Hello all,
I was reading some discussion about alignment (evil in particular) over in the Rant thread, and as I wrote up a response there, I realized it wasn't really a rant, so here I am.
I bought the DMG II a month or so ago, and when I read the section talking about alternative alignment systems, my brain nearly exploded: I'm an old-school 1ed (after getting through with the Basic and "Expert" sets) player, who hasn't played much since the late 80's / early 90's until recently, so the idea of mucking with alignments seemed initially crazy.
But then I thought about it some more, and it seemed crazier, and eventually it seemed so downright crazy that it was *necessary*! Not just "muck with", but completely reorganize and trash to pieces (what follows is some train-of-thought stuff on alignment, my own personal view) :
* only outsiders should have dead-set alignments, as they in some sense "represent" those archetypical views
* devout worshippers of gods (in particular, divine spellcasters) should have some slight detectable alignment aura of their god.
* undead are pretty evil
* fey could have slight detectable tendencies in a variety of directions (chaos and either evil/good)
... but otherwise, the average mortal shouldn't be easily pinned down as "this dude's chaotic evil" - a simple 1st level cleric spell shouldn't be able to tell that some guy's entire worldview is based on "me first - I don't care if you all fall into a pit of demons", if it takes a *4th* level spell to simply tell if someone is lying!
So lets say that in my campaigns, I get rid of alignment altogether, for most people. How do I game-balance it? As the DMGII says, this adversely affects paladins and clerics, and diviners in general, and there are a *lot* of places out there where alignment-specific stuff is mentioned.
Any thoughts on how to incorporate alignmentless play into the existing system?
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Any thoughts on how to incorporate alignmentless play into the existing system?
I guess that my first thought about this is "Why?". What is your ultimate goal here? Simply answering that question should help with figuring out how to incorporate alignmentless into the existing system.
A few other quick thoughts --
"Undead are pretty evil" -- I disagree. There have been a number of "good" undead (the elf-lich in forgotten realms for starters). Also (I think that "Jakandor" started this if anyone remembers that set) I think that if creating undead was possible, to not create skeletons and zombies would be a huge waste of material. You could have a virtual army of skeletons to mine gold or even iron. This isn't evil at all.
Last thing off the top of my head has to do with detecting alignment. My experience in life is that I can generally tell what general or rough alignment a person is after only a couple of minutes of talking with them. While trying to figure out what they just said was a lie and what was truth usually would happen after a lot of time had been spent with the person. I really don't have much of a problem with the levels of those spells. A person could be very good and lying through their teeth while a person could be very evil and telling you the truth.
As far as pinning down an alignment, I feel that most people will play and allow play within one step. I think that it is unreasonable to think that anyone acts chaotic good (for example) 100% of the time. I think that a truly chaotic person would have difficulty doing many (any?) lawful acts, but a "neutral" act shouldn't be that unusual.
Anyway, a few random thoughts. But you really need to ask what your ultimate goal is.
Bill
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In regards to divine casters, you could just axe all spell like Protection from XXXX, Magic Circle spells etc. but you would be weakening the classes without replacing them with other spells, maybe swipe some from the arcane list that have similarities just be careful about the power levels of them.
I always thought undead got the wrong end of the deal in alignment. I make them neutral in my campaigns if they are mindless or have them take on the alignment of their creater if they are intelligent. If you got rid of alignment I would just say they are either mindless or intelligent but prone to act as their creater would. Paladin is a Prestige class in my homebrew with the prereqs of cleric 2 or fighter 2 and church sponsorship(which usually requires tests like performing a special action or deed,i.e. quest). You would have to replace their Detect Evil and Smite with something fairly attractive to keep the class balanced. Maybe they could smite followers of "Evil" gods more times a day or give then a favored enemy(like rangers) based on their god, and throw in a low level divine spell to be usable at will, something in sync with your campaign but not too powerful.
thats all I got now but I'll try some more later.
