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<blockquote data-quote="tuxgeo" data-source="post: 6311906" data-attributes="member: 61026">My take on the matter: In any specific DM's campaign, alignments mean whatever that DM says they mean. (As the game was built, the alignments weren't for philosophical exploration, but they were part of the structure of the world.) Based on that supposition: (1) If the DM doesn't say what alignments mean, then they have no meaning in that campaign; (2) If the meanings of alignments are subject to change over time within a campaign, then that isn't fair to the players; (3) Clearly-stated alignments are best when kept simplest, because multiple clauses within any one alignment can conflict with each other. IMHO, each DM needs to decide which (few) criteria to include when describing alignments. Some examples that have been used, or could be used, are: Helpful vs. Hurtful; Sacrificial vs. Selfish; Dutiful vs. Whimsical; Centralized Control vs. Distributed Control; Industrious vs. Appreciative. (Of course there are many others.) To all of the above, the matter of &quot;strength-of-alignment&quot; should be added. The WotC developers have been going in the direction of saying that most PCs are weakly aligned at most -- indeed, undetectably aligned. Again IMHO, the only PCs that should have even a moderately strong alignment are the classes that originally had restrictions: LG Paladins, Lawful Monks, and non-Lawful Bards and Rogues.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="tuxgeo, post: 6311906, member: 61026"] My take on the matter: In any specific DM's campaign, alignments mean whatever that DM says they mean. (As the game was built, the alignments weren't for philosophical exploration, but they were part of the structure of the world.) Based on that supposition: (1) If the DM doesn't say what alignments mean, then they have no meaning in that campaign; (2) If the [I]meanings[/I] of alignments are subject to change over time within a campaign, then that isn't fair to the players; (3) Clearly-stated alignments are best when kept simplest, because multiple clauses within any one alignment can conflict with each other. IMHO, each DM needs to decide which ([I]few[/I]) criteria to include when describing alignments. Some examples that have been used, or could be used, are: Helpful vs. Hurtful; Sacrificial vs. Selfish; Dutiful vs. Whimsical; Centralized Control vs. Distributed Control; Industrious vs. Appreciative. (Of course there are many others.) To all of the above, the matter of "strength-of-alignment" should be added. The WotC developers have been going in the direction of saying that most PCs are weakly aligned at most -- indeed, undetectably aligned. Again IMHO, the only PCs that should have even a moderately strong alignment are the classes that originally had restrictions: LG Paladins, Lawful Monks, and non-Lawful Bards and Rogues. [/QUOTE]

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