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Message: <blockquote data-quote="TheCosmicKid" data-source="post: 7182307" data-attributes="member: 6683613">On the contrary, the mechanic works best when there's consensus between DM and players about what it means. And, contrary to the table-fight horror stories that make their way to online alignment threads, consensus really is the norm. It's seldom contentious that the monsters trying to destroy the town are evil and the heroes trying to protect the town are good. We should keep it in perspective that hard corner-cases are the exception rather than the rule in this game. Personally, I've been playing for nearly two decades with a variety of different groups, and I've never had a serious disagreement over alignment in actual play. Ever. Seriously.You don't want to reward characters for specific behaviors. That potentially leads to degenerate incentive structures -- e.g., "I get XP for donating valuable treasure to my church, so I should acquire as much valuable treasure as possible by any means necessary!" That doesn't seem like what you were going for, does it? Where alignment is concerned, general is better. If you want a character to be an honorable-knight sort of guy, you should have him behave with overall honorable-knight-style conduct, rather than picking out some particular actions you associate with honorable knights.But really, you don't want to reward characters for conduct at all. What if this character stops putting himself at risk to defend the innocent, and instead starts putting the innocent at risk to profit himself? Is that worse? Well, morally, yes, of course it is, but from the perspective of gameplay and narrative it seems like a perfectly valid character development. And it's not really fair that the character would keep reaping XP/inspiration awards for staying an honorable knight but must forgo them by changing conduct this way. Incentivizing LG/honorable-knight conduct (or whatever conduct matches the alignment/alignment-surrogate selected at character creation) inhibits natural character growth and evolution. Alignment is a tool for describing character conduct, not prescribing it. Acting the honorable knight? Wonderful: call 'em "LG", no penalty or reward except those that come from in-universe alignment-based effects. Acting the sanctimonious hypocrite? Just as wonderful: call 'em "LE", no penalty or reward except those that come from in-universe alignment-based effects.</blockquote>

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