FH
Any thoughts on how to incorporate alignmentless play into the existing system?I guess that my first thought about this is "Why?". What is your ultimate goal here? Simply answering that question should help with figuring out how to incorporate alignmentless into the existing system.
The "why" is that it makes for a much more mysterious and ambiguous world - in FR, for example, not only do you know that most Red Wizards are evil, but you know that *none* of them are good (at least if they're members of the RW PrC).
A world in which you encounter people and creatures and don't know whether they as individuals will be relatively trustworthy or not goes a long way to making it seem more lifelike and real to me - if you can just cast "detect evil" on the city mayor, and he lights up, but the werewolf your party just caught *doesn't* light up, it's a lot less fun to figure out what's going on than if the werewolf pleaded with you that he's really the aggreived party, and the mayor's been persecuting his peaceful people in the woods.
The whole idea of a world where some goblins are really nasty, and others just a bit grumpy, and others are totally caring nice guys who happen to be aggressive scavengers to help feed their big families...
*and* in this world you've got basically of telling the difference between a "good werewolf" and an evil one just by marching him through the gates of Silverymoon and see if the "no evil allowed" alarms start ringing!
"Undead are pretty evil" -- I disagree. There have been a number of "good" undead (the elf-lich in forgotten realms for starters). Also (I think that "Jakandor" started this if anyone remembers that set) I think that if creating undead was possible, to not create skeletons and zombies would be a huge waste of material. You could have a virtual army of skeletons to mine gold or even iron. This isn't evil at all.
Fair enough - but the game was originally set up with undead being products of the negative energy plane, which is supposed to be pretty evil (and fits into my "outsider" way of relegating alignment).
Last thing off the top of my head has to do with detecting alignment. My experience in life is that I can generally tell what general or rough alignment a person is after only a couple of minutes of talking with them.
Oh really? How many people in your life have you met who you'd classify as both being rather intelligent, and strongly "neutral evil"? Personally, I've met quite a few charismatic and interesting people who I only found out much later were really sick and messed up on the inside. Society frowns on cruelty, overt manipulation, and self-centeredness, and people who desire to be liked (which goes for lots of both "good" and "evil" types) will give off a pretty good outward air of being relatively caring and kind or else they can't get anywhere in life.
But seriously, if you lived in a world where your town cleric could cast "detect evil/chaos" on anyone who ran for town mayor, why in hell would any towns be run by someone who wasn't lawful good unless they were ruling purely by force? A world like this would have no "sneaky evil" villians unless it's powerfull enough to have amulets of undetectable alignment...
As far as pinning down an alignment, I feel that most people will play and allow play within one step. I think that it is unreasonable to think that anyone acts chaotic good (for example) 100% of the time. I think that a truly chaotic person would have difficulty doing many (any?) lawful acts, but a "neutral" act shouldn't be that unusual.
What exactly would you qualify as a "lawful act"? And note that "one step away" on the alignment chart would still force a chaotic good person to behave at all times as either good or chaotic, or both - no truly neutral acts.
Anyway, a few random thoughts. But you really need to ask what your ultimate goal is.
Bill
Well thanks for your random thoughts. My goal here is not to really figure out *why* I don't want alignment forced on everything - I'm pretty sure that it's too much of a straightjacket when it comes to intrigue and sneakiness in a campaign, and it also straightjackets roleplaying... characters (as well as NPCs) should have *personalities*, and complex motivations, not alignments.
In regards to divine casters, you could just axe all spell like Protection from XXXX, Magic Circle spells etc. but you would be weakening the classes without replacing them with other spells, maybe swipe some from the arcane list that have similarities just be careful about the power levels of them.
