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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fusangite" data-source="post: 1917591" data-attributes="member: 7240">Swrushing, thanks for getting me back on track here by referring me to an earlier quote on this thread. It reminded me that much of my problem with alignment stemmed from my experience as a GM, rather than my experience as a player.I am happy to concede that you guys have found some new ways to make the alignment mechanic function that I had not previously considered. You have made a compelling case that PC rangers, fighters, rogues, wizards and sorcerors need not be affected by the alignment rules in a proscriptive way. Although the rules take no actual position on whether alignment is derived by the GM from PC actions or chosen and lived-up to by the player, I think your idea for the GM controlling alignment instead of the player does, paradoxically, broaden the player's choices.But now you have brought me back to the reason I became so frustrated with the alignment mechanic in the first place and found it so unworkable: the playing of NPC adversaries. But in order to make the case about this, I need to return to some issues I let drop earlier in the thread.Language in the RulesEarlier in this thread, we had an argument about how to read the rules. For some people posting here, some rules were literally more true than others. The oft-quoted statement was seen as altering the meaning of other statements in the rules instead of merely contextualizing them. The argument was that this statement functioned much as "I come not to destroy the law but to fulfill it" works in mainstream Christian exegisis. I have a different take on how to read the rules. I assume that each rule is consistently and equally literally true as long as they do not have to contradict eachother. You will notice that there are three main kinds of language on pages 104 and 105 in the PHB. 1. Universal Declarative StatementsThese are declarative sentences that make unqualified statements about alignments, such as "law" implies honour, trustworthiness, obedience to authority and reliability." These statements in my opinion are always true. They are written using the same grammatical structures as rules like the description of the feat Cleave.2. Modal StatementsThese are statements that employ auxiliary verbs in order to indicate that they are only sometimes true. An example of such a statement is "lawfulness can (italics mine) include closed-mindedness, reactionary adherence to tradition, judgementalness and a lack of adaptability." They are written using very different grammatical structures than those employed in the rest of the rules.3. Conditional StatementsThese are statements that employ subjunctive clauses to indicate that they are only true under certain specified conditions or for certain sets of people. For example, "Those who consciously promote lawfulness (italics mine) say that only lawful behaviour creates a society in which people can depend on each other and make the right decision in full confidence that others will act as they should.I assume that the writers of the D&D rules know how to use English. That when they make a statement that is always true, they use grammatical structure #1. When they wish to make statements that are sometimes true, they use grammatical structures #2 or #3. So, in my reading of the Chaotic Evil alignment, it is always true that:It is sometimes (modally) true that: Similarly it is conditionally true that:Now, when compared against the above quotation, we can see that a literal reading of these rules in no way violates the assertion made earlier thatThere are a number of personalities and personality types who are "hot-tempered, vicious, arbitrarily violent and unpredictable" who make "haphazard" plans and form "disorganized" groups. Indeed, the format used to describe the chaotic evil alignment is used throughout the section. A universal declarative statement or set thereof is followed by a series of modal and conditional statements. Now, I suppose that one could argue that the rules are badly written and that the authors accidentally made a set of universal declarative statements when they really intended to make only conditional and modal statements. But I believe the only reasonable way to engage in a discourse about the rules is to assume that what they say is what they mean.Now, how does this impact playing NPCs? Am I not obliged, as a GM, to play a chaotic evil NPC in the way the rules describe the alignment chaotic evil? Unlike a player who doesn't directly control his character's alignment as per your ingenious model, as GM, I'm obliged to play an NPC as per the alignment description. I suppose I could change the alignment of every single NPC I played (except of course the ones with always in their alignment descriptor) but then one would have to wonder why NPCs even have alignments. If I am playing a chaotic evil NPC villain, a clear majority of his actions have to be "hot-tempered, vicious, arbitrarily violent and unpredictable." Otherwise it game balance becomes an issue -- essentially, while PCs' alignments and behaviour would be required to correlate, NPC alignments and behaviour would not. The moment I realized that the alignment mechanic was broken was when I was playing a Chaotic Evil duke whose objective was to open the gates to the Abyss under the city which he ruled. I realized that in order for him to rationally and efficiently achieve his goal, I would have to change his alignment. This seemed absurd; if he wasn't Chaotic Evil, why would he be opening the gates to a plane that was and not, say, to Hades, the plane with which he was aligned?So, I'll grant that alignment only functions proscriptively for all NPCs and 50% of PCs rather than the 100% of PCs I had originally imagined. I guess my failure to think of running alignment the way you do arose (a) from the fact I generally GM rather than working as a player and (b) from the fact that the rules don't actually suggest or allude to your way of running alignment (even though your way does not in any violate the rules and now strikes me as a better way to go).</blockquote>

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