Quote Originally Posted by Batcathat View Post
This is probably true to some degree, but I'm not sure it's a good thing in a game. Isn't it more interesting if you have to actually get to know characters and figure out whether to trust them or not rather than just go "Ding! He detects as Evil, clearly we can't trust him"?
Yes, the idea that you can slap one of nine labels on a person and that will give you an idea of how they'll act is silly at best, actively detrimental to role-playing at worst. It's not so bad if there's no magic to detect alignment, but even so it's worse than the players actually gauging a character's motives based on their actions or maybe social rolls.