I always thought undead got the wrong end of the deal in alignment. I make them neutral in my campaigns if they are mindless or have them take on the alignment of their creater if they are intelligent. If you got rid of alignment I would just say they are either mindless or intelligent but prone to act as their creater would. Paladin is a Prestige class in my homebrew with the prereqs of cleric 2 or fighter 2 and church sponsorship(which usually requires tests like performing a special action or deed,i.e. quest). You would have to replace their Detect Evil and Smite with something fairly attractive to keep the class balanced. Maybe they could smite followers of "Evil" gods more times a day or give then a favored enemy(like rangers) based on their god, and throw in a low level divine spell to be usable at will, something in sync with your campaign but not too powerful.
thats all I got now but I'll try some more later.FH
Ahh, nice ideas - just swapping out some abilities would be good (I like the favored enemy one, in particular...), maybe also giving Paladins a conditional bonus of +4 on Sense Motive:
* before making the check, the player can declare whether they think the target is "Evil" in their eyes. If they're right (based on DM judgement - they won't know), they get the bonus, but if they're wrong, they get a -4 penalty on the check (for prejudicing their appraisal).I don't know if that would be a good/balanced addition to a Paladin... maybe Smite could work the same way.
Hmmm... maybe now that I'm thinking about it, I could probably keep the alignment system in place for the most part, but put an "amulet of undetectable alignment" over the *whole world*, and get rid of penalties for swapping alignmnent (unless you're a divine spellcaster)... hmm... then I could give each individual goblin whatever alignment I wanted and the players would never know... bwahahahaahaha...
As for undead, yeah, I can buy making them more flexible...
Thanks for your $0.02!
-pb
Hmmm... maybe now that I'm thinking about it, I could probably keep the alignment system in place for the most part, but put an "amulet of undetectable alignment" over the *whole world*
Yeah, that would probably be the way to do it. And you would probably do well to remove spells like "Holy Word" as well, to prevent the almost inevitable "Hey, that guy cast Blasphemy, and you didn't even blink!" argument.
As for the Detect Evil ability, I'd recommend replacing it with "Detect Guilt" or some such (there's a dragon article with a bunch of spells like that, somewhere), or else something to the tune of "Detect Hostile Intent". And Smite could just be an all-purpose smite that always works, and it wouldn't break the class. Would probably lead to the Paladin being more careful about using it judiciously, if he knew that it didn't come with a built-in safety feature.
Yeah, that would probably be the way to do it. And you would probably do well to remove spells like "Holy Word" as well, to prevent the almost inevitable "Hey, that guy cast Blasphemy, and you didn't even blink!" argument.
But then I need to worry a bit about not making clerics too much weaker by taking these away... I guess I'd need to find replacement spells to have access to...
As for the Detect Evil ability, I'd recommend replacing it with "Detect Guilt" or some such (there's a dragon article with a bunch of spells like that, somewhere), or else something to the tune of "Detect Hostile Intent". And Smite could just be an all-purpose smite that always works, and it wouldn't break the class. Would probably lead to the Paladin being more careful about using it judiciously, if he knew that it didn't come with a built-in safety feature.
Good points, both, thanks.
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I (for the most part) understand what you mean and I appreciate your candidness and openness. I will only really follow up on the following:
The "why" is that it makes for a much more mysterious and ambiguous world - in FR, for example, not only do you know that most Red Wizards are evil, but you know that *none* of them are good (at least if they're members of the RW PrC).
A world in which you encounter people and creatures and don't know whether they as individuals will be relatively trustworthy or not goes a long way to making it seem more lifelike and real to me - if you can just cast "detect evil" on the city mayor, and he lights up, but the werewolf your party just caught *doesn't* light up, it's a lot less fun to figure out what's going on than if the werewolf pleaded with you that he's really the aggreived party, and the mayor's been persecuting his peaceful people in the woods.
The whole idea of a world where some goblins are really nasty, and others just a bit grumpy, and others are totally caring nice guys who happen to be aggressive scavengers to help feed their big families...
*and* in this world you've got basically of telling the difference between a "good werewolf" and an evil one just by marching him through the gates of Silverymoon and see if the "no evil allowed" alarms start ringing!
It seems to me that you have issues with two things. It looks like you have a problem with the ability of spells to "railroad" (not really the right word, but I can't think of anything better) a character into a specific type. It also looks like you have a problem with alignment restrictions.
