Quote Originally Posted by dr.cello View Post
Rogues aren't always even thieves, though. It's pretty easy to imagine a lawful detective or police officer taking rogue.

I'm all in favor of lawful bards, myself, but I think it's partly a flavor thing: the designers intended for bards to be wandering minstrels, the lot of them, which doesn't fit too well with a lawful idea. I can easily see bards of a more lawful bent, though--it'd break the stereotype and be pretty fun to do. (A lawful evil bard would be exceedingly fun.)
I'm glad they were able to make the step to 'not all rogues are thieves' and hope they can expand this for more classes. As everyone has said here, alignments tend to stereotype and pigeonhole characters. It's perfectly fine to play a charming conman who wander from town to town, I personally have had great fun with characters like this, but the base rules should not dictate that is the only way to play a bard. A section describing a typical bard should suffice. Allowing people freedom of alignment allows for more thought out characters in my opinion. The same would be true without alignments at all, but they do serve as a hand rough guide to start from.