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<blockquote data-quote="Ratskinner" data-source="post: 7183146" data-attributes="member: 6688937">Thank the gods we have your vast and universally applicable experience to guide us and tell me how wrong I am about all the alignment arguments I've witnessed and been a part of since I started playing about 1980. Certainly you and your groups must represent the entirety of anyone's possible experience with D&amp;D and I bow to your wisdom...Oh wait, I don't. Look, alignment doesn't work best with consensus about what it means...it only works with consensus about what it means. Otherwise, we end up with the &quot;orc baby&quot; scenario or any of a hundred others that come up virtually every single time a DM tries to &quot;enforce&quot; alignment. Every. Single. Time. At least in my experience. I can't agree that general does anything to prevent degenerate behavior. I've witnessed far too much &quot;Lawful Stupid&quot; and other less-than-polite euphemisms for degenerate behavior, especially when Paladins or other morality-centric characters are concerned. I've also played other games that operate on similar premises, and they work fine. Firstly, I was responding to the premise of the thread which is, in part, about &quot;enforcement&quot;. That sorta requires prescribing behavior. Secondly, most of the games and alignment-replacement systems that actually carry out the sort of system I'm talking about allow or provide for changes in the selected behaviors (D&amp;D is the system that didn't). In a D&amp;D context, I've seen this opportunity provided at level changes and at a character's rejection of his alignment keys (See the <a href="http://files.crngames.com/cc/sweet20/experience.html" target="_blank">Sweet 20 Experience System</a>). Thirdly, this kind of thing is already in 5e as the Inspiration mechanic deriving from the Ideals, Bonds, and Traits of a character's background. It is merely a very mild version. It doesn't seem to be destroying anyone's game. Fourthly, back in the day, you couldn't avoid this, because several classes had alignment/behavior restrictions that inherently enforced such restrictions and explicitly prescribed the results of losing your status as a paladin or whatever. So the question of &quot;is it evil to kill a goblin baby&quot;? could take on dire consequences for some characters and players.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ratskinner, post: 7183146, member: 6688937"] Thank the gods we have your vast and universally applicable experience to guide us and tell me how wrong I am about all the alignment arguments I've witnessed and been a part of since I started playing about 1980. Certainly you and your groups must represent the entirety of anyone's possible experience with D&D and I bow to your wisdom... Oh wait, I don't. Look, alignment doesn't work [I]best[/I] with consensus about what it means...it [I]only[/I] works with consensus about what it means. Otherwise, we end up with the "orc baby" scenario or any of a hundred others that come up virtually every single time a DM tries to "enforce" alignment. Every. Single. Time. At least in my experience. I can't agree that [I]general[/I] does anything to prevent degenerate behavior. I've witnessed far too much "Lawful Stupid" and other less-than-polite euphemisms for degenerate behavior, especially when Paladins or other morality-centric characters are concerned. I've also played other games that operate on similar premises, and they work fine. Firstly, I was responding to the premise of the thread which is, in part, about "enforcement". That sorta requires prescribing behavior. Secondly, most of the games and alignment-replacement systems that actually carry out the sort of system I'm talking about allow or provide for changes in the selected behaviors (D&D is the system that didn't). In a D&D context, I've seen this opportunity provided at level changes and at a character's rejection of his alignment keys (See the [URL="http://files.crngames.com/cc/sweet20/experience.html"]Sweet 20 Experience System[/URL]). Thirdly, this kind of thing is already in 5e as the Inspiration mechanic deriving from the Ideals, Bonds, and Traits of a character's background. It is merely a very mild version. It doesn't seem to be destroying anyone's game. Fourthly, back in the day, you couldn't avoid this, because several classes had alignment/behavior restrictions that inherently enforced such restrictions and explicitly prescribed the results of losing your status as a paladin or whatever. So the question of "is it evil to kill a goblin baby"? could take on dire consequences for some characters and players. [/QUOTE]

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