I fully agree with you about alignment restrictions. Eberron is trying to move away from this stereotype. They have "good" red dragons and "good" goblins, etc. Alignment restrictions on prestige classes has also been a poor prerequisite as far as I am concerned as well. Unless the prestige class was actually designed for truly alignment based acts (Blackguard and Assassin for instance). Getting rid of alignment restrictions seems easy enough with very little repercusions from most of the game mechanics.
Losing the specific alignment based spells also seems easy enough to me but it might be fair to replace them with other equivalent spells for the ones that were lost. It also seems that you have issues with the divination type of alignment based spells.
I don't know that you are really looking to get rid of alignment. Most of your examples show the character acting a particular way. Many times, not what most people would consider the norm, but still would be behaving a certain way. It seems to me that most people are not good and evil or are not chaotic and lawful.
It just seems to me that you simply want to be able to use a good werewolf without anyone being able to tell quickly that it is a good werewolf. That seems fairly easy to solve.
By the way, that was how undead was explained to me in ages past and I think that WotC has introduced the "Deathless" creature type as a positive energy undead to counter that. Rules for that can be found in the Eberron campaign setting and in the Book of Exalted Deeds.
It seems to me that you know what you want -- just do it.
Hope that this helps.
Bill
Good Topic!
Another way to go would be to allow evil to be an acceptible alignment and freely populate the cities with a mix of good and evil alignments (i.e. Las Vegas). This would allow you to freely integrate evil NPCS with the other more "civil" alignments without having to change a lot of game mechanics.
If you are worried about players killing that 'evil' werewolf who is actually the real victim, then roleplay some of the consequences (werewolves have families too ;P). A few consistent games focused on the grey areas between good and evil should be enough to get your group on the same mindset.
Good Luck!
I'm with you Original Poster.
I've removed alignment for mortals in my campaign and changed the spells you mentioned, and it has made my game much better in my opinion. I also asked this question when I first came to this forum and got a very detailed and helpful discussion in response.
I explained how and why I removed mortal alignments and what difference it's made to my game, and lots of other people gave their experiences and reasons why or why not to do this. Personally it seems to me that alot of the reasons why NOT to get to rid of alignment come down to traditionalism. I think if you don't believe in objective good and evil in real life then having alignment in the game doesn't really serve a purpose. Oh and you'll probably find you have to disallow paladins too. I hadn't thought of this initially but I ended up having to say no to them. They're too bound up with the whole alignment thing to function properly without it.
Anyway if you want to check the thread out it's here:
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/dnd/general/archives/isAlignmentNecess ary
(For some reason the above link has a gap that I can't get rid of in "Necess ary." This shows up as a "20%" when you paste it into the address bar, but if you just remove it so it spells "necessary" it works fine. Odd. I wonder why?)
Hope that helps!
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Oh and you'll probably find you have to disallow paladins too. I hadn't thought of this initially but I ended up having to say no to them. They're too bound up with the whole alignment thing to function properly without it.
I was thinking about the paladin thing on the way home and thought of something further to help with it. Really a paladin is someone who feels really strongly on some alignment axis. There is a chaotic good paladin in unearthed arcana, but it doesn't really have to stop with that. If the paladin is the "ultimate" in good, then have an equivalent "ultimate" bad, chaotic and lawful. Each one could have a smite ability to match temperment, some of the abilities would have to be tweeked and some of the spells modified, but really you don't have to worry about an alignment problem with it. While it doesn't make a world "alignmentless" it does create other alignment options to keep the PCs guessing...
Anyway if you want to check the thread out it's here:http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/dnd/general/archives/isAlignmentNecess ary
Hope that helps!
That helps a lot, thanks! You indeed were thinking almost some of the exact thoughts (with the same solutions) as I. Also, I like finding that link to Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed/Evolved - that book looks awesome, I may need to get my hands on it!
-pb
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My experience in life is that I can generally tell what general or rough alignment a person is after only a couple of minutes of talking with them.
