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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5426094" data-attributes="member: 42582">Coldwyn, I'm personally not a big fan of using alignment in the way you describe - for getting into character - but I don't think there's anything wrong with it as game design. It's just not the design for me. But that's not what I was criticising in my OP. My intended target was (A)D&D alignment rules, which do involve the GM having the final say on the moral and aesthetic evaluation of PC conduct.A PC with a constraing "no falsehoods, ever" is a bit like the geas example that I interpreted Aberzanzorax as suggesting above. But this isn't alignment in the classic D&D sense - it's more like a personality disadvantage. I don't object in principle to a game in which a GM enforces personality disadvantages, although again they don't especially appeal to me. But D&D alignment isn't like this, because it doesn't use descriptors like "falsehoods", it uses evaluative descriptors like "good", "evil", "lawful" and "chaotic".As for the BoED point, I don't know it very well, but it does bring up a deeper issue about (A)D&D alignments. It's pretty clear that in 1st ed AD&D a paladin's Lawful Goodness was conceived of as a roleplaying disadvantage which balanced out some mechanical strengths of the class. In 3E I think this isn't the case, given both (i) posts of the designers to that effect back around 1999-2000, and (ii) the fact that the paladin is generally regarded as a non-overpowered class (and a paladin-monk even less overpowered, I would have thought). If the BoED is then once again trying to take the view that a strict alignment constraint is a disadvantage, I don't see how this all fits together in a coherent package.Furthermore, there is (in my mind) a deep question about the nature of the putative disadvantage. In 1st ed AD&D it's pretty clear that the disadvantage operates mostly at the ingame level - in a game based on dungeon exploration and looting, having to be a stalwart LG type is a disadvantage, as it puts limits on stealth, looting, killing and the like.In subsquent D&D play, however, where the field of action and goals of play are often much broader than traditional AD&D dungeon play, it's far less clear how being an honourable stalwart type is a disadvantage. I remember playing 2nd ed games where it was, in fact, a distinct advantage to be a stalwart LG type, because of the increased respect that this gave when dealing with NPCs.These days, it seems that the disadvantage is not so much one that plays out ingame, but one that plays out purely at the metagame level - namely, the player of this sort of PC runs the risk of being judged poorly by the GM and hence being mechanically penalised. I'll agree that that's a disadvantage. But I don't think it's a very good example of RPG design.</blockquote>

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