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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jrowland" data-source="post: 6126007" data-attributes="member: 94389">Alignment, to me, means a measure of how well your morals and ethics "align" to some ideal. I may be moving NNE, but I am "aligned" with North, eg. If I move NE for a day, no big deal, as long as over the months trek I move mostly North.I think the 9 alignments are a little too much resolution. Good (Selfless), Evil (Selfish), Law (Authoritarian), Chaos (Libertarian) are probably enough (my shorthand in parenthesis. YMMV). Neutral is just another way of saying "not-aligned" and doesn't need to be codified. This makes for 4 strong flavors: LG, LE, CG, CE with a lot of grey in between. Then, when a player writes LG on their character sheet, we recognize it to mean "mostly" LG, and "mostly not" CE. From a RP perspective, if the player plays a "LG" character such that someone else might see it as LG, NG, or LN, we won't need to quibble. It's close enough. If we start seeing it as  CG, LE, or NN we might provide a warning (ie DM as deity) or some such, but really let it slide on individual acts only get concerned if its a steady pattern of behavior. However if a LG player plays his character such that CE, CN, or NE behavior, even in a singular incident, a warning is certainly justified (singular event) and divine retribution for persistent behavior.Keeping the number of alignments "small" means being a lot more lax in trying to "fit" actions. If these are then more broadly defined, I think restrictions for the paladin are less problematic. A LG character, no matter how broadly defined, would do CE acts persistently.Which brings me to my final point. If we assume an alignment system, and alignment-based penalties. There needs to be some kind of leeway for one-off behaviors and persistent behaviors. Maybe not codified as a mechanic, but certainly some guidance for DMs to adjudicate.</blockquote>

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