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<blockquote data-quote="(Psi)SeveredHead" data-source="post: 3745878" data-attributes="member: 1165">It doesn't have to be, and often isn't.Amoral mercs are more fun, although of course you have to draw a line somewhere (no torture, no murder, etc); neutral rather than evil.Too many DMs feel that &quot;alignment defines actions&quot; rather than &quot;actions define alignment&quot;; some players also fall into this trap, eg &quot;I can't do [this] because I'm lawful&quot;. I usually slap &quot;N&quot; on my character sheet, which means that if the DM feels the alignment should change, they don't see red (unlike if I put something like &quot;NG&quot; or &quot;LN&quot; on the sheet instead). It doesn't help that WotC hasn't put up a good definition of what chaos and law mean.Some WoD settings, like Vampire, have a &quot;humanity&quot; mechanic that basically acts like alignment, on a sliding scale. If a character's humanity drops to zero, they basically go insane and become an NPC. Even vampire PCs who don't kill humans by drinking blood (only drink a little from a lot of humans, for instance) could be &quot;screwed&quot; by a Storyteller who has the victim turn out to be a hemophiliac and die ... that costs a point of humanity, despite not being the character's fault. (Well ok, that's a bad GM story, but WoD does have something like an alignment system, or at least the old version did.)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="(Psi)SeveredHead, post: 3745878, member: 1165"] It doesn't have to be, and often isn't. Amoral mercs are more fun, although of course you have to draw a line somewhere (no torture, no murder, etc); neutral rather than evil. Too many DMs feel that "alignment defines actions" rather than "actions define alignment"; some players also fall into this trap, eg "I can't do [this] because I'm lawful". I usually slap "N" on my character sheet, which means that if the DM feels the alignment should change, they don't see red (unlike if I put something like "NG" or "LN" on the sheet instead). It doesn't help that WotC hasn't put up a good definition of what chaos and law mean. Some WoD settings, like Vampire, have a "humanity" mechanic that basically acts like alignment, on a sliding scale. If a character's humanity drops to zero, they basically go insane and become an NPC. Even vampire PCs who don't kill humans by drinking blood (only drink a little from a lot of humans, for instance) could be "screwed" by a Storyteller who has the victim turn out to be a hemophiliac and die ... that costs a point of humanity, despite not being the character's fault. (Well ok, that's a bad GM story, but WoD does have something like an alignment system, or at least the old version did.) [/QUOTE]

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