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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5437198" data-attributes="member: 42582">I guess my feeling is, if we're going to play a game in which important moral quetions aren't raised, then why have it at all? For example, what's the point of saying &quot;In this world it is chaotic to pick your nose!&quot; When did anything interesting in a game ever turn on whether or not a PC picks his/her nose?But in fact the alignment rules in AD&amp;D (at least first ed) and 4e are intended to capture ordinary understandings of good and evil, at least by my reading. Gygax, for example, says that assassins must be evil because killing sentient beings for profit is the opposite of weal - this explanation only makes sense if &quot;evil&quot; and &quot;weal&quot; have their ordinary meanings. (It's certainly not a clumsy attempt to stipulate that, in the gameworld, right-minded people don't like assassins.)EDIT: In practice alignment tends to come up in relation to sexual matters (eg Sir Cedric the paladin), in relation to killing and mercy (be it prisoners, fighting town guards, or whatever) and in relation to obedience to local authorities (law-breaking paladins, etc). These are issues that people have real world opinions about.Again, if your paladin is never confronted by a local authority figure, or local law or custom, that raises the question &quot;Should I obey or rebel?&quot; then there is no need to have an alignment requirement, as your paladin would be complying with authority in any event.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 5437198, member: 42582"] I guess my feeling is, if we're going to play a game in which important moral quetions aren't raised, then why have it at all? For example, what's the point of saying "In this world it is chaotic to pick your nose!" When did anything interesting in a game ever turn on whether or not a PC picks his/her nose? But in fact the alignment rules in AD&D (at least first ed) and 4e [I]are[/I] intended to capture ordinary understandings of good and evil, at least by my reading. Gygax, for example, says that assassins must be evil because killing sentient beings for profit is the opposite of weal - this explanation [I]only makes sense[/I] if "evil" and "weal" have their ordinary meanings. (It's certainly not a clumsy attempt to stipulate that, in the gameworld, right-minded people don't like assassins.) EDIT: In practice alignment tends to come up in relation to sexual matters (eg Sir Cedric the paladin), in relation to killing and mercy (be it prisoners, fighting town guards, or whatever) and in relation to obedience to local authorities (law-breaking paladins, etc). These are issues that people have real world opinions about. Again, if your paladin is never confronted by a local authority figure, or local law or custom, that raises the question "Should I obey or rebel?" then there is no [I]need[/I] to have an alignment requirement, as your paladin would be complying with authority in any event. [/QUOTE]

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