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Message: <blockquote data-quote="taliesin15" data-source="post: 4371054" data-attributes="member: 22058">The most frequent area where alignment comes into play IMC with low level characters, given that most players tend to be somewhere in the Chaotic Good to Neutral nexus, is what to do with prisoners, even if they are kobolds and suchlike. If they are captured combatants, the party has less of a moral problem with slitting their throats, but let's say its a kobold they have released from a torture rack in a section of a dungeon dominated by hobgoblins (a bunch of whom they have just vanquished). They are also troubled about letting such a creature, obviously suffering subdual damage and half-starved, go off on his own into the wilderness unarmed. The neutral PC says "to hell with him" but the Good PCs are very troubled about this.However, as several have pointed out, alignments aren't necessarily intended to be strictly followed. I can think of scores of Evil characters in fiction and myth that were capable of and did indeed perform Good acts on occasion. Much of the time these acts had selfish ramifications down the road. OTOH, the same can be said for Good characters. I've always found it a bit odd that Paladins, oh so goody two shoe knights they are, are so martial in their bearing and equipment.As a DM, I find alignments extremely useful in developing major NPC personae and even civilizations. The major human civilization (the one that speaks the "Common" tongue) is Chaotic Good--the ethos of this civilization is Freedom and Personal Liberty being the best approach to bring Good to all. That said, the urban centers aren't disorganized, there are indeed laws, but not very structured bureaucracies. There are courts and taxes, but they are very simply enacted. There are soldiers in the militia, but every man and woman fit enough to wield a spear has one.One of the rival civilizations is Lawful Evil, and this is the Slave Kingdom. Seems to me that LE and slavery goes hand in hand.IMHO, only Good characters would do acts of kindness without any personal selfish motive. And only Evil characters would perpetrate acts of cruelty which would seem capricious to non-Evil characters. I also like to use themes like the Nature of Evil (or other alignment) IMC.</blockquote>

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