In "classic" RPG's, and by classics I mean those that have been tried and true long before there was an attempt at making a standard open license to make games within (provided that is generates profits for the progenators), there hs always been a sort of jargon associated with the moral and ethical compass of a character's creeds and mantras.

Whether you go the simple law/chaos, good/evil, whatever; nearly all games provide some sort of pre-contrived notion as to how your character sees the world and attempts to act.  

Most games go so far as to suggest, or state, that the changing of these morals, and hence the changing of one's outlook upon life, should be punished with large penalties in game terms.

I pose this question and postulary:

1) Is the pretense of morality as an ongoing determining factor in character action and philosophy sophomoric and antiquated?  If yes, or no, why do yo ufeel this way?

Corrolary: If I, in my life, have my eyes "opened" and change my point of view and judgement, i am not less of a person, merely a different person in the psyche than I was moments before.  I retain all of hte essence that made me whom and what I am.  If you advocate a clear-cut proclamation of morality and ehtics, should one be enalized for a change of heart?

Quote from: GladenIf you advocate a clear-cut proclamation of morality and ehtics, should one be enalized for a change of heart?

Socially yes.  Mechanically no.

Quote from: GladenIn "classic" RPG's, and by classics I mean those that have been tried and true long before there was an attempt at making a standard open license to make games within (provided that is generates profits for the progenators), there hs always been a sort of jargon associated with the moral and ethical compass of a character's creeds and mantras.

Whether you go the simple law/chaos, good/evil, whatever; nearly all games provide some sort of pre-contrived notion as to how your character sees the world and attempts to act.  

Most games go so far as to suggest, or state, that the changing of these morals, and hence the changing of one's outlook upon life, should be punished with large penalties in game terms.

I pose this question and postulary:

1) Is the pretense of morality as an ongoing determining factor in character action and philosophy sophomoric and antiquated?  If yes, or no, why do yo ufeel this way?

Corrolary: If I, in my life, have my eyes "opened" and change my point of view and judgement, i am not less of a person, merely a different person in the psyche than I was moments before.  I retain all of hte essence that made me whom and what I am.  If you advocate a clear-cut proclamation of morality and ehtics, should one be enalized for a change of heart?

Ok here's my take on it.   Alignment used as a moral barometer is an interesting but difficult and often (in the wrong hands or with the wrong rules) unwieldy.   As such few people use it well.   However, in my opinion, it can be used well.   The question is how.  

The first task is to make out of Alignment a coherent system.  This is where I think D&D, although it pointed the way, never quite made it.  And as a result it created conditions under which Alignment could not be effectively deployed as a consistent and useful mechanism.

Second, the Gamesmaster who wishes to use Alignment effectively has to give deep consideration to how Alignment should be played in his or her World.   What IS Alignment should be the first question that the Gamesmaster must answer for their World.   One World's answer may not be suitable for another.   Each GM must draw their own conclusion.

In my World it is a barometer of two aspects of the soul of the Character.   The Moral and the Metaphysical.  Where the Character stands is not determined by Alignment - it is determined by their beliefs and their actions - in combination.   As the Character acts in the World their Alignment will probably change.   They may announce that they wish to be such and such Alignment.   That's fine.   But if their actions don't prove it, then their Alignment inexorably shifts.   Thus the Fighter who states he wants to be Lawful Good must behave that way.   If he kills random peasants for loot, he isn't going to be Lawful Good, despite his aspiration.  

Now sometimes Characters join a particular group, institution or religion, which has it's own Alignment Imperative.   Such as the Character who becomes a Cleric of the Blue Flame, and thus takes a Sacred Oath to uphold the principals of Law and Order, and a vanquisher of Chaos.   He is now tied to the religion of the Blue Flame.   IF however he fails to behave in accordance with the Principals to which he's sworn, then he becomes an anathema to the Blue Flame.   And there is a price to pay for that.   Rejected by the Temple, he is cast out, and whatever Powers and Privileges he obtained are forfeit, and he may even be marked as One Who Was Rejected.   If his crimes are egregious enough, he may even forfeit his life.   Each Deity or Institution may have it's own Alignment and it's own rules of conduct.   Usually, though, once someone Joins such an Order, there are penalties for failing to uphold the Oath.

On the other hand, no such thing is true for Characters who privately determine to be a particular Alignment, and merely attempt to behave in a certain way so as to conform to that Alignment's principals.   Thus, when Elenita of Hamfest is determined to be the best little girl in the village, and she behaves as such, you can bet she gains Goodness as her Alignment.   If she's consistent about it, she becomes Good Lawful.   It is her actions, not her declaration, that make it so.

Now for the tricky part, in my book.   Chaos is by nature ... inconsistent.  Thus, a Chaotic Character could behave Lawfully, and so long as he does so inconsistently, he remains Chaotic, and in fact may actually increase in Chaos by doing so.   However, a Lawful Character can never behave Chaotically without severely damaging his credibility in the realm of Law.   Thus the Lawful Character must behave consistently, or be thrown into Chaos.  For anyone who is sincerely trying to be Lawful, to fail can be it's own punishment.   However, this is also not to say that a fallen Lawful Character can never be redeemed.   But you can tell from what I'm saying that the punishment is not necessarily from the Game Mechanic, so much as from the Character's own inner disappointment at failing.   So this is the case for Characters who have aspirations but have not taken any particular Oath.

