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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6619246" data-attributes="member: 42582">There have been several posts equating &quot;alignment is descriptive&quot; with &quot;the GM gets to determine what alignment the PC is&quot;. But those two things are not equivalent.It's true that, in D&amp;D, for PCs, alignment is descriptive. For instance, Gygax on p 23 of his DMG says that &quot;The overall behavior of the character (or creature) is delineated by alignment, or, in the case of player characters, behavior determines actual alignment.&quot;But this doesn't automatically mean that the GM gets to unilaterally decide what the alignment consequences are of a given PC's behaviour.If a player takes the view that his/her PC is not evil (eg because not purely selfish, or not always disregarding the wellbeing of other people), it is a strong thing for the GM to unilaterally decide that the player is wrong. It's the player's game as well as the GM's, and the PC is the core vehicle for the player to interact with and interpret the shared fiction of the game.I think avoiding table conflicts, and being sensitive to the fact that reasonable people can have different interpretations of the moral signficiance of actions (especially in the context of escapist fiction), are important considerations. And they suggest at least a degree of caution in relation to GM unilateralism.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6619246, member: 42582"] There have been several posts equating "alignment is descriptive" with "the GM gets to determine what alignment the PC is". But those two things are not equivalent. It's true that, in D&D, for PCs, alignment is descriptive. For instance, Gygax on p 23 of his DMG says that "The overall behavior of the character (or creature) is delineated by alignment, or, in the case of player characters, behavior determines actual alignment." But this doesn't automatically mean that the GM gets to unilaterally decide what the alignment consequences are of a given PC's behaviour. If a player takes the view that his/her PC is not evil (eg because not purely selfish, or not always disregarding the wellbeing of other people), it is a strong thing for the GM to unilaterally decide that the player is wrong. It's the player's game as well as the GM's, and the PC is the core vehicle for the player to interact with and interpret the shared fiction of the game. I think avoiding table conflicts, and being sensitive to the fact that reasonable people can have different interpretations of the moral signficiance of actions (especially in the context of escapist fiction), are important considerations. And they suggest at least a degree of caution in relation to GM unilateralism. [/QUOTE]

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