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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Illithidbix" data-source="post: 7174053" data-attributes="member: 12283">I love themes of moral quandaries and religious faith in roleplay, which is pretty much the core reason the nine alignments and their related mechanics frustrate me so much.So curiously enough I literally finished running a local Authurian LARP a month ago, with the Quest for the Grail and the Reclaiming of Excalibur being quests for the end of it. This is roughly how it worked:The Grail Quest.1) Firstly confronted by a Christian Knight who asks them "Who is the Ruler of Heaven?" - the answer is God - the Knight then asks "What is the nature of the Divine?"- The key answer here is "love" (the Priest player got this pretty quick)2) Confronted by a figure in a cloaked figure who asks "What is the nature of the Morrígan?" - The answer here is that in the setting the Morrígan is the old god of the cycle of life; and this involved the necessity of death for there to be life, in contrast to the Christian faith of everlasting life.The pagan priest explained it well so the champion of the Morrígan then said: "Show me" - a player had to agree to be killed, and to not resist, if they did this without a fight, then they were then healed and passed the test.3) Then Sir Kay guarding the wounded Arthur who asked them to kneel and pledge allegiance to the true king of Albion. This was as simple as kneeling and pledging allegiance to Arthur.The idea for the Grail itself was that if you drank from it then you received a vision of your most hated rival/nemesis/enemy, and shown what they had and will do.It then stated that you would be granted the power to hunt them down and stop them, and no power on earth can deny you a confrontation.Or you could forgive them.If you chose the former, you failed the test and both of you became imbued with super powers. (As a cunning twist on the question, the reason nothing on earth could stop the confrontation is that both became almost unstoppable until you met). It was through this that Arthur failed the test and empowered Mordred, which was the basis of the game.- The Grail didn't simply work or not because someone was predefined as "lawful good", it tested the players (perhaps with obviously easy and right choices to fit the format of the game).The Reclaiming of Excalibur was based around the idea that Excalibur could only be wielded by a Knight who had let true love enter there heart.Two players (a Knight and a Priest) had entered play with a background of a forbidden love between them (The knight was betrothed to the priest’s sister), and wanted to play on this throughout the game.So in the final quest, guided by a wounded Lancelot, to be able to wield Excalibur the Knight had to boldly confess their love aloud, despite the scandal and disgrace it would cause them.Likewise in my last tabletop game, a key quest was the Paladin seeking an Oath having to choose "What is Good?" before 4 angels which championed four points of view:- Honour, Honesty, Duty,  - The Oath of Devotion.- Beauty, Joy, Mercy - The Oath of the Ancients.- Unrestrained Justice, Restitution - The Oath of Vengeance.- There is no Good beyond what we define ourselves - OathbreakerWhilst you could attempt to tie the Oaths to "Lawful Good" "Neutral Good" and "Chaotic Good" I don't feel they cleanly fit in, with "Lawful Good" easily interpreted by Oath of Devotion or Oath of Vengeance.If you’re still awake after these ramblings: In none of these did I need the players to have an alignment of "lawful good" written down or predefined, it was up to them how they roleplayed their character and what choices they made when confronted with choices. Even if your game *does have* an objective morality, I don't think defining whether someone is good or evil is useful until they actually act.So, to me the nine alignments and any mechanics from them aren't needed, these stories have been told long before these concepts were used. There are simply better tools for guiding players to think about the beliefs, morals and ideals of their characters, and I find asking "how should a lawful good character act?" to be somewhat frustrating, because it misses instead asking what beliefs and behaviours define that specific character, which I think is actually the relevant answer to the question.</blockquote>

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