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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5826330" data-attributes="member: 42582">My group talks about alignment from time to time, but I agree it works better than AD&D/3E (which I regard as fatally flawed). I think Basic does also. My own theory on this is that in both Basic and 4e alignment is not an attempt at a general moral classification. Rather it is tied to a particular cosmological situation (law vs chaos, or gods and order vs demons and primordial chaos) and locates the PC within that situation. Provided that the framing of the situation itself is not repugnant to anyone - and I think for most fantasy RPGers that would be unlikely - and provided that the game doesn't stray too far from the core conceits set up in the DMG and MMs, then the alignment system doesn't require anyone to make any controversial moral judgements.I would expect that a world like Dark Sun, that does stray from the relevant core conceits, could put a lot more pressure on the 4e alignment system, and would work better if it were dropped altogether.Would I be right in guessing that this is not a campaign that puts a lot of pressure on points of potential moral controversy? And/or that relies on well-known and shared sword and sorcery tropes and conventions?Your last clause seems a little question begging - it appears to imply that either what I play isn't D&D (or any other traditional RPG), or that I'm doing it in a non-suitable way!But I'm not the person who's having trouble with moral conflict at the table and trying but perhaps failing to achieve epic and meaty feel. And it's not because my players never confront situations in which evaluative matters are to the fore, nor that my players never disagree with or shock one another (or me). It's that the group has a range of techniques - mostly informal, but fairly easily identifiable - for dealing with this stuff.Not being a jerk is an important part of those techniques, but I think it is possible to be more precise than that about what they are.</blockquote>

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