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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5432829" data-attributes="member: 42582">I'm not sure about framing it this way, because for most D&amp;D-layers, and for many other RPGers, to put alignment into the domain of &quot;world building&quot; is to put it into the domain of the GM - which is precisely what I am questioning.I think that it is first and foremost a gameplay issue. Once we have worked out what makes for a good game - and in my view, a game which encourages the GM to pass moral judgement on the players as part of administering the rules of the game is not a good game - we can then turn to the worldbuilding issue.It is completely possible to play a world in which (i) good is an expression of an irrefutable truth, and (ii) divine PCs obtain power from gods, and (iii) those gods care about their followers' behaviour, and yet in which the GM is not vested with power to enforce alignment rules. As I've said upthread, the way to achieve this result is to give the player the job of interpreting what good as an irrefutable truth means, and what his/her god wants. (If you have multiple players pf paladin PCs in your game, and they come into disagreement, things will get trickier. But I don't think you'll resolve those trickier issues by, in effect, inviting the GM to pick sides.)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 5432829, member: 42582"] I'm not sure about framing it this way, because for most D&D-layers, and for many other RPGers, to put alignment into the domain of "world building" is to put it into the domain of the GM - which is precisely what I am questioning. I think that it is first and foremost a gameplay issue. Once we have worked out what makes for a good game - and in my view, a game which encourages the GM to pass moral judgement on the players as part of administering the rules of the game is [I]not[/I] a good game - we can then turn to the worldbuilding issue. It is completely possible to play a world in which (i) good is an expression of an irrefutable truth, and (ii) divine PCs obtain power from gods, and (iii) those gods care about their followers' behaviour, and yet in which the GM is not vested with power to enforce alignment rules. As I've said upthread, the way to achieve this result is to give [I]the player[/I] the job of interpreting what good as an irrefutable truth means, and what his/her god wants. (If you have multiple players pf paladin PCs in your game, and they come into disagreement, things will get trickier. But I don't think you'll resolve those trickier issues by, in effect, inviting the GM to pick sides.) [/QUOTE]

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