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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3298356" data-attributes="member: 4937">I think that is the key.  Players that act like that normally have a conceptual problem understanding even what RPing is.  Instead, they see RPG's as just another competive game where winning is defined as 'beating the DM' and to that end 'aquiring loot' and 'becoming powerful' (to make it easier to beat the DM).  All of which is a strong Chaotic Evil stance, or as some have called it 'Chaotic Greedy'.  For most of these players, alignment is something you put your character sheet in order to gain advantages - much like choosing a feat or a spell.  What annoys these players about people who choose 'Lawful Alignments' is that they see 'lawful' as a drawback with no real corresponding advantages.  Quite often, they see 'good' in much the same way, like this was a character flaw in some fashion.  They see your choice to be 'lawful' as at best a 'mis-play' and at worst as anti-social (ironic, huh) - just you being difficult for no reason - like playing a blind character or a lame character not because you are trying to min/max but 'just because'.  As far as they are concerned, you are interfering with the goal of the game - beating the DM.Because you are playing a different game than they are, or at least that they think that they are.  I think it's not fair to suggest that most of these players are playing 'common thugs' because they get a kick out of it (though some are).  Instead, they are adopting a strictly neutral stance of the sort you'd have when playing checkers.  'Killing' a checker peice doesn't have any moral value.  It's just a game peice, and because its a game, you are expected to try as hard as you can to win.  Be ruthless.  Doing anything else is 'rude' and poor sportsmanship.  They are playing an RPG like a checker game, often as encouraged to do so by experience with computer RPG's (which rarely are about anything more than beating them and doing what it takes to beat them).  The upshot of this though is that thier characters act like common thugs.Let me throw a flame out there.  I've never ever met a player who wanted to toss out the alignment system that wasn't at some level wanting to play the game that way.  That goes right back to the 'King and Country' article in Dragon 101, in which the author - zealous but misguided DM that he was - argued that the alignment system was wrong because it prevented King Arthur from allying with Orcs, something that King Arthur would be (in his mind) clearly motivated to do because Arthur's primary motivation was (naturally, what else could it be?) to win. I'm not kidding you.  That's the crux of his argument (and alot like it).  I got a big guffaw out of that.</blockquote>

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