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<blockquote data-quote="Zander" data-source="post: 7981756" data-attributes="member: 1364">I had the pleasure of meeting Jonathan Tweet at UK GenCon in London many years ago. He kindly agreed to sign my PHB despite the fact that I doorstepped him while he was moseying from stand to stand and not 'on duty' at the WotC booth. What a gent!With regards to the topic at hand, I have read through the entire thread and one thing hasn't been stressed enough. The purpose of alignment in D&amp;D was (is still?) to emulate the fantasy fiction of Anderson, Moorcock, Tolkien and others. It was a game mechanic to enhance D&amp;D's reflection of the genre. It's akin to why elves in D&amp;D have pointed ears (though I don't think JRRT said that in The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings), halflings are short and bookish wizards don't go charging into battle in plate armour. In fiction, the author controls the universe, characters and narrative. In RPGs, it's the games' designers, adventures' writers, DMs and players. With the added agency afforded by RPGs, it was inevitable that players (and DMs) would push the boundaries of the genre. With that in mind when I DM, I permit players considerable latitude in their portrayal of their characters' alignments within the bounds of the genre. It is analogous to allowing players to have wizard characters with bulging sinews in a world where most mages are far from athletic. The game world may be simplistically aligned; the PCs don't have to be.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Zander, post: 7981756, member: 1364"] I had the pleasure of meeting Jonathan Tweet at UK GenCon in London many years ago. He kindly agreed to sign my PHB despite the fact that I doorstepped him while he was moseying from stand to stand and not 'on duty' at the WotC booth. What a gent! With regards to the topic at hand, I have read through the entire thread and one thing hasn't been stressed enough. The purpose of alignment in D&D was (is still?) to emulate the fantasy fiction of Anderson, Moorcock, Tolkien and others. It was a game mechanic to enhance D&D's reflection of the genre. It's akin to why elves in D&D have pointed ears (though I don't think JRRT said that in [I]The Hobbit[/I] or [I]The Lord of the Rings[/I]), halflings are short and bookish wizards don't go charging into battle in plate armour. In fiction, the author controls the universe, characters and narrative. In RPGs, it's the games' designers, adventures' writers, DMs and players. With the added agency afforded by RPGs, it was inevitable that players (and DMs) would push the boundaries of the genre. With that in mind when I DM, I permit players considerable latitude in their portrayal of their characters' alignments within the bounds of the genre. It is analogous to allowing players to have wizard characters with bulging sinews in a world where most mages are far from athletic. The game world may be simplistically aligned; the PCs don't have to be. [/QUOTE]

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