JarlFrank said:
It's not that you start out without any moral position at all. Your character has that moral position that you want him to have. There's no need for assigning an aligment. When the first decision your new character makes is good (or evil), you can basically assume that this is his alignment and his previous actions were of a similar nature.
If that is so, why not "sum up" his previous dispositions by slapping a name on it? Character concepts change, especially if interaction between the character and the world works out differently from what you expected. Let's say you intended your character to be a ruthless thug, however due to skill/ attribute/ equipment choices or plain bad luck you find yourself running from combat more than getting into it. Rather than allowing you to turn it all around by walking the good path from now on, alignment could force you to stay in a certain niche. Which is a good thing IMO, as it is more realistic (as I stated below). Realistic characters who have had a past full of violence and resentment won't learn how to play it nice just like that.
Chances are you'll remember good and interesting choices with meaningful consequences that are not stereotypically "good paladin" or "muhahaha bastard" in a better light than choices that are so extremely good/evil that it's almost cartoony.
I would contest that for two reasons: "good and meaningful" is a bit foggy and you can't seriously expect that high a standard of choices throughout a game. Arcanum didn't have a fixed alignment, and while I love that game to death a lot of things that influenced your morals were minor and forgettable. I only remember certain tiny bits (like giving back the ring in Tarant) because I have replayed that game over and over (ain't gonna happen with your average game).
Secondly, while I was arguing that even cartoonish alignments can be meaningful, it's not like alignments
have to be so extreme/ one-dimensional. Again using D&D as an example, both lawful good and chaotic evil tend to work out a bit cartoonishly because they're at the extreme ends of the spectrum, but with the other alignments in between you can create a nice range of choices.
How does it affect stats? Are good paladins stupid because they let themselves be used as deliverymen for common people and refuse rewards? Are evil guys stronger because they beat up people all day? I don't get what you want to say here.
By stats I don't simply mean attributes (though they figure in here somewhere). Equipment is a good vehicle IMO to translate your alignment/ moral choices into stats; think of the Holy Avenger swords in numerous D&D games, as well as evil artifacts, or the Dark Helm in Arcanum. Then there is the famous case of evil characters simply being able to harvest more gold/ items from questgivers. Classes are another matter. Paladins are beefed up fighters, but becoming one may force you to spend points on attributes (like charisma) you wouldn't consider normally. You may covet the powers of a Blackguard, but you'll need to play as evil to become one.
IMO games profit immensly if they manage to translate your moral choices into something more tangible, and that is stats. While it may be a nice twist to do some quests differently than you did them on your last playthrough, it will only be a completely new experience if new races, classes, items, are available this time around.
Isn't it much better if your character can do anything he wants unless prevented by NPCs/orgnaizations? Why would being evil prevent you from, say, saying something good if it benefits you? If you told a young lady who likes kittens that you like kittens too in order to seduce her, why would being of evil alignment make you unable to say it, if you only say it in order to gain something for yourself? If you have killed kittens before and were seen and rumour has spread, the girl would be able to see through your lie.
Basically: letting the player choose anything he deems fit to reach his goals is good. Making some of these options impossible based on his reputation and his previous actions is better than making them impossible due to a fixed alignment.
The behaviour you describe is simply that of an opportunist.
I'm not a D&D advocate, but here goes: in D&D terms, such behavior would be expected mostly from a neutral evil (self-serving) or chaotic neutral (erratic) character (that is, assuming that lying to seduce a girl is considered evil). Would a chaotic evil half-orc of low intelligence try to make up elaborate lies to seduce a girl? No, he'd probably just rape her.
And I think we're touching on the issue of realism again. I think you would agree with me that there is quite a number of people who aren't opportunists; wether they are too idealistic, too dogmatic, too dumb, or too lazy to be opportunists doesn't matter. If a character has always acted "good" and "lawful" in his life up to now, because it just felt right to him and whatever outside influences factor in here, and if he then swore an oath to become a paladin, there's no reason to assume he would start killing, lying and stealing all of a sudden. Of course, it could be debated wether the player should still be
allowed to act like an erratic fuck, but I think if you look at all these factors it works out in favor of alignments. Maybe not fixed alignments, but at least a scale as in Arcanum.
