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<blockquote data-quote="FrozenNorth" data-source="post: 8289854" data-attributes="member: 7020832">This tends to touch upon one of the issues I have with alignment, so thanks for the example/analogy, [USER=6915329]@Faolyn[/USER] !Being in touch with you emotions gets coded as feminine, being stoic and emotional gets coded masculine.&nbsp; Social cues are enforced to discourage men from acting emotional, and we have an entire lexicon for women who don’t display enough emotion (women have it worse, because we have a ton of denigrating terms for women who display too much emotion as well).&nbsp; All this despite the fact that the root of the coding is fairly arbitrary.In alignment, “creative, artsy, emotional, flaky” gets coded chaotic.&nbsp; “organized, pedantic, calculating” gets coded lawful.&nbsp; This is just as arbitrary.&nbsp; Fortunately, you don’t end up with as much toxicity as “real men don’t cry”, but you still end up with exceedingly dumb rules.Like, bards can’t be lawful, they are all creative types busy having doomed romances with the NPCs.&nbsp; Barbarians from the extremely tradition-oriented Northern tribes can’t be lawful, have you seen how they fight?&nbsp; Monks can’t be chaotic, they train their minds and body to achieve perfect discipline!&nbsp; Of course if you free an imp from a cage they are going to feel a need to pay back that debt to even out the score !&nbsp; They’re Lawful Evil. Paladins that are laid-back and easygoing?&nbsp; Heresy!Fortunately, the above are no longer rules in 5e.&nbsp; However, I have seen a lot of players that have internalized these outdated tropes. It leads to more 1-dimensionsl characters and less diversity in character personalities at generation.We don’t need to teach new generations of players that Joffrey Baratheon is Chaotic Evil because he believes that he is entitled to do whatever he wants, rather than Lawful Evil because he believes that as the king of Westeros, his word is law, and that no one is more invested than he is in the current authoritarian structure (except maybe his mom).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="FrozenNorth, post: 8289854, member: 7020832"] This tends to touch upon one of the issues I have with alignment, so thanks for the example/analogy, [USER=6915329]@Faolyn[/USER] ! Being in touch with you emotions gets coded as feminine, being stoic and emotional gets coded masculine. Social cues are enforced to discourage men from acting emotional, and we have an entire lexicon for women who don’t display enough emotion (women have it worse, because we have a ton of denigrating terms for women who display too much emotion as well). All this despite the fact that the root of the coding is fairly arbitrary. In alignment, “creative, artsy, emotional, flaky” gets coded chaotic. “organized, pedantic, calculating” gets coded lawful. This is just as arbitrary. Fortunately, you don’t end up with as much toxicity as “real men don’t cry”, but you still end up with exceedingly dumb rules. Like, bards can’t be lawful, they are all creative types busy having doomed romances with the NPCs. Barbarians from the extremely tradition-oriented Northern tribes can’t be lawful, have you seen how they fight? Monks can’t be chaotic, they train their minds and body to achieve perfect discipline! Of course if you free an imp from a cage they are going to feel a need to pay back that debt to even out the score ! They’re Lawful Evil. Paladins that are laid-back and easygoing? Heresy! Fortunately, the above are no longer rules in 5e. However, I have seen a lot of players that have internalized these outdated tropes. It leads to more 1-dimensionsl characters and less diversity in character personalities at generation. We don’t need to teach new generations of players that Joffrey Baratheon is Chaotic Evil because he believes that he is entitled to do whatever he wants, rather than Lawful Evil because he believes that as the king of Westeros, his word is law, and that no one is more invested than he is in the current authoritarian structure (except maybe his mom). [/QUOTE]

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