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"It's bad DMing" is never a strong argument for why something is problematic, and especially not for alignment. For one thing, even DMs who are very good at other aspects of the game can easily and even accidentally misapply alignment, even with the best intentions. For another thing, when 4th Edition downplayed alignment significantly, nothing arose to take the place of all those arguments about alignment. Sure, we still see things about railroading in 4th Edition, but it's now clearly railroading and dealt with as such. With alignment, there's always someone who thinks that the DM's interpretation is actually in the right. Even if that person is wrong too, it muddies the issue and makes for long, drawn out arguments not about railroading (which everyone dislikes) but about alignment (which is very divisive).

It's abundantly clear that there are people who see the point of alignment as a means to control players. Okay, they're bad DMs. Fine. Whatever. Must we simply throw up our hands or can we change something about alignment or its presentation to account for that?

I don't have a problem with alignment per se...I often fall back on the old 2e descriptions of alignment when I try to craft a personality.  As far as a mechanical restriction, it's stupid and in my opinion has no place, because of the fact that a DM and a player can legitamately disagree...and I feel that the game is not in any way improved by it's presence.

So, I see it as a mechanic as only causing problems with no benefit.

Jan 10, 2013 -- 12:24PM, MrCustomer wrote:

Centauri, I recomend to any DM to do what I do, which is consider any PC to be Neutral unless they have selected an allignment for a specific mechanical benifit, it's more of a useful tool for interacting with NPCs and setting up encounters (protection from Evil works against the Vampire etc)

If the rules advised this clearly and repeatedly, in the three core books, would you be satisfied?

But what do you mean by "selected an alignment for a specific mechanical benefit"? How would a player prove that the alignment had not been chosen for a mechanical benefit? If a class isn't mechanically any better than another class, then picking the alignment required by that class is a specific choice, but it can't be said to provide any "benefit" over any other choice. I say this because I get the general impression that people see the restrictions on paladins not only as a way to emulate a certain tone, but also as a balancing factor. This, to me, doesn't hold water because a) there are better classes, such as the wizard and druid, that have very few meaningful restrictions, at least not ones they can't get around, and b) it's easy to imagine a paladin in a game in which every PC is basically lawful good and the paladin's strictures are never run up against, and I would hope that the paladin wouldn't be a more advantageous class to play simply because of that.

Other than that, you seem only interested in the mechanics. My only objection is being told how to roleplay my character, so as long as I can have the alignment I want for other reasons, and can act the way I want to act, and the DM and other players keep any resulting consequences interesting, I don't have a problem.

Jan 10, 2013 -- 4:13PM, KColette wrote:

Funny how an alignment debate hasn't broken out in my group since I started doing that. Though I admit it has more to do with the fact all my players want to play relatively nice, altruistic characters and would rather play the game than debate how the game should be played. It's wonderful and I love them.

It's not about the debate, it's about being told how we must play our characters. I don't want to argue about why I shouldn't have to roleplay a certain way, I just don't want to roleplay the way I want to. I don't imagine your players would like it if you told them they had to play their nice, altruistic characters in a particular way. Regardless of alignment rules, that's annoying.

What if they chose to play selfish, calculating characters, but still worked as a team? Would you still be able to ignore alignment.

Jan 10, 2013 -- 4:46PM, Grimli wrote:

As it has been alread stated that Alignment is seen by others as a way of a DM controlling player's characters.  It can be or it can't depending on the intrepretation of alignment.

Right. If alignment is going to be kept, then the rules need to be clarified to drive out the interpretation that it's a way to control players' actions. It won't catch everyone, especially not older players, but it might start a change and give people a way to respond to people who try to control them through rules.

Jan 10, 2013 -- 4:46PM, Grimli wrote:

To be honest I've had more problems with what is considered evil actions by Cyberpunk games than Dungeons and Dragons games.

That's unsurprising. The most widely known inspirations for fantasy adventures feature noble characters. Cyberpunk as a genre is known for having darker, more morally ambiguous characters. I'm not sure why it would matter in a Cyberpunk game whether someone was good or evil, especially since very few characters would be wholly good. It would be an interesting challenge to play a perfectly "good" character in such a setting, but one should be aware that doing so is playing against type and likely to run into disagreement, especially if they're touting their goodness.