Quote Originally Posted by Quertus
It’s not “people will argue over anything”. It’s not about the *existence* of the argument. It’s about the *quality* of the argument, about the *type* of argument serious statements of “this thing you believe in is evil -> you are evil” produces.
See the other thread for the argument why this is not a problem you need to warp in-game morality for.

Also, sane people have frank moral dicussions with each other all the time, even in context of hobbies. For example, scouting competitions involve things like quizzes on ethical outdoorsmanship, scored contests on applied first aid, and of course, discussion on law and virtues of scouts. Olympic sports will have discussions on what is or isn't good sportsmanship, what is or isn't considered doping, etc.. Virtually any martial art will include that plus discussion on ethics of use of force and self-defense.

All of these much more directy put people in the spotlight for how accurate and ethical their beliefs are, than any use of alignment in a fantasy game.

So, why the bloody Hell do you think fantasy roleplaying games are the one hobby where these discussions are an insurmountable problem?

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@Mastikator: D&D characters have always had personality traits, bonds, flaws and ideals beyond alignment, even when not codified to a system. They are not a substitute for any alignment system, D&D alignment system is an expansion of moral-philosophical aspects of those things. A player character's position on the alignment graph is already derived from their actions.

For contrast, you could look at Call of Cthulhu's and ask "Why a sanity score? Why not just describe individual symptoms of mental disorders?" You can do that, but it would miss the point: the sanity score is not simply about whether a person is mentally disturbed, it's about their alienation from what human society considers "sane" as result of learning and experiencing the fictional horrors of Lovecraftian mythos.