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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 4005123" data-attributes="member: 42582">KM, thanks for the reply.Needless to say, we have a real disagreement here about the contribution of alignment to gameplay. I won't bang on about it, but just try to reiterate what my problem is in light of your comments.For me, D&D's alignment system detracts from philosophical complexity, because instead of leaving the problem of living a moral life as one for the player to resolve (through the way they roleplay their character, and the way the other playes and GM at the table respond to that) it becomes a problem that the game designers have already tried to answer (by defining Good and Evil in ch 6 of the PHB), which answer the GM has to apply from time to time (by responding to the player's casting of a Detect Alignment spell on him or herself).I also see the alignment as taking all the sting out of the Hobgoblin cleric encounter, because I (as a player) already know that I am not Evil like the Hobgoblin (I have LN written on my character sheet, after all). So there is no moral or thematic question to answer in play, just a combat to roleplay out.With alignment and the nature of evil already spelled out in play, the best one can get, therefore, is to play a game in which one gets to exlore the implications of the game designers' ideas of good and evil. But to be honest, if I want to do that sort of thing I'll read a book - and probably a book that is better written than most D&D material (which can be interesting, but is rarely great literature).I don't disagree with this - the Blood War can generate plots, and doesn't particularly get in the way of them. My problem is that it doesn't generate thematic development in play, because it already resolves the thematic question of the nature of evil.I'm not saying that 4e mandates the sort of "thematic developmen" play I am advocating here - as  I noted earlier, I suspect the primary motivation for changes to the mechanical framework for handling moral choices is a purely gamist one. But I think it opens the door to play that D&D (via alignment rules) has hitherto got in the way of.</blockquote>

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