I have to agree with a previous poster, that most people will put on an mask of civility, and will only reveal their underlying criminal/antisocial tendencies if they believe themselves among like-minded people, don't care about disapproval and/or if they are too stupid to keep up the mask.
I have to agree with a previous poster, that most people will put on an mask of civility, and will only reveal their underlying criminal/antisocial tendencies if they believe themselves among like-minded people, don't care about disapproval and/or if they are too stupid to keep up the mask.
So true. I pretend to be a nice guy but put me in a room with a rowdy bunch who bear uncontrollable despite for Those Who Eat Noisly and I'll, knowing like minds won't judge me objectively, unseal a ranting torrent of the kind of hate that would make Nerull himself put hand to mouth before having to excuse himself from the room and call his mommy for solace.
While I was a vehement defender of the alignment system in the thread Kahoolin mentioned, I have begun to have my doubts as I thought about it. Here are some suggestions:
Simply up the level of the detect spells to 5th or higher, or just get rid of them and all abilities like them completely. Another option is to make them touch only- not nearly so many people are going to let you touch them and cast a spell. Think "Frailty" for Detect Evil, and maybe only make it work if someone's done acts comparable to those seen in the aforementioned film.
Make the paladin's smite apply to everything, but they loose class features if they smite a "Good" person.
The above allow the alignment system to stay in tact but keep people from knowing what a given NPC's position on the axis is.
Or, if you really want to get rid of the alignment system, you don't have to throw out the alignment-based spells. Make Protection from X and Magic Circle Against X spells based off creature type, perhaps. And, things like Blasphemy/Holy Word are almost identicle. Simply make one ubiquitous spell to take all their places, or perhaps let the cleric choose which "version" (list of effects) he wishes to cast. Either way, this is easily done and doesn't affect the class's power. "Evil" clerics, those serving dark deities, still have "evil" looking spells, but they're actually, mechanically, the exact same one cast by the "good" cleric, just described differently.
Again, make the paladin's smite work on everything. However, actually write up the code. The code is, more or less, chivalrous (sp?) and enforces generally good ideas, but it wouldn't be impossible or even hard for the paladin to slip into super-conservatism and prejudice, convinced what he is doing is right and good. Either way, the paladin doesn't loose their abilities unless they actually violate a written part of the code, not just turn "non lawful good."
In this same line, and returning to clerics, the DM comes up with either an actual written list of tennants of a given faith or a general idea in his head about what is and isn't okay. The written list is probably better, as you can come up with some interesting quirks and remember them later! Anyway, maintaining faith becomes a matter of roleplaying and upholding the given tennants of the faith.
The DM could save time by making one list of general tennants for the "good" gods (no murder, etc.) and for the "lawful" gods (no theft, etc.), and on through the alignments, and then make up specific tennants for individual deities to taste. If a player violates these tennants, they loose their powers. Thus, you could have clerics of Heironeous that were kind and orderly, and other that were near Nazis in their application of fanatic religious dogma to life. However, if they actually got too far out of line, "Heironeous" could always get personally involved and revoke their powers (depending on the DM's view of the gods' level of intervention in the lives of mortals, and his own personal desire to reign in players or let them go.) Although, playing the "Oh, this curch is overtly good but secretly its all corrupt and evil" card too much gets really old, really fast. Typcially speaking, priests of Hieroneous SHOULD be "good," it's just no impossible for there to be an evil one.
Or go halfway, and keep alignments for outsiders and clerics, or clerics above a certain point (Say, 5th or 10th level? That's when the priest is high enough in service to their god that he actually checks in on them to make sure they're doing to right thing).
I'm not sure if I and my players are ready to go in this direction yet, but as I've thought about it, it's certainly become more appealing, and has cast some doubt on the alignment system in my eyes. Most likely, in time, this is the route I will take.
Whether you love the alignment system, despise it, or are generally ambivalent, have fun! Just some thoughts.
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Personally it seems to me that alot of the reasons why NOT to get to rid of alignment come down to traditionalism. I think if you don't believe in objective good and evil in real life then having alignment in the game doesn't really serve a purpose. Oh and you'll probably find you have to disallow paladins too.
