When I asked for ideas for this column, I got several replies on the subject of alignment. So I'll talk about that in this post. First of all it has to be remarked that alignment is not system neutral, it is very much a Dungeons & Dragons concept. And curiously it is the earlier editions of D&D that have a very game-centric alignment system: Your alignment can be changed by magic or by acting against it, and that can have consequences on the powers of your character.

What you need to keep in mind here is that D&D and many other systems are playing in the fantasy genre, where story-telling often revolves around a strong conflict between good and evil. You don't just fight against somebody attacking your region, you fight against an evil necromancer and his undead army attacking your region. If the players are the heroes of good, you don't need a lot of effort to motivate them to fight against an evil menace.

The downside of such a simple black vs. white conflict is that it leads to lazy role-playing. The lawful good paladin of D&D is sometimes known as "lawful stupid", because it is easy to always opt for the obviously "good" choice without regards for consequences. That can be fun in one campaign, but then quickly gets old. Believable characters have a much more complex web of motivations and personality quirks than just being the lawful good fighter against evil.

Ultimately the question in a role-playing game is always what kind of story you want to tell. If you want to tell a simple good vs. evil story, an alignment system can help to keep the players sticking to the good role. But if you want to deal with complex moral dilemmas, any rules-based approach is bound to come up short. You can replace an alignment system with a better character creation process, where you ask each player for his motivations (including secret ones). Many other role-playing systems work just fine without a strict alignment systems. A story with difficult decisions should be interesting to play, and not serve as a threat to take powers away from the characters for breaching their alignment.