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[Baijiu]

From what I've seen and heard, people play Chaotic Neutral so they can ignore alignment.  It allows them to do what they want without dealing with alignment fallout - mind you they might have legal or financial fallout, but they can play their character how they want without fretting so much over if they're being perfectly lawful or if they're fighting the power or...

I think newer version of DnD have started to undo alignment, I remember hearing something about how 4e or 5e (aka "D&D Next") have like, 4 alignment choices instead of 9?

Many GMs downplay alignment, and any decent player understands that for their character to act as more than a cartoon character, then they have to act out of alignment, sometimes frequently.

Yes, 4e alignment is Lawful Good -> Good -> Neutral -> Evil -> Chaotic Evil. Which is pretty damn sad IMO, since it makes lawful/chaotic just another good/evil axis and implies that characters that would be Chaotic Good are now somehow less good than YEW VIEHLEHTED THE LAW types.

I like the change though. It's plays up the conflict between chaos and order and makes playing lawful good actually more difficult, because doing things "for the greater good" is rarely good on an individual basis. Paladins are a force for good but that doesn't stop them from chopping the hands off starving bread thieves. It's easy to be a good person, but it's not easy to be a lawful person.

[Neonivek]

Paladins are a force for good but that doesn't stop them from chopping the hands off starving bread thieves.

Funny because you will get SOO much debate. There is even debate as to whether a Lawful Good society is even allowed to have capital punishment (they are).

The biggest problem with Good and Lawful Good is that a lot of people take it as absolutism. If you are GOOD you must do action that are PURELY GOOD in the modern world.

[Baijiu]

Paladins are a force for good but that doesn't stop them from chopping the hands off starving bread thieves.

Funny because you will get SOO much debate. There is even debate as to whether a Lawful Good society is even allowed to have capital punishment (they are).

The biggest problem with Good and Lawful Good is that a lot of people take it as absolutism. If you are GOOD you must do action that are PURELY GOOD in the modern world.

Hehe. So true. I think it's because D&D is fantasy, and people want to fantasise about being ultimate do-gooders but forget that for every good deed... they are committing an affront to someone. It's impossible to be "purely" good because even actions made with the best intentions can be an act of evil.

One example: Seeing a child in jail, the adventurers decide she must have been imprisoned unfairly because she's just a child and children are naturally innocent! They let her go... and find out later that she was actually a doppleganger that had infiltrated an orphange and ate 50 children. I would consider the act of setting her free an act of evil made with good intentions.

My example suddenly made me think of The Witcher games, and how trying to be The Good Guy would usually come around and bite you in the ass.

[Neonivek]

Honestly when it comes to being good as a genuine choice in games there are few ones that do it right in my mind.

The ones that don't are made by Bioware. Say what you will about Mass Effect, even its morality system was silly.

Which is probably why the alignment system in Dungeons and dragons is so messed up.

[shadenight123]

The bard quest.
Be resolute or you'll sleep in the hay.