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Roleplaying > Issues in roleplaying >
Down with alignment!
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The concept of alignment is difficult enough to describe, let alone enforce as a choice. Once again, popular roleplaying games and campaigns have tried, and failed terribly, to define “evil”, “good”, “neutral”, etc etc.
Alignment, as perceived and applied by a player, is *always bad*. By this, I mean is will disintegrate a party and destroy the character. It is simply not fun! When an alignment is doggedly persued, and assumptions are made of it, this takes away from the whole gaming experience.
Playing a paladin as being “uber good”, and following rules to the letter is just no damned fun. Playing “evil” by walking around mindlessly slaying is again.. say it with me.. NOT FUN.
A character is a collection of thoughts.. reasons, a history.. motivations. When the player pulls rank on the character and has it doing unrealistic alignment-enforced things, is simply makes no sense.
Stop following alignment. Stop caring. Good and Evil are not definable in a broad sense. No, killing is not universally evil, and feeding the poor is not universally good. On what sides of the scale do self-defence or feeding a slave fall? Is stepping on an ant, on purpose and for fun, evil? It is to some people, and is not to others.
The perception of alignment is a bias which varies from person to person, place to place and law to law. There are shades of appropriateness and forgiveness. Just give up on the concept. Seriously! What use is it? Do you need to define what your enemy is? Call it out by name! Say you are the eternal foe of all goblins, do not claim to be good by slaying their innocents in cold blood. Someone, somewhere, will call you evil in mining the earth for the beauty of its riches. Still another will call you good for forging a weapon and binding it with the spirit of a demon.
Does “good” and “evil” matter in roleplaying? Say it with me.. no … FUCK NO!
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