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<blockquote data-quote="Saeviomagy" data-source="post: 7174916" data-attributes="member: 5890">This is kind of where the entire weakness of the system comes in: it doesn't distinguish between actions and thought. In this case, a character is evil because he thinks evil thoughts.By this metric, ANY character who is struggling against their inner beast is evil, even if they win each and every time.So a wizard setting his glyph says &quot;it targets evil people&quot; and then it blows up his paladin of devotion friend, who despite sticking to his vows and never stepping out of line internally struggles with thoughts of wielding his power to force goodness and light on a world of moral decrepitude.And in this case a character is not good even when he thinks good thoughts. How many good actions does it take to make him good? How many evil actions does it take to make him evil? Does he become evil by performing evil actions but not enjoying them?I don't think that either character fits within the alignment system neatly, and I don't think any of the outcomes of applying the alignment system make sense to building a story. And therefore I ask myself &quot;If the alignment system cannot handle complex characters in a way that makes a good story, what value does it have?&quot;</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Saeviomagy, post: 7174916, member: 5890"] This is kind of where the entire weakness of the system comes in: it doesn't distinguish between actions and thought. In this case, a character is evil because he thinks evil thoughts. By this metric, ANY character who is struggling against their inner beast is evil, even if they win each and every time. So a wizard setting his glyph says "it targets evil people" and then it blows up his paladin of devotion friend, who despite sticking to his vows and never stepping out of line internally struggles with thoughts of wielding his power to force goodness and light on a world of moral decrepitude. And in this case a character is not good even when he thinks good thoughts. How many good actions does it take to make him good? How many evil actions does it take to make him evil? Does he become evil by performing evil actions but not enjoying them? I don't think that either character fits within the alignment system neatly, and I don't think any of the outcomes of applying the alignment system make sense to building a story. And therefore I ask myself "If the alignment system cannot handle complex characters in a way that makes a good story, what value does it have?" [/QUOTE]

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