Isn't that what everyone really plays anyway? Even paladins (once you get past the baloney coming out of their mouths) are often motivated by purely selfish reasons (I will force my will on others by mandating everyone plays by my own personal code).As sad a statement on the mindset of many players as I have seen.
What happened to people WANTING to be hero's, helping the weak, defending the just and doing good simply because it is what makes the world better?
The alignment system has not changed in 30+ years. The players attitudes apparently have.
A sad statement on the current batch of RPers, IMO, if greed is their primary motivation for everything.
I do want to play the hero. Nearly all the time, my character is some manner of altruistic individual. But that character will still have certain flaws and deviations that I mean to stay with that character, because it makes the character more interesting to play.
But those deviations are not good or heroic. They're only deviations, but that makes them the nails sticking up that need to be hammered down. Snd if I refuse to do so, which I will because I value flawed heroes as characters, then it's always a possibility that I could have my character's alignment changed on me.
That is a sword of Damocles hanging over my head that I do not need. For something that is supposed to be a game, a Saturday afternoon diversion, a thing to anticipate and look forward to, that is the LAST THING I need or want to put up with. It's something I wouldn't even subject my worst enemy to*.
Which is why, if I'm ever in a game with alignment, my every good and heroic character is True Neutral. Not because he actually is, but because it lets me avoid the argument.
I suspect other players have similar reasons.
*Actually, I would, but only because I'm petty and vindictive.
I'd like to see the alignment system disappear from Pathfinder. There are plenty of RPGs that deal with Good and Evil without the vagaries of an imposed ethics system like that which we have now (and how in the name of Gygax did he come up with this crap?).
The nice thing about getting rid of alignments: without Lawful Good or Chaotic Evil or whatever it would be easier to see which players are just being d!*$&eads in their roleplaying (i.e. paladins, "evil" characters). We already know they're being jerks but at least they wouldn't be able to justify their actions by basing them on "I'm just behaving according to my alignment."
Plus, there would be a helluva lot less paladin/alignment threads on these boards.
Also Character classes.