Even if you do believe in objective good/evil, you will have problems.
One big problem is that PLAYERS have 'alignments' too; if you've ever had the misfortune to endure a gaming session being wasted on an an alignment debate, you'll notice that each side is convinced that its own definition of alignment is the only correct one, influenced by all the 'baggage' they carry to the table.A prime example is Lawful Good; I know/have known many people who, I believe, would fit this category...modest, humble, selfless people who give their time, effort and money to help complete strangers with no thought of reward. In other words, people far better than me (I make no such claims for myself). Yet, I invariably encounter DMs/players, who INSIST that a LG character (especially a paladin) HAS to be played as a loud-mouthed, opinionated, obnoxious, racist, religious bigot, slapping peasants who fail to grovel to his divine radiance... etc. Any attempt to play other than this frankly, childish stereotype is met with railroading, punishments and sarcasm.
The character will be faced with sneering NPCs, humiliating 'accidents', and lose/lose scenarios, such as the 'evil prisoners' dilemma (kill them, and you LOSE YOUR POWERS, SUCKER!!!; let them live and they escape to do more evil....and you LOSE YOUR POWERS, SUCKER!!!!).
I personally, prefer to play games where the PCs are heroes, partly as it gives me a good feeling, but also because we get more done, but I can't deny that I got sick of getting this sort of treatment over the years, and wouldn't be sad to see the paladin class go; there seems to be something about it that's like a red rag to a bull for some players, and they feel a gnawing need to attack the concept, ridicule it and bring it down, due to some 'issues' they have in their childhood.
Boohoo, poor little Jimmy had to go to church and miss his favorite cartoons when he was a lickle ickle boy, boohoo, so the world has to pay. Grow up you emotional retard!
As for the fake 'pagans'; I don't care if you believe you were a druidess/witch/Egyptian priestess in a previous life. The church of Heironeous/Pelor/Cuthbert etc is NOT the Roman Catholic church, my paladin is NOT the Spanish Inquisition, and I don't owe you (or your made-up ancestors) any apology.
There are other good reasons for ditching the paladin; apart from the detect evil and bonus saves, the class is quite frankly, underpowered, and even then, many DMs will go out of their way to thwart the detection ability, as being (quite correctly) too useful, too often. The much-vaunted smite ability has limited uses, and must be declared in advance of the attack roll; again, many DMs will find ways (eg illusions) to make the player waste the bonus. Despite the class being built around the holy steed, the class has absolutely no riding feats at all, so one cannot create the archetypal 'shining knight' without having taken several levels of fighter beforehand.
I believe the concept of a paladin base class is also flawed, since it goes against the literary tradition of the veteran warrior who 'sees the light' or is 'chosen' for their past deeds. A selection of prestige classes built specifically around game-world deities would mesh better with the campaign setting, provide greater variety, and avoid the interminable comparisons with real-world history and religion which cause so much upset and confusion. Examples of such already exist, such as the Shining Blade of Heironeous, Divine Crusader, Holy Liberator, etc.
In the future, if I get the urge to play a 'paladin' style character, I would prefer to slip it under the radar, by creating a fighter, ranger, cleric combo. If need be, I might declare myself NG or CG; again, I'll play the character exactly as I would a paladin, but not have to endure the hostility. I'll know know what I'm playing, and that's what matters to me....
As an example of what I'm trying to get across, I would ask readers to view the campaign journal of Coda Tyburn (elsewhere on these boards). I have had the good fortune to recently meet and play alongside 'Nermal', a very friendly and cooperative player, and despite Coda being a not-too-bright, CG half-orc fighter of Kord, his childlike enthusiasm, willingness to take a hit, hatred of evil, and his defence of the ordinary folk make him, in our eyes, a paladin in all but name.
Huzzah for heroes!
