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I don't get the dislike of alignment as a character-building concept
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<blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 5709429" data-attributes="member: 87792"><p>The idea of alignment was good. The implementation IMO sucked. Off the top of my head there were three reasons it sucked:</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Hideously unclear</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Closed and unrepresentative</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Narrowing the stories that can be told</li> </ul><p>Hideously unclear is the first point. What does True Neutral mean? Inconsistent lunatics who must always support "balance", whatever that is? It's OK for Morcock's setting, but that's about all. Don't care about alignment? Undermines the whole thing. And what's Chaotic Neutral? Or Chaotic Good.</p><p> </p><p>Closed means that it seems to claim that morality can be summed up on two three point axes. When honestly they aren't necessarily that important or comprehensible. Eberron has a personally good Queen working to reignite a continent-wide war and a personally evil King working to claim his country back from a far more evil cult.</p><p> </p><p>An open system would be one that asked questions rather than answers. Take the Babylon 5 Questions.</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Who are you?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">What do you want?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Where are you going?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Who do you serve and who do you trust?</li> </ul><p>And the never actually asked question that's fundamental to the show:</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Which question is most important to you?</li> </ul><p>Those are an alignment system of a sort. Each question is what one highly powerful group holds dear and considers the important question to ask people. The questions are open - the answers are going to be different and reflective of the PC's personality and add depth.</p><p> </p><p>Representative - is this what you consider important? In the Morcock world Law vs Chaos is representative I think; it's the fundamental conceit of the universe. Otherwise it can be irrelevant (open questions of the Babylon 5 sort seldom are).</p><p> </p><p>And narrowing down the range of stories is easily illustrated:</p><p>"Sire. One of the paladins might be ... a traitor."</p><p>"Again? Get everyone down to the courtyard. We'll just check who can't lay on hands any more."</p><p> </p><p>That's an extreme case. But spells such as Detect or Smite Evil reveal a lot. And restrict rather than enable.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Neonchameleon, post: 5709429, member: 87792"] The idea of alignment was good. The implementation IMO sucked. Off the top of my head there were three reasons it sucked: [LIST] [*]Hideously unclear [*]Closed and unrepresentative [*]Narrowing the stories that can be told [/LIST]Hideously unclear is the first point. What does True Neutral mean? Inconsistent lunatics who must always support "balance", whatever that is? It's OK for Morcock's setting, but that's about all. Don't care about alignment? Undermines the whole thing. And what's Chaotic Neutral? Or Chaotic Good. Closed means that it seems to claim that morality can be summed up on two three point axes. When honestly they aren't necessarily that important or comprehensible. Eberron has a personally good Queen working to reignite a continent-wide war and a personally evil King working to claim his country back from a far more evil cult. An open system would be one that asked questions rather than answers. Take the Babylon 5 Questions. [LIST] [*]Who are you? [*]What do you want? [*]Where are you going? [*]Who do you serve and who do you trust? [/LIST]And the never actually asked question that's fundamental to the show: [LIST] [*]Which question is most important to you? [/LIST]Those are an alignment system of a sort. Each question is what one highly powerful group holds dear and considers the important question to ask people. The questions are open - the answers are going to be different and reflective of the PC's personality and add depth. Representative - is this what you consider important? In the Morcock world Law vs Chaos is representative I think; it's the fundamental conceit of the universe. Otherwise it can be irrelevant (open questions of the Babylon 5 sort seldom are). And narrowing down the range of stories is easily illustrated: "Sire. One of the paladins might be ... a traitor." "Again? Get everyone down to the courtyard. We'll just check who can't lay on hands any more." That's an extreme case. But spells such as Detect or Smite Evil reveal a lot. And restrict rather than enable. [/QUOTE]
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I don't get the dislike of alignment as a character-building concept
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