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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Remathilis" data-source="post: 4003215" data-attributes="member: 7635">While at first blush, I want to agree with you, I don't know if I can anymore. I used to make a deep argument for alignment as a guidepost to roleplaying, but lately (since playing a lot of Star Wars) I've wondered what exactly that guidepost pointed to...A Ogre, Bugbear, Gnoll and Werewolf are all CE. What does that tell you about each of them? Well, it means they disregard life, act on instinct and generally do not play well with others. However, an ogre is a stupid engine of destruction, a gnoll is a sadistic hunter, a bugbear is an oversized bully and a werewolf is a barely sane beast that would just as soon eat you as anything else. But does "CE" tell you that? Does it alone lead you to gnolls being cunning and orge's dumb "smash" types? Does it really tell us anything more than "these guys are evil and generallly anarchist?" The same goes for LE: a kobold, rakshasa, and hobgoblin are all LE, but what exactly does "lawful" and "evil" tell you about them? What makes them different, what unifies their beliefs? You can repeat this for each alignment until pretty soon, you see that the L/N/C axis isn't at all useful for determining anything (lawful: obeys laws? organized? code of honor?) and creatures tend to be Good (morally nice), Evil (morally bankrupt), or unaligned (somewhere between good and evil) and pretty soon it starts to look like 4e's alignment.</blockquote>

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