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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Drifter Bob" data-source="post: 1614989" data-attributes="member: 17723">I think one of the specific ways DnD is dumbed down and made Disney-esque if you will, is in the interpretation of alignment.  Players and NPC's often seem either cartoonishly good or cartoonishly evil, or they take a chaotic neutral alignment as a license to behave in whatever manner strikes their whim at the moment, i.e. totally random.Many if not most of the characters in the best fantasy novels which RPG's are based on are very 'gray' characters, and yet they did have their own moral systems.  Cugel, Gray Mouser, Fafrhed, Elric, and Conan were all morally gray in some way or another.  Most would rob if they needed to without a second thought, and kill you if you crossed them.  They certainly believed in revenge and would not hesitate to kill an enemy in cold blood if it seeemed necessary.  They were neither good nor evil nor randomly psychotic, but rather nuanced individuals who could make their own decisions, did live by their own personal code of honor or ethics (even if somewhat warped, like Cugels).  I think this is an example of a gray area.  Neutral alignments and personality archetypes could be played with much more subtlety than the rules, the culture, and even forums like this one seem to encourage.   Even a good character can do bad things under certain circumstances, nor does being good mean that you have to follow the kind of "good guy" formulae depicted in Hollywood.This is a big part of what I mean by a more mature game.DB</blockquote>

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