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<blockquote data-quote="Lorithen" data-source="post: 8922309" data-attributes="member: 6674619">Outside such things as aligned magic items and evil temples, alignment has come up two different ways in the campaigns I've played in:(1) How characters are actually played in-game, i.e. part of the expression of their personalities.&nbsp;&nbsp; Are they malicious, self-centred, psychopathic, and vindictive in their behaviour -- or are they kind, helpful, generous, and charitable?&nbsp;&nbsp; Do they obey all laws -- or are they free spirits?(2) Where the player chooses to play a class (e.g. Assassin) where that class must be &quot;Evil&quot; no matter how &quot;goodly&quot; that character is actually played in-game because the 1e Players Handbook says that &quot;Assassins are evil&quot; (p. 28). The class is defined as &quot;evil&quot; and thus the character is, even if they don't murder innocent peasants or poison the town's water supply. This automatic categorization might restrict the options for how a player develops the personality of their character; i.e. for anyone who has read C.J. Cherryh's &quot;Foreigner&quot; series and wants to play a D&amp;D assassin based on the character Jago for example (whom one could argue is a goodly assassin), it might not be possible.&nbsp; Or, they might go ahead and try to play what could be, for all intents and purposes a &quot;Good&quot; assassin personality-wise, but get classified as being &quot;Evil&quot; anyway.This point &quot;2&quot; sounds to me like a good reason to ditch class-based alignment restrictions, if they limit opportunities for &quot;playing personalities.&quot;</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Lorithen, post: 8922309, member: 6674619"] Outside such things as aligned magic items and evil temples, alignment has come up two different ways in the campaigns I've played in: (1) How characters are actually played in-game, i.e. part of the expression of their personalities. Are they malicious, self-centred, psychopathic, and vindictive in their behaviour -- or are they kind, helpful, generous, and charitable? Do they obey all laws -- or are they free spirits? (2) Where the player chooses to play a class (e.g. Assassin) where that class must be "Evil" no matter how "goodly" that character is actually played in-game because the 1e Players Handbook says that "Assassins are evil" (p. 28). The class is defined as "evil" and thus the character is, even if they don't murder innocent peasants or poison the town's water supply. This automatic categorization might restrict the options for how a player develops the personality of their character; i.e. for anyone who has read C.J. Cherryh's "[I]Foreigner[/I]" series and wants to play a D&D assassin based on the character Jago for example (whom one could argue is a goodly assassin), it might not be possible. Or, they might go ahead and try to play what could be, for all intents and purposes a "Good" assassin personality-wise, but get classified as being "Evil" anyway. This point "2" sounds to me like a good reason to ditch class-based alignment restrictions, if they limit opportunities for "playing personalities." [/QUOTE]

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