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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5799539" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't want to violate any board rules in disagreeing with this claim, but I will say that I've read a lot of moral philosophy, including by more-or-less contemporary Catholic philosophers like Anscombe and Tony Coady, and by classical thinkers like Plato and Aristotle, and I can tell you that D&D alignment, both as written in the rulebooks and (at least in my experience) as it comes out in play, bears no relationship to their writings.And Gygax in AD&D himself defines Good by reference to the political values specified in the Declaration of Independence and comparable enlightenment-derived accounts of "the rights of man"/human rights. So I'm not entirely sure that he agrees with you.And lets look at a well-known literary treatment of Norse myth - Wagner's Ring Cycle. As the story unfolds, Wotan repeatedly finds himself constrained by the pacts that he has entered into, and is caught in the paradox of trying to create a free man who can liberate him from them. In the end, the free man - Siegfried - arises in spite of Wotan's attempt to prevent it happening, shatters Wotan's staff despite Wotan's attempts to dissaude him, and together with Brunhilde precipitates the events that usher in the new world - which will be a place of wonderful rather than oprressive beauty and order. Is Wotan Lawful? Neutral? Neutral Good (which, from memory, is how DDG labels him)? Chaotic - because in the end, he would rather the world end than that it continue in its unsatisfactory condition?The narrative of order vs chaos is obviously a hugely engaging one, but in my view you don't get that engagement in your game by labelling things lawful and chaotic. You get that engagement by setting up compelling situations - as (in my view, at least) Wagner does, and then reflecting on them or - in the case of an RPG - engaging with them via play.Maybe not, but I was suggesting that this could be a useful thing - if alignments are defined less by abstract notions and more by reference to the PC archetypes they are associated with, alignment could perhaps be turned into a useful set of guidelines for characterisation (which is how I see it in 4e and Basic) than as a morality hammer for the GM to wield against players (which is how I see it in AD&D).Yes, I followed that.I could go with this, and I think that it is implicit in the 4e paladin class, but I suspect that this is controversial among a wide range of players, who want Chaotic champions, paladins of Tritherion and the like.In this case, alignment adjudication would have to be taken out of the GM's hands - it would be like (for example) default racial personalities, which are (at least at most tables, I would think) a matter of group consensus and negotiation, with each player having ultimate say over his/her PC. Personally, I don't expect 5e to go this way - I am getting a pretty backwards-looking vibe, especially when it comes to the way story elements are to be established and adjudicated - but maybe I'm wrong.But you don't need alignment restrictions for this, I don't think - artwork and example PCs can go a long way here, can't they? I mean, in AD&D a dwarf PC and an elf PC can both be of any alignment, but nevertheless we all know that dwarves are dour and methodical whereas elves are witty and flighty.</blockquote>

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