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Message: <blockquote data-quote="William Ronald" data-source="post: 2660172" data-attributes="member: 426">I voted yes, but somewhat reluctantly.  I think that alignment is meant to be a descriptor of character and NPC motivation.  I think that something should exist for this.  However, I sometimes feel that the current system is perhaps too simplistic.  Perhaps something like D20 Modern's allegiances might work better with a numeric value and migh well have multiple descriptors.(This might work best for NPCs).  That said, I have seen games that work well without alignment such as Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed.  Possibly a good descriptor of a priest of Moradin might be along the lines of Lawful Good (7,9)  with an additional descriptor for allegiances: Deity, Ethics, Dwarves.  This would describe a character who is very good, less lawful than good, and who is devoted to his god, his ethics second, and thirdly to his people.  This character could still come into conflict in some matters with a similar character who differs along one of these lines.  (For example, this sample priest might be perturbed about someone who had dwarves ahead of ethics as a value, who proclaimed that he did not particularly care if a tribe of orcs was besieging a nearby elven village.)  I admit this is a rough, spur of the moment example, but I think we need some descriptors of character motivation.Alignment should not be a straitjacket for the behavior of player characters.  Rather, it can be a summary of how a person acts -- not something that forces characters to act in a certain manner.  Player characters will likely prove to be less than perfect by any standard, because human beings are less than perfect.  As for the mechanics, perhaps mortal races could be a little more ambiguous.  So, perhaps detect evil always works on a priest of an evil god, but that you can generally only detect evil on someone actively plotting to harm someone or otherwise commit a truly evil act.  (Thus, if someone is at the time actively thinking of how to murder his neighbor, this person may be a reasonable person to detect as evil.  If the same person is thinking of how good dinner is, then that can be another matter.  Exceptions to this would include those receiving power from evil deities, or have a pact with a fiend or plotting to cause truly great harm -- such as opening a gate to the Abyss. )  This may lead to less use of detect evil, but it might cause others to focus more on skills like Sense Motive or spells like Detect Thoughts.  So, a person who may just be a worshipper of an evil deity and not someone who receives spells may not necessarily detect as evil.  Also, I think the child sacrificing level 1 cleric should detect as more evil than a greedy 20th level rogue who just does not care that his theft of the army payroll will truly hurt people.This is a bit long, but I am saying that we should have at least some means of describing PC, NPC, and monster motivation.  I have seen people play complex good characters, and seen evil NPCs with a few soft spots.  I think if we have an alignment system, it should be able to better represent the complexity of human behavior than the current system.  (WotC already has the honor and reputation rules in Unearthed Arcana.  So, there may be an examination of the traditional approach to alignment.)</blockquote>

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