[A prime example is Lawful Good; I know/have known many people who, I believe, would fit this category...modest, humble, selfless people who give their time, effort and money to help complete strangers with no thought of reward. In other words, people far better than me (I make no such claims for myself). Yet, I invariably encounter DMs/players, who INSIST that a LG character (especially a paladin) HAS to be played as a loud-mouthed, opinionated, obnoxious, racist, religious bigot, slapping peasants who fail to grovel to his divine radiance... etc. Any attempt to play other than this frankly, childish stereotype is met with railroading, punishments and sarcasm.
The character will be faced with sneering NPCs, humiliating 'accidents', and lose/lose scenarios, such as the 'evil prisoners' dilemma (kill them, and you LOSE YOUR POWERS, SUCKER!!!; let them live and they escape to do more evil....and you LOSE YOUR POWERS, SUCKER!!!!).
I would like to say that whoever forced that opinion forth really should have thought more carefully. As you said it's a childish, unrealistic view of an alignment. Also, the punishment involving the above situation should only be placed, at least to me, if the character didn't think about his actions before killing the prisoners. (I would never actually penalize a person for mercy. It may come back to bite them, or it may aid them, but mercy in and of itself is always a good act.)
I say that alignment is a guideline for the character's roleplaying, not as a iron mask. Do paladins do evil things? Rarely, but there is always a reason. Think of alignment as each character's "Set Of Rules". Many paladins have done things that to a person not of their beliefs, may seem questionable. They have let their zeal for a particular event/cause overpower their judgement. Take Binders, from the Tome of Magic. Quick Rundown: People ask beings above both gods and fiends to grant them strength and in exchange, feel existence once more. These people are seen as a great threat from the church, as they espose heretical beliefs (ie one of the vestiges to be bound remembers Hextor and Heironeous as allies, and personally served both). The church of Heironeous, St. Cuthbert, WEE JAS, and VECNA allied to form an order to purge these people. Paladins of Heironeous hunt down essentially harmless people and slay them for the faith. And retain their powers. So alignment isn't a cage for characters, it's a path.
In maybe a more helpful statement, Dragon released a pair of articles just at the start of 3.5 detailing "paladins" for every alignment. Something like #310 and 312. I think.
I pay little attention to alignment in my games. Players can pick any alignment, and decide for themselves how that alignment applies. It only really matters for most players when the players are subjected to alignment-based spells such as chaos hammer.
I considered removing alignment at one point, but decided that it had a few too many knock-on effects, such as interfering with the paladin's smite evil and detect evil, weakening monsters who use spell-like abilities such as chaos hammer, and affecting what creatures a cleric can summon.
To be honest, detect evil and the like are somewhat limited. Yes, they'll instantly tell you if a guy is evil, but odds are he's just selfish and spiteful, and even if he's a criminal that's not a license to kill him. Unless he's 11th level or an evil cleric, he'll only show up as faint evil, and even then only if you study him for three rounds.
You can only detect one alignment at a time, and it's three rounds and a first level spell to pinpoint it to that person as opposed to another evil or chaotic person nearby. The spell will also not tell you how evil they are are, so a serial murderer will show up with a faint evil aura just the same as a bartender who waters down his ale.
In other words, I don't remove alignment, but I remind players that detect alignment spells don't mean much on normal people.
I've got no problem with the alingment system as it stands. Racial alingment (goblins are always evil, Elves are always good) illustrates a sweeping generalization, or stereotype, and is not meant to be 100% accurate.
Mindless undead aren't nescessarily evil, however the methods used to create them geneally are.
Of course this opens the door to "if Good PCs invade the homes of evil goblinoids for the sole purpose of looting them, are they good?". debate. this could be addressed by the undoubtble evil of what you're fighting.
A truly good adventurer would take a pass on the goblin caves filled with loot, to serve in the army of a good aligned nation that has come under the attack of an evil one.
Depending on how you like to play, killing innocent kobolds in their home might be right or wrong. If you enjoy kick-in-the-door games where the good guys want treasure and the monsters are always evil, you're doing the right thing to kill the evil, nasty kobolds. If you're playing a roleplaying-heavy game in Eberron, it's probably a heinous crime to do the same.