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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7742493" data-attributes="member: 42582">The issue is the reverse from the one you mention. In classic D&D it is fairly straightforward for any character of note to have Know Alignment cast on him-/herself to confirm his/her alignment; and there is a further argument that one knows one's alignment innately, in virtue of knowing an alignment language.Which means that, in classic D&D, evil protagonists and antagonists know that they are evil. Which is weird. Even when Milton's Satan says, "Evil, be though my good" he is most naturally read as using "evil" ironically, or to refer to that which others judge evil but which is his good.I think it sucks if you want to have a campaign where what counts as good or evil is a live question - because the system already answers that. (Respecting rights and fostering wellbeing is good; wantonly disregarding those things is evil.)I think it can be more interesting if you want to focus on the question of what is the best means to good - individual self-realisation (as the chaotics hold) or social structure and order (as the lawfuls hold). In other words, if you accept that CG and LG can't both be right, then you have an interesting field for contestation. (I also think this makes the cosmology incoherent, as the Seven Heavens and Olympus imply that in fact LG and CG both are right - ie either can be a means to good - at which point the difference seems purely aesthetic rather than genuinely moral or ethical.)That is an alternative approach. But then I think it would be more helpful to drop the moralised language. Demons are wild, destructive and vicious - what does it add to that to say "Oh, and they're evil too!"</blockquote>

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