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Message: <blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 5708050" data-attributes="member: 85870">I may be in the minority, but I have always gravitated to the concept of alignment, even from my earliest days as a kid playing Mentzer Red Box/BECMI. It's obviously an inexact, "broad brush" way of containing basic character "world views" and personas, and I can certainly understand some players'/GMs' complaints that it "feels restrictive" or even unnecessary. "Why should my character be forced to follow some arbitrary behavioral guideline, especially one that often has mechanical consequences for or against me (i.e., to-hit and damage bonuses with alignment spells, damage reduction types, detection, etc.)?" "Why can't I just have them act the way I want them to?" But having done a lot of semi-professional and university theater, the basic functional premise of alignment falls right in line with many general principles of "characterization" in acting--determining motive, objectives, relationship tactics, and responses. One of the things they hammer home in acting classes is that people are generally emotionally consistent. We don't always "get" where people are coming from, but when we do, it's generally from a consistent place, shaped by their innate nature and experience. Characters that are portrayed without that consistency are often viewed by audiences as mentally and emotionally unstable. As inelegant as D&D's longstanding alignment mechanic can be, as a GM/player who's vastly more interested in character, plot, and world exploration than combat, I actually like the "shorthand" rendering of alignment in a lot of ways, particularly as a starting point for "getting to know" or "feeling out" a particular character's viewpoint, as expressed by the player. For a game like D&D that has a huge rules emphasis on combat, I'm all for ANYTHING that gives the player a chance to pause and go, "Hmm, what IS my character actually like?" Not that they necessarily have to go into huge background details (though I love that sort of thing), but I like the fact that it DOES PROVIDE SOMETHING in terms of a starting point. To me, if a player or GM is one to "gloss over" that aspect of their character(s), to me it's an immediate red flag that the focus and style of the game being run is probably not going to be one to my taste. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying alignment is perfect, or even a necessary element of every RPG. I'm certain some groups play D&D, or anything else for that matter, in highly satisfying ways while paying little to no attention to an "alignment" trope. What I am saying, however, is that its place in D&D--especially when D&D is considered the "gateway" RPG--is an overall benefit to the system, because it gives a quick, succinct, immediately recognizable way for players to mentally map an avatar's "ethos." And to me, that mental map is one of the crucial points that separates RPGs from tactical battle games.</blockquote>

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