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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Man in the Funny Hat" data-source="post: 3519647" data-attributes="member: 32740">And anybody with that low an opinion, that great a misunderstanding of alignment SHOULDN'T use it.  They shouldn't be ALLOWED.  Anyone else can and probably should at least try it for several characters over several campaigns so they can FORM THEIR OWN OPINIONS.  And if the naysayers even begin to talk about it in game for any reason they should be told, bluntly, to shut up.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />It's not a matter of positive and negative EFFECTS.  It's a matter of understanding what reason there is to use it in the first place, and how to use it to that end in the second place.Alignment is a tool for roleplaying.  It exists to assist players in playing characters more believably and consistently.  It does this by looking at the pattern of behavior and beliefs of a character and assigning them to a GENERALIZED category.  Players can then use this category as a reference point in monitoring how their characters patttern of behavior and beliefs changes or remains fixed.Alignment does not restrict your roleplaying a whit.  However, there are understandably in-game and meta-game consequences for alignment changes, just as a person in the real world who begins to make major changes in belief and behavior will face various consequences of that.It works just fine as an in-game moral compass.  It is NOT a model of real-world morals, behaviors, ethics and philosophy.  It is intended for use in a FANTASY roleplaying milieu.  It reflects a moral and ethical landscape that is vastly more fixed, more black & white than the real world.  It tends to look at such detailed topics as unchanging within a given alignment category simply for the sake of convenience.  It makes reams of oral and written background and explantions of motivation unnecessary.It is similarly not a good model for application in fiction for the very reason that fiction can and does do a much better job of describing an individual characters inner thoughts.  Fiction can go into a characters morals, ethics, religion, philosphy, and motivations in GREAT depth with much more interest.  Alignment exists to ELIMINATE the need to go into exhaustive depth on such subjects.  An author can write two pages or whole chapters explaining WHY a character does what he does.  A D&D player is better served to simply say, "My character is Lawful Neutral" to list such motivations.Alignment DOES exist in its current form, largely as a matter of tradition.  As it was first put forth its PURPOSE in existing wasn't to be a useful roleplaying tool for players so much as a Game Design Hammer for the DM to use to maintain roleplaying order and discipline.  Statements in the text regarding how and why to use alignment as a guideline were at odds with the rules that made it a Big Stick.Right up to the present Alignment suffers from being badly written.  Every version has fussed confusingly over what you can/can't do but floundered and ignored simple statements about WHY keeping a characters actions reasonable and consistent with alignment categories is A GOOD THING; it's something useful and desireable.For experienced roleplayers alignment should be LESS of a problem, not more, as the player will be more familiar with how and why to keep his characters behavior reasonable and consistent.  It is most useful for newbies who do NOT have the intuitive grasp of character roleplaying.Alignment doesn't need more "rules" or stricter definitions of categories or the like.  It only needs to be written up in a rulebook by someone who will finally approach it with an eye to emphasis on WHY IT EXISTS, because that is what makes alignment useful, even indisposable.</blockquote>

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