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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lord Pendragon" data-source="post: 1789058" data-attributes="member: 707">Because alignment isn't subjective in D&D.  Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos are forces which exist in the multiverse.  Their natures do not change depending on how a person understands them.  This is patently different from the real world, where there is no Objective Good, nor an Objective Evil, Law, or Chaos.  So in the real world, subjectivity is the name of the game.  Not so in D&D.  Now, there are some (of which you would seem to be one), who prefer to play a D&D game that incorporates real-world moral relativity.  Most of them, however, remove the concept of alignment from the game at that point.  Maintaining alignment while removing the concept of objectivity creates a nonsensical system in which everyone would naturally be Good, because that's how they subjectively view themselves.  And, as you've put forth in your arguments, every society would be lawful, and every individual chaotic.  At that point, the labels lose their meaning.Fair enough.  I have never had such a problem.  There aren't any penalties for alignment shift for most characters (I avoid the word violation because I feel it again brings to mind the feeling that alignment is a set of rules that must be followed to avoid a penalty of some kind) so there aren't any problems, or even potential problems.  For classes that require a specific alignment to continue, I simply ask the player to justify why he has a certain alignment.  If his justification fits into the conceptualization I've described in previous posts, we're all good.  If not, we talk it through.Fair enough.  Perhaps I've just had good players in the past, but I've never had a problem making these sorts of rulings based on my system, either.This is a fine setup.  I honestly don't care to try and set up alignment conflict on the Law/Chaos axis.  Because at the end of the day, I don't think this axis is as important to most players, and thus most PCs, as the Good/Evil axis.  I can see how your system is very useful for those who do like to create such scenarios, however.I dislike this notion, because again it creates a very static paladin, (the monk, again, getting the unexplained exception).  In essence, paladins are no longer the Sir Galahads or Qi-Gon Jinns of the D&D world.  They're rent-a-cops.  Enforcing the law of wherever they happen to be.It depends on how the player has chosen to define the tenets of his alignment.  One player may decide that his PC is lawful because he is, in fact, law-abiding.  He believes that there must be Order in society, and going against that Order is wrong.  So if he then does that, he's commited a Chaotic act.  Then, if another character claims his character is Lawful because he's rational and disciplined, a uncharacteristic and emotion action would likely be Chaotic.  Basically, the player defines how his character is Lawful.To be perfectly honest, though, I rarely judge each and every action individually.  It's too much work for too little payoff.  Every so often, I go through all the characters and consider their actions as a whole, and if they seem to be acting contrary to their alignment, I assign a shift.Perhaps a better word would have been, "inspired."  Though I still think instinctual works.  I was using it in the "gut feeling" sense, rather than the animal instinct sense, which I think you know.  A Chaotic intelligent being's "instinctual" is not animal-instinct, but merely the fact that (as a generalization) they act from a gut instinct about what's right and wrong, whereas (as a generalization) a Lawful character would be more inclined to rationalize an action in their own mind.Animals, on the other hand, being non-intelligent, cannot appreciably exhibit Lawful or Chaotic tendancies, any more than a Construct can.</blockquote>

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