paladin's smite evil can turn into a smite against a specific sort of foe...