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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SurfaceBeneath" data-source="post: 4942046" data-attributes="member: 85512">First off, I don't think alignment is all that necessary in most campaigns. Really, if you're running just about any type of campaign, chances are you're characters are neutral to good, but don't really think about it so much. And that's fine. Alignment only really becomes important in Planescapesque settings where your character's beliefs actually play a huge part of the gameplay and one is regularly dealing with otherworlds and morality. And I've not really seen too many Planescape players with gripes about the old alignment system, as it's only in those books that I believe alignment was really well defined. Now I adore the old 9 Alignments. Wheras many saw it as an unrealistically rigid system, I see only flexibility. The problem I believe was how alignment was communicated and what it meant. First off, and this has been hit on many times in this thread, it's not something that is supposed to determine your character's actions. The other way around. Alignment should shift and ebb depending on what your characters think and do. Alignment shifts shouldn't be common (or else people might not be roleplaying seriously in the first place) but they can happen. It is descriptive, not proscriptive.I think the major consternation with alignment is that it was never communicated properly, especially along the law-chaos axis. In relation to good-evil, most people just couldn't see whether your character obeyed laws or disrupted them made any real sense. Lawful Good people and Neutral Good people both want to do good right? If the laws in an area are only for the benefit of all, does that mean that by following these laws the Neutral Good person must become Lawful Good? And for that matter, what's the difference between a Lawful Evil person and a Neutral Evil person who both use laws to their advantage. And what's the deal with Chaotic Neutral anyway, is that just giving your character a liscence to act utterly ridiculous and random at any point they wish (to the annoyance of the other players)? Well, I can explain the differences quite clearly.Good - Evil = This one is pretty easy and most people generally agree one a pretty basic interpretation. A character's relationship to other people. If they are selfless, treat other people as equal or above themselves, and get enjoyment out of helping others, then they are Good. If they are selfish, treat other people as below themselves, and have to make the lives of others worse in order to feel better about themselves, than they are evil. Neutral people are selfish to a degree in that they generally have their other concerns at the forefront, however they do seem to also respect other people enough not to step on toes and don't necessarily see themselves as better than others, though they expect people to generally help themselves.Law - Chaos = Now here's the doozy. The Law - Chaos axis is used to determine a character's relationship with their environment. This means that the Law - Chaos axis is concerned not with how people should behave towards each other, but rather what the ideal world should be. A Lawful person believes that the world tends towards stability, that peace and harmony bring out the best in others, and that people are simply happier in a routine environment. Chaotic people on the other hand beleive that excessive rules are not natural, that conflict brings out the best in others, and that people are happier when they are free to do as the wish. Neutral people don't particularly care one way or the other how the world around them is ordered or they function best when their lives have a general routine but are not overly disrupted when change occurs.Part of the problem is in the very wording of the alignment names. The Lawful adjective is improperly named for the most part. A Lawful character, to me, doesn't necessarily have to obey the laws of any society they're in. A better term for Lawful should have been Ordered. Think of the extreme of an OCD person. They have strict rules that must be adhered to in order for them to be at peace. The kicker is, Lawful people don't necessarily have to obey the law at all, especially in areas where they think that the Laws lead to unrest and discordance (and laws can do this). What's important is that the Lawful person have their own codes of conduct and ideas of what the proper way to act in an environment is that would foster the most harmony and follow this as best they can. Ideals of honor and tradition are obviously extremely lawful.Chaotic is probably an appropriate term for the opposite side of ordered, though I like to think that it might be a bit too extreme. A chaos minded person thrives in an environement that is more fluid and murcurial. They enjoy conflict, but this doesn't have to be in a violent or combative sense... a Chaotic Good person would most probably adore romance and debates. A chaotic person can exist in a place and follow every rule in a society to the letter, but only so long as it suits them or they do not feel that they are trapped in a routine that stifles them. They don't necessarily have to go out and purposefully break laws, they just don't pay laws any heed and will obey them only as long as it is convenient for them to.Remember that while Good and Evil might be more relatable moral absolutes to many of us, in many cultures it was more admirable and highly looked upon to be honorable to your ancestors and promote a stable environment. Times and places like feudal Japan and China, behaving in an Ordered manner was much more highly regarded than behaving in a Good or charitable manner. They considered morality more than just how one treated others but more about how one existed in relationship to your world. So perhaps it's a culture difference that explains why many have a hard time coping with alignment.Anyways, going back to my original statement, if you feel that alignment doesn't add anything to your game, you simply should just throw it out. It's simply flavor or perhaps a guide that helps players try to put themselves in the shoes of their characters (especially if they're trying to play a character whose beliefs are very different from their own). It's pretty important in my Planescape campaign, but I can't really see it mattering much in most. However you feel about alignment though, I think we all have to admit that the new system is pretty dumb. I would have been fine with them simplifying it down to Good - Neutral - Evil, however having Super Good and Super Evil (my table has taken to calling it Autobot and Decepticon alignments) and then associating goodness with lawfulness and evil with chaotic...ness is so stupid it should require a patent. Luckily, of course, this is a pretty easy thing to just throw out completely.Cheers!</blockquote>

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