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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5423424" data-attributes="member: 42582">Aus Snow, I can see what you're saying about Pendragon. I'm not sure what the proper response should be (given the overall logic of my position) - my first stab at it would be to say (i) that it's much more grounded in the setting, which has a very rich source material supporting its canons of knightly behaviour, and (ii) it's also much more grounded in a shared understanding of the rules, rather than the GM's interpretation of very abstract and general evaluative concepts (such as good and evil).On your last sentence, I GM 4e these days and my players have alignments on their character sheets. I'm happy enough with the way 4e uses alignment as a type of shorthand for a morality of heroic fantasy,* and also has dropped the line from earlier editions that alignment is distinct from personality - instead treating it as one aspect of personality. In 4e, alignment isn't a tool the GM can use for controlling PC behaviour by the threat (to the player) of mechanically gutting that PC, so it doesn't fall foul of the critique in my OP.*Another of my gripes about AD&amp;D/3E alignment is the implied claim that alignment is a more-or-less universal tool for the moral characterisation of human behaviour. I think it's obviously not, and think 4e does a much better job of realising this, and confining and tailoring it to the fantasy genre (in this respect I think 4e is closer to OD&amp;D and Basic - surely no one thought that Law/Chaos was a genrally useful moral scheme, as opposed to one that worked for characters and situations built around particular fantasy tropes). But this aspect of classic D&amp;D alignment doesn't have the same sort of unhappy consequences for gameplay as the points I make in my OP.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 5423424, member: 42582"] Aus Snow, I can see what you're saying about Pendragon. I'm not sure what the proper response should be (given the overall logic of my position) - my first stab at it would be to say (i) that it's much more grounded in the setting, which has a very rich source material supporting its canons of knightly behaviour, and (ii) it's also much more grounded in a shared understanding of the rules, rather than the GM's interpretation of very abstract and general evaluative concepts (such as [I]good[/I] and [I]evil[/I]). On your last sentence, I GM 4e these days and my players have alignments on their character sheets. I'm happy enough with the way 4e uses alignment as a type of shorthand for a morality of heroic fantasy,* and also has dropped the line from earlier editions that alignment is distinct from personality - instead treating it as one aspect of personality. In 4e, alignment [I]isn't[/I] a tool the GM can use for controlling PC behaviour by the threat (to the player) of mechanically gutting that PC, so it doesn't fall foul of the critique in my OP. *Another of my gripes about AD&D/3E alignment is the implied claim that alignment is a more-or-less universal tool for the moral characterisation of human behaviour. I think it's obviously not, and think 4e does a much better job of realising this, and confining and tailoring it to the fantasy genre (in this respect I think 4e is closer to OD&D and Basic - surely no one thought that Law/Chaos was a genrally useful moral scheme, as opposed to one that worked for characters and situations built around particular fantasy tropes). But this aspect of classic D&D alignment doesn't have the same sort of unhappy consequences for gameplay as the points I make in my OP. [/QUOTE]

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