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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Sigil" data-source="post: 584224" data-attributes="member: 2013">Perhaps this muddies the waters a bit, and perhaps not, but here is my take.Alignment is a great system when used properly.Proper use is NOT: "You can't do that because you're LG (or whatever)."Proper use IS: "Because you have done this and that and this other, you are LG."Also, there is a difference between Lg and lG and LG.Basically, I allow players to pick from five alignments when generating their characters: LG, LN, NG, N, CG.  I have found that CNs are disruptive and any of the evils is "off-limits" in my campaigns - as I have said before, my players are to play HEROES, not villains.As the DM, I lay down what is G, E, L, and C.  It is my world, therefore I am the arbiter of absolute morality for it (because in "default" D&D, the morality is absolute).Alignment is an almost tangible force in my worlds, and characters can actually FEEL great concentrations of evil (and good, and law, and so on).  I don't feel bad describing to players who are entering a temple that once belonged to a LG good and has since been overrun by a CE necromancer and his minions the eerie feeling of a place that had once been holy but has now been desecrated - the walls themselves fairly scream to the characters, "cleanse me or help me disappear!"  Further, those who are of a spiritual bent (e.g., clerics, paladins) can feel smaller concentrations of evil ("I sense a disturbance in the force...") they have a hard time surprising - or being surprised by - the BBEG without teleport spells and the like.I find that this creates (for me and my players) a more epic, heroic atmosphere - when you can feel the evil around you as a palpable force, it makes for great storytelling.Similarly, great places of magic power can be sensed by all, with wizards and especially sorcerers sometimes feeling great ebbs and flows in magic when great spells are cast.In this kind of setting, everything becomes slightly larger-than-life... and nobody's surprised (or has their suspension of disbelief broken) when the slightly dim-witted LG fighter who picks up the BBEG's glowing purple sword with the demon eye embedded in the pommel receives an enormous jolt and has to fight off the tentacles that sprout from the hilt, trying to lacerate his hand.Close to how I work it.  If an evil character has supernatural abilities, s/he detects as evil.  A cleric who is evil or who is granted spells by an evil god detects as evil.Otherwise, characters "feel foul" commesurate with their acts and/or level - a first level cultist or thief isn't going to register - but the 15th level thief who just made his "hit" to join the assassin's guild, while he won't "detect" as evil to a spell, can be "felt" as evil by a paladin (again, the "disturbance in the force thing")--The Sigil</blockquote>

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