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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cadfan" data-source="post: 4939619" data-attributes="member: 40961">You asked for alignment supports.  Sorry.  I'm not one and I'm going to post anyways. 1. Its important to distinguish between alignment as concept and alignment as specified by the rules.  The rules have cracks.  For example, a low level cleric of an evil deity registers as "moderately evil" to magical detection, but a level 9 fighter who got to level 9 purely by butchering tax delinquent peasants in the service of a wicked duke would register as only slightly evil, the same outcome the system presumes would register for someone who is simply greedy and wretched but has never amounted to anything actually sinister. 2. There's also the fact that some alignment categories just never quite came across as clear.  Is the person with a wholly private, good moral code lawful good because he has a moral code?  Or chaotic good because he rejects society's code?  Lots of people believe they know the objective answer to that, but unfortunately lots of them disagree with one another. 3. I've found that most people who feel that alignment is crystal clear tend to have strong personal moral codes, but conversely, to have a great deal of difficulty understanding that someone else might have a different strong personal moral code.  I'm not saying that you fall into this category.  But, well, there are different moral systems out there.  Some people have a very categorical view of morality where certain acts are just plain good or just plain bad.  Others look at intentions.  Still others look at consequences.  Most people look at a mixture that's weighted in some manner.  And a fair percentage of people believe they're in one category, but actually fall in another, or have elaborate rationalizations that allow them to use the morality of a different category without admitting that they're doing so. 4. People with different expectations will have problems using the same alignment system in the same game.  For example, one player might make the reasonable, though incorrect, assumption that because his class is described as smiting evil, and because he has a magical spell that tells him who is or isn't evil, that he can use that spell to find evil things and then smite them.  Meanwhile the DM might feel that evil lurks in the hearts of many, but only those who are really really evil deserve smiting.  The ubiquitous tavern keeper who waters the beer, overcharges, and exploits his hired help detects as evil- the player automatically assumes that this means that the tavern keeper must secretly be a horrible person who has committed heinous crimes.  He's EVIL!  God literally said so!  So now he's howling for the tavern keeper to repent or face his blade, and the DM is angry at the paladin for being a zealot, and things degrade from there. 5. This gets especially bad when DMs want to include moral choice or shades of gray, and their players do not share identical moral beliefs.  At least half of the threads with players claiming that their DM screwed over their paladin, or threads with a DM complaining that his paladin's player isn't living up to his code, are a result of the DM and the Player having different moral beliefs.  It usually goes something like this: The DM puts forward a moral problem, like, will you kill the presently innocent goblin child who's prophecied to throw down civilization in a rain of blood?  Or will you let him live, and fulfill his destiny?  The DM is thinking that this will be difficult, because killing innocent goblin children is wrong, but letting the goblin child live will be worse in terms of consequences.  But the player doesn't think about morality the same way the DM does.  He kills the goblin child instantly, perhaps because he cares more about consequence than deontology, perhaps because he has a more intentions based morality, or perhaps because he views inaction as the same as action and believes that he would be equally culpable either way.  The DM is outraged.  The paladin committed an evil act!  He must be punished!  The rulebook says so! In effect this DM is using his position as dungeon master to punish his player for not having the same moral beliefs that he does.  And next thing you know they're all on ENWorld trying to gather support for themselves from people who are equally willing to judge the moral beliefs of others as not only objectively wrong, but as self evidently objectively wrong. That's just one example.  But its a basic problem- how do you handle a game where "evil" is supposedly defined objectively, but where people who disagree on the nature of evil have to do the actual work of defining it on a day to day basis? 6. Normal rules of morality don't fit the D&D world.  A lot of normal rules of morality that most people accept exist because, in real life, there's no such thing as an intrinsically evil sentient being.  Everyone's born just about the same, and things go from there.  In D&D you have two levels of intrinsic evil- first, you've got the flat out intrinsic evil creatures, ie, the "always evil" ones.  Then, you've got the "usually evil" ones that seem to be evil based on some sort of genetic or cultural predisposition.  In real life we don't have these things, so we have extensive mores about not prejudging people.  But if it was possible for some people to just plain be born EVIL, wouldn't our rules adapt?  This mismatch causes problems at the game table. 7. What did alignment really add?  If its just shorthand, was it needed shorthand?  Would a section of the book on roleplaying have worked just as well? 8. To a certain extent some of the problems listed above are going to happen with or without an alignment system.  But the alignment system does manage to highlight and bring these problems to the forefront.  I'm not sure that what it adds is worth it.</blockquote>

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