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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6688742" data-attributes="member: 4937">[MENTION=32740]Man in the Funny Hat[/MENTION]: That's the sort of rant that I find I can half agree with.  On the one hand I want to just XP you and fully concur with your assessment that alignment has been so muddled over the years by different often contradictory descriptions, and that what players need is greater clarity, lists of what they are normally compelled or not compelled to do by the alignment and a way to easily and symmetrically judge  at least a high level where a particular set of beliefs ought to go in the grid.  Yes, I fully agree that alignment has never been presented well in D&D's published canon and that that is I think at the heart of why it is abandoned or scorned despite being an integral and novel part of D&D.But on the other hand, you seem to make the assumption that investigating philosophical concerns in game is not a part of fantasy play, and that the purpose of alignment is to handwave such concerns away so that the players can get on with whatever the real focus of play is.  And I kind of agree with you if what you mean is that clear alignment answers should stop OOC debates between the players, but what I think alignment should never do is take focus away from IC game debate, exploration, and examination of moral philosophy.  Because otherwise, we don't have much justification for making 'good' and 'evil' part of the story at all, and if no justification for that, then not much justification for playing fantasy which seems to be as a genera rather about heroism and consequently ethics and morality.   For example, most of the major works in the genera - The Lord of the Rings, the Earthsea Cycle, The Book of the New Sun, or even something like Chronicles of the Dragonlance or Feist's D&D inspired Riftwar Sage - are explicitly novel length explorations by their authors of what it means to be good, and even the fairy tale or the heroic epic which is the foundation of fantasy is fundamentally on the same theme.And finally, while I agree that greater clarity is desirable, and that simple to use lists are also desirable, I think it is also important to consider that I think more than anything it has been seemingly 'simple' lists provided for classes like Paladin, Ranger, and Cavalier that has led to the endless debates, table conflict, and frustration.   Because too often you see on those lists gamist imperatives like 'never run away' which lack a lot of the nuance and practical wisdom found in real world ethical codes and the arguments end up being over, "Was this meant fully literally?" (fundamentalism) or "It's the spirit of the thing that counts, and this it open to interpretation" (jurisprudence)?</blockquote>

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