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<blockquote data-quote="Steampunkette" data-source="post: 8290594" data-attributes="member: 6796468">The point of D&amp;D Alignment isn't to show what your philosophy is or what nation you're allied with. It's there to represent a foundational cornerstone of a protagonist's or antagonist's moral positioning.A LE character can be a Kantian Deontologist who just goes against his moral code while obeying laws that are enforced by others. Or a Consequentialist who holds to his moral philosophy regardless of the people harmed along the way. Or he can adhere to Subjective Morality. Or Nihilism. Or be an Existentialist who doesn't care who he hurts because they'll just go to D&amp;D heaven, anyway, so who cares whether they die now or 30 years from now?By providing that moral positioning, you can develop other aspects of that character.When I played in 2e I was a kid, so I copied stuff from other materials to develop characters before finding my own voice. One of them was a -clear- Raistlin Majere clone and I'm not ashamed of that, remotely.By playing a Lawful Evil Protagonist I was able to explore Antiheroic Characters at 13 years old, well before they became a staple of Primetime TV and Cable Television. If that character's alignment had been &quot;To the crown&quot; that wouldn't have let me be a wicked person doing the right thing for the wrong reasons.Or, at least, not with any sort of formality. And other players in the party would've questioned why my heroic character was doing bad things. But knowing that he was LE gave them a solid anchor on that particular aspect of his personality and direction.For a lot of people, ignoring alignment doesn't really matter. And some people find other details more useful in defining their characters. And that's cool? Don't use it if you don't like it/want it/need it/whatever. But it's very useful for some of us. Particularly starting out.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Steampunkette, post: 8290594, member: 6796468"] The point of D&D Alignment isn't to show what your philosophy is or what nation you're allied with. It's there to represent a foundational cornerstone of a protagonist's or antagonist's moral positioning. A LE character can be a Kantian Deontologist who just goes against his moral code while obeying laws that are enforced by others. Or a Consequentialist who holds to his moral philosophy regardless of the people harmed along the way. Or he can adhere to Subjective Morality. Or Nihilism. Or be an Existentialist who doesn't care who he hurts because they'll just go to D&D heaven, anyway, so who cares whether they die now or 30 years from now? By providing that moral positioning, you can develop other aspects of that character. When I played in 2e I was a kid, so I copied stuff from other materials to develop characters before finding my own voice. One of them was a -clear- Raistlin Majere clone and I'm not ashamed of that, remotely. By playing a Lawful Evil Protagonist I was able to explore Antiheroic Characters at 13 years old, well before they became a staple of Primetime TV and Cable Television. If that character's alignment had been "To the crown" that wouldn't have let me be a wicked person doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. Or, at least, not with any sort of formality. And other players in the party would've questioned why my heroic character was doing bad things. But knowing that he was LE gave them a solid anchor on that particular aspect of his personality and direction. For a lot of people, ignoring alignment doesn't really matter. And some people find other details more useful in defining their characters. And that's cool? Don't use it if you don't like it/want it/need it/whatever. But it's very useful for some of us. Particularly starting out. [/QUOTE]

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