A discussion in the TiTS gripes/criticisms thread turned to alignments in RPGs and I wanted to talk a little bit more about them without derailing the thread even more.
Some people seem to like alignments while some feel they're too restrictive. Personally, I like the idea of alignments with one caveat: they shouldn't be hard coded to the character.
I see alignments as a way to quickly and easily show the GM and other players a quick snapshot of your PC's values and behavioral pattern. It's shorthand for what other people can expect of your PC given a moral quandary. They exist because more often than not, role-players tend to play characters quite different than themselves, and not just physically. Emotionally and ethically different are also fun skins to wear for a day. If everyone played themselves, it'd be boring as fuck and we wouldn't need things like backgrounds and alignments to tell everyone about our character. "Hey, I'm Jeff, I'm playing a Level 3 Bank Teller named Jeff, I grew up in Poughkeepsie, NY, the son of Laura and Todd, an accountant and a nurse, I like cats and I hate standing in lines and people that don't look behind them to see if they need to hold a door for someone else."
Now, I can only speak from personal experience but I've never had games that went sideways because of alignments. Every GM I've ever had made great pains to explain to someone why their angelic, do-gooder Paladin may clash with a group of mercs and thieves. Everyone can point to that one guy who demands he or she must be allowed to play a hardline good or evil character. You know what we did? We didn't invite that person to play again.
Just like there are no true Good or Evil alignments, there are very few actual Good or Evil choices. A PC foiling a cutpurse's attempt at stealing someone's purse may, on the surface, be a Good act. But what if it's in the service of gaining that NPC's trust so the PC can fleece them out of even more money later on?
My favorite villains are the ones that think they're doing the right thing. Notice I didn't say, "think they're doing good." There's a huge different between "right" and "good". The best villains aren't the ones twirling their mustache and rubbing their hands over a damsel tied to railroad tracks. They're the ones you find yourself - often to your complete surprise - kind of rooting for. The TV show and character "Dexter" is a perfect example. The character - a serial killer who only kills bad people - sums himself up with one perfect question: "Am I a good person doing bad things, or a bad person doing good things?"
Alignments, besides being a starting point, should also be allowed to evolve. Alignments should be a starting point writ in pencil, not stone. The worst characters are always the ones who are stagnant. "Character development" isn't just something a writer does before starting a story. Experience levels and skills shouldn't be the only things to change. Values and belief systems should also be allowed to evolve and the best GMs are the ones that award this type of roleplay.
So, what do you guys think about alignments in RPGs? Good, Evil, Chaotic Neutral?