Playing all of this out in the game takes a certain finesse.   I'm not inclined to suggest that it's necessarily easy, and I can say from experience that there are times when it's very difficult to know how to respond or categorize certain actions.   I have my own system for doing so which is based on a combination of the action's motive, and the result.   I have a formula that works in such a way as to assign points for various kinds of Alignment related actions according to the standard Alignment spread:  Good-Evil, Law-Chaos.  So far it has worked out pretty well.

1. I don't know where you're getting this "historically, all games had alignment" from. D&D had (has) alignment; a few early copycat games may have had it, mainly in fantasy; almost nothing outside fantasy has alignment--the sole exception I can think of being, of all games, Palladium's Recon.

2. Granted, a few games do use something alignment-like in their personality mechanics. Your character is defined (randomly or by point-buy) as having a certain personality trait (e.g., cowardice) and then this is only enforced by the GM giving experience points based on the quality of roleplaying. Or, possibly, the GM or group browbeating the player into playing a certain way.

3. All that said, there's nothing wrong with alignment if you have a conscious reason for using it. Personally, I don't see the point of D&D's prescriptive system except for very limited cases, such as the Paladin. Outside of that, the alignment system is okay as a descriptive tool, a guideline for how you intend to play your character and possibly how other characters will react. I don't get the idea of a fighter, e.g., losing a level for drifting from Lawful Good to Lawful Neutral or somesuch.

One thing that could rescue this sort of prescriptive alignment, though, is to really buy into the Moorcockian idea of allegiance to opposing forces. Give players real bonuses for playing to certain alignments (e.g., gathering "Law Points" which can be cashed in somehow), and also allow their actions to further the cause of the metaphysical forces in their world-spanning struggle, and you may have something.

Quote from: Elliot WilenOne thing that could rescue this sort of prescriptive alignment, though, is to really buy into the Moorcockian idea of allegiance to opposing forces. Give players real bonuses for playing to certain alignments (e.g., gathering "Law Points" which can be cashed in somehow), and also allow their actions to further the cause of the metaphysical forces in their world-spanning struggle, and you may have something.

That's pretty much how I do it, in fact.  One gains Alignment points, and if you get far enough in any Alignment direction the Deities in that realm begin to notice.   If they are impressed enough they may offer some reward in the form of Powers, which pertain to that Alignment.  For example, if a Character gains enough Goodness points, then the Elkron (Elthosian Deity) may reward her with the Power of Healing.   Powers, by the way, are neither spells nor miracles nor skills, but are their own kind of Ability with their own rules.   And so if the Character becomes Good enough, or Evil enough, or Lawful enough or Chaotic enough, they will begin eventually to gain certain Powers of that Alignment from the Elkron most closely associated with that realm.   The basic Four are the Cardinal Alignments, but then there are all of the variations as well, such as Lawful Good, Chaotic Evil, etc.   Thus, the Alignment system works to provide those who are specifically interested in following an Alignment path with a fairly cohesive system by which they may do so, and gain - or lose - by their effort.

Quote from: Gladen1) Is the pretense of morality as an ongoing determining factor in character action and philosophy sophomoric and antiquated?  If yes, or no, why do yo ufeel this way?

I think it's antiquated, in the sense that it conflicts with the modern notion that being judgmental is the greatest sin of all and it doesn't mesh well with a morally relative or godless outlook, but I think it's far less sophomoric (in an almost literal sense) than the non-judgmental morally relative alternative.  

Quote from: GladenCorrolary: If I, in my life, have my eyes "opened" and change my point of view and judgement, i am not less of a person, merely a different person in the psyche than I was moments before.  I retain all of hte essence that made me whom and what I am.

What you are saying here is that you can have your eyes "opened" and change your point of view and judgment and be a different person i the psyche yet still retain all of the essence that made [you] who and what you are?  So what is the "essence" of "who and what you are", then?  

If your profession involves a tie to a deity and a philosophically defined type of behavior, shouldn't changing your point of view and judgment have some impact on your relationship with your deity or your profession?  I mean, if a Catholic priest decided to convert to Islam or became an outspoken atheist, don't you think he'd suffer professionally and have to find a new line of work?  Yes, I know there are some denominations with openly agnostic or atheist clergy, but doesn't that seem a little silly to you?

Quote from: GladenIf you advocate a clear-cut proclamation of morality and ehtics, should one be [p]enalized for a change of heart?

Yes, if the morality that one proclaims matters.

Try this little experiment if you want to see what happens in the real world when people have a significant change of heart...

Get a hold of a bunch of Fundamentalist Christian or Islamic or whatever literature and read it enough so that you can recite it back and be convincing.  Then the next time you meet with your friends, tell them that you've been investigating various religions and one of them really spoke to your soul and changed your heart and you've decided to become a member of that faith and want to share it with your friend.  Then start talking to them about this faith and what it means to you.  How do you think they'd react?

Or if that's too much, the next time you see your friend, convincingly express political opinions that are 180 degrees opposed to the political opinions that you normally express and see how they react.  Or tell them that you've changed your mind on simply one important hot-button issue that you normally agree on and that matters to your friends and see how your friends react.