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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 3523826" data-attributes="member: 42582">I said the same thing above: that in D&D heathens have to be replaced with Orcs and Demons. This is a plot quite unlike the Crusades, where the enemies were ordinary humans just like you and me.Tolerable change is obviously a matter of degree. I think the changes that alignment forces upon the plot are so great that the plot has been replaced by another plot.I think that this is part of the problem with alignment - a lot of PCs actually default to behaviour that the system describes as Neutral, but the system (and its mainstream campaigns) assume that PCs default to Good. I think this is a recipe for conflict at the gaming table.I don't agree that on earth it's just a matter of opinion. I certainly don't agree that it's a matter of majority opinion. But I think political and moral conversation breaks the Code of Conduct, so I'll leave it at that.As for the gameworld, I realise what alignment is meant to model. I don't think it does it all that well, because the real earthlings who have to implement it don't have access to the modelled fantasy world, so they deploy their ordinary (and competing) concepts of good and evil, and disputes break out.It may be true that anything in D&D can be pegged with an alignment. So can any visible thing in the world be pegged with a colour. But not everyone always agrees on the colour (is it blue or purple? green or turquoise?). Likewise with alignment. The problem isn't necessarily that I can't peg it (though sometimes it's hard - witness the perennial question of paladins killing baby orcs) or that you can't peg it. The problem is that, at the gaming table, different people peg it differently.Actually, my opinion is the exact opposite. It was KM who said that it comes down to GM fiat. I agreed, and said that this is another objection to alignment, because another reason why it is a source of conflict at the table.This is very true. But I think that alignment actually induces the problem, it doesn't alleviate it, because it brings the question "Is my character Good or Evil" to the forefront of the game. A game without alignment just lets the player play the character, and the NPCs and other PCs can respond to the character as s/he is played, without having also to worry about what moralising label gets applied. If the GM tells the player of the paladin that the gods have cancelled her PC's powers, he doesn't also have to tell her that she's been Evil. The player (as we do in the real world) can quite happily take the view that the god has made a moral error. Feeling might still be hurt, but I think it's not quite as confrontational and potentially upsetting as it is when alignment labels are involved.</blockquote>

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