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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9737298" data-attributes="member: 6790260">I've never found it all that rich in most cases. What would you say makes it so? I find the Vampire/Werewolf/etc. stuff dramatically more rich, because it aims at something simultaneously more concrete and yet harder to exclusively quantify.That isn't to say I dislike it--as noted above, I think it has a place--I just see it as particularly flat, at least the way most GMs run it. It's a rare, rare GM that can make it richly engaging.I'm very much a fan of objective morality myself, so I guess that means I have to fall into the former camp, but I'm not really sure how. My issue with the way alignment is usually done is that it's functionally treated like team jerseys, except the GM vacillates between 100% pure team-jersey mode and pretty strident "no no no, it really MEANS something to be <Evil/Good/whatever>". This results in either constantly vacillating, or outright capricious implementation, where sometimes it's coded objective morality woven into the universe itself, and other times it's the color of explosions you make and which team you root for. That, to me, looks less like "GMs using it to play the PCs for them" and much more like "it's an allegedly rigorous standard that is anything but rigorous."An...interesting take. Particularly when the way alignment is used in D&D is, extraordinarily frequently, exclusively as a source of punishment for incorrect behavior.What exactly rewards alignment? 3rd edition Paladins and Clerics weren't rewarded, it was the constant Sword of Damocles over their heads. Aligned weapons were no reward, since they cut both ways. Aligned spells, likewise. So...what's the reward perspective here? I'm genuinely coming up empty on this one.</blockquote>

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