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<blockquote data-quote="GravyFingerz" data-source="post: 1522018" data-attributes="member: 77">Alignment is an old and archaic tyrannical straight jacket. In the day, when D&amp;D was a wargame, it might have been necessary to keep your players acting in a consistant manner; but that was before method acting and storytelling were wide spread in a role playing game. I've known many people who don't like alignment, and many more who see it as a straight jacket instead of a guideline. Most people don't understand alignment enough to use it well; if we are going to dumb down D&amp;D, we might as well remove alignment because of it's hard to grasp concept. Nowadays, most player's are actors instead of wargamers. Most people pick an alignment and base their character's personality around it instead of the other way around; besides being hard to grasp and a straigt jacket, it stunts a characters growth by limiting your actions.Even worse, they've built more mechanics around it in 3rd edition. Detect alignment spells, alignment rebuking spells, weapons that deal special damage to those of a certain alignment; they've made it more integral to the system then it ever was back in 2nd, 1st, or basic editions of the game. If you use alignment, you're shooting yourself in the face. It's lazy and confining at the same time. Instead of making a personality for a character or a non-player character, let's just assign an alignment; because you know, all Lawful Good people act the same. It's a crutch to the game. It's removal would simplify so many things and solve many problems. You wouldn't see all these newbs and evil wannabees with &quot;neutral evil&quot; on their character sheet. You think alignment is supposed to regulate them? Any competent DM worth his salt punishes evil PCs instead of whining about how they hate evil characters. IMHO, the most innovative system for alignment is the lack of one. I can only hope that the designers for 4th edition will have the good sense to slay this sacred cow.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="GravyFingerz, post: 1522018, member: 77"] Alignment is an old and archaic tyrannical straight jacket. In the day, when D&D was a wargame, it might have been necessary to keep your players acting in a consistant manner; but that was before method acting and storytelling were wide spread in a role playing game. I've known many people who don't like alignment, and many more who see it as a straight jacket instead of a guideline. Most people don't understand alignment enough to use it well; if we are going to dumb down D&D, we might as well remove alignment because of it's hard to grasp concept. Nowadays, most player's are actors instead of wargamers. Most people pick an alignment and base their character's personality around it instead of the other way around; besides being hard to grasp and a straigt jacket, it stunts a characters growth by limiting your actions. Even worse, they've built more mechanics around it in 3rd edition. Detect alignment spells, alignment rebuking spells, weapons that deal special damage to those of a certain alignment; they've made it more integral to the system then it ever was back in 2nd, 1st, or basic editions of the game. If you use alignment, you're shooting yourself in the face. It's lazy and confining at the same time. Instead of making a personality for a character or a non-player character, let's just assign an alignment; because you know, [i]all[/i] Lawful Good people act the same. It's a crutch to the game. It's removal would simplify so many things and solve many problems. You wouldn't see all these newbs and evil wannabees with "neutral evil" on their character sheet. You think alignment is supposed to regulate them? Any competent DM worth his salt punishes evil PCs instead of whining about how they hate evil characters. IMHO, the most innovative system for alignment is the lack of one. I can only hope that the designers for 4th edition will have the good sense to slay this sacred cow. [/QUOTE]

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