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Message: <blockquote data-quote="HeavenShallBurn" data-source="post: 4228440" data-attributes="member: 39593">I'm here to Godwin this hyar thread.... Everyone's Nazis and they just don't realize it yet.Now that you've been Godwinned let's at least be reasonable.  4e alignment is different, given that everything in 4e is different this isn't unexpected.  Some of us like it, some don't.  Toss the coin again.  But I see a lot of hate on for a system that I always liked.  Alignment, especially that it had tangible mechanical features, was one of the things that separated D&D from any number of other RPGs.  Old alignment was more than just a scope for relativistic wailing about various ethical codes.  Alignment was a way of showing that relativism didn't exist in D&D.  Good wasn't just something that you claimed you were, it was a real objective force of the cosmos and a characters position on it was also choosing sides in an eternal metaphysical battle.  You couldn't just say, "but yes I'm Good."   Barring magical intervention a cleric or paladin could actually examine you and tell whether your soul resonated with the energy's of the alignment you claimed to be on the side of.  Honestly from the explanations of alignment I'm seeing here most people are so versed in relativism that they don't get just how truly Olde School the old 9 point alignment is.  It's a totally non-relativist system.  Thoughts, feelings, or justifications are meaningless to it, as are the mores of societies.  It's all about the act itself, very Kantian in a way, and approaching it from a utilitarian viewpoint as many are is guaranteed to scramble it up because it denies utilitarianism.  Certain things are in and of themselves aligned with a particular metaphysical force (Good, Evil, Law, Chaos & Neutrality).  Individual perception is meaningless to ultimate nature.  And to further complicate things it draws the lines of what acts fall under what force in a way that doesn't match modern 1st world ethical structures.  Notice all the the people pointing to neutrality and saying not caring whether others are hurt is evil?  That presumes the act of harming something is evil in and of itself, a view that even now you only find in sheltered places.  Basically to understand alignment you have to toss moral relativism over one shoulder and take a metaphysical journey to a more Hammurabian view.</blockquote>

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