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Message: <blockquote data-quote="happyelf" data-source="post: 3291730" data-attributes="member: 40394">It's popular to bash alignment, but really it's not such a bad concept. It's just a 2d scale to plot your character on, and you cna mve them around as muhc as you and the GM like. Most of the criticisms i've hard about alignment are either complete nonsence, or due to wierd ideas about alignment that the game doesn't support anyway.There are also a lot of dodgy assumptions and cliches about things like "shades of grey" and moral ambiguity that get in the way of not ony alignment, but good characterisation. To hear some people talk about "shades of grey", you'd swear nobody ever did anything without a selfish motive, or that there weren't people in the real world who can be described as benevolent, or kind, or even evil. Sure, they're not flawless or some kind of static archetype, but no decent character should be, either.The reality is that a game or story indulging in the "shades of grey" cliche tends to have far more repetitive and cliche characterisation than one that does not. There are various extensions of this fallacy. For instance the idea that Paladins are stupid zealots, or that Lawful Good characters should be hidebound and intolerant. No, that's clearly LN, LG people are good, wich means they're reasonably tolerant and compassionate.</blockquote>