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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fusangite" data-source="post: 1908888" data-attributes="member: 7240">Now that we have all essentially agreed that D&D categories, be they skills, attributes or whatever are essentially aggregate categories of more specific information, the real question then becomes: does this particular category about which I am speaking work?Now, you'll recall back in the gold ol' days of those boxed sets of the early 80s, alignment had only one axis. It used to be that there were only three alignments instead of nine. For whatever reason, we moved to a two-axis system because the previous system of categorizing didn't serve us.Dr. Nuncheon, I'm not arguing that alignment be abolished; I'm simply stating that the current system of categorization does not serve us either so we should decide whether the law-chaos axis represents conduct or political ideology. I don't even care which one. The problem is that when it purports to represent both, it effectively represents neither. This is not a problem when it comes to Dexterity as an attribute. Dexterity does not sometimes mean its own opposite. This is because it is a functional aggregate measure whereas the law-chaos axis of alignment is a dysfunctional aggregate measure. Note: I'm not attacking the good-evil axis; I don't especially like but it is actually descriptive and functional.And, as a previous poster very eloquently pointed out, the way that it describes political ideologies again serves to drum meaning out of the category. If believing in having a guaranteed bill of individual rights is lawful and opposed by chaotics and believing in having individual rights is chaotic and opposed by the lawful, our categories are not serving us. By all means, let's have law and chaos but let's actually have them mean something instead of the current system where they mean so many contradictory things that they cease to be a useful tool for anything other than calculating damage from lawful and chaotic weapons and spells.Finally, I want to reiterate the complaint I made when I posted this: if alignment is behaviour and being chaotic evil prevents you from acting rationally in your own interest, in pursuit of your own goals, why doesn't this balance-obsessed game find a way to compensate you for that?</blockquote>

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