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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Thunderfoot" data-source="post: 3517755" data-attributes="member: 34175">As a DM I believe not only is a good tool, but absolutely necessary.  In a game where there are absolutes (good, evil, law and chaos) there must be some sort of 'scale' to provide a direction on the ol' moral compass.  I realize that this is an unpopular view, but hopefully I can make my point clear, at least.For example, if a character claims to be lawful good, but insists on torturing prisoners, helping themselves to the best treasure becuase they say 'I got it first' or to leave innocents to die when the means are there to save them, then there is a problem with that person's concept of both law and good.  By the same token a person that claim chaotic neutral but is the first to help others, always shares things equally and looks for the betterment of others before themself doesn't have a grasp on chaos or neutrality.  I'm not saying that the system is perfect, there are a ton of grey areas that allow things to fall between the cracks, but then, thats why we still have DM to adjudicate such things.3.x has taken several things out of the hands of the DM, alignment shouldn't be one of those things, if players feel that alignment in too restrictive, I would caution that they are trying to push the envelope too often, or the DM is a moron.  DMs shouldn't use alignment as a leash (unless, as above, it is obvious that the player is out of control) and neither should a player feel that their alignment is an encumbrance.  If there is an understanding of the ground rules about alignment then all parties involved should be fine with it.  However, in those cases where it isnt, all too often I have noticed that either one party or the other has lost touch with reality in respect to their fantasy. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />  Of course, YMMV.</blockquote>

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