Quote Originally Posted by 1337 b4k4 View Post
It seems to me that when they do provide slightly more extensive fluff, the wailing and gnashing of teeth concerning the restrictiveness of said fluff begins. See some of the reaction to the little fluff they put in the playtest for sorcerers vs warlocks vs wizards.
Except D&D went in the opposite direction with 4th edition and it is one of the major complaints about the system. Honestly, it is a tight rope WotC has to walk. My personal opinion is to air on more fluff rather than too little and include a paragraph in the DMG telling the DM it's ok to ignore baked-in fluff and make your own stuff, or - perhaps better yet - listen to what your players want the fluff for their character to be.


Quote Originally Posted by TheOOB View Post
Actually, it's not really subjective, especially not good and evil, which is the only one that's relevant for the paladin code. While a Paladin must be lawful, they can perform chaotic acts if need be. Remember that as a general rule, determining whether a specific action is a certain alignment is usually pointless, alignments represent general trends of a character.
One of the biggest issues with the Paladin was that he DID have to follow the Lawful side of his alignment.

A paladin must be of lawful good alignment and loses all class abilities if she ever willingly commits an evil act.

Additionally, a paladin’s code requires that she respect legitimate authority, act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth), help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends), and punish those who harm or threaten innocents.

He could never topple a dictator because doing so would not be respecting legitimate authority, He would also be helping people for chaotic means because what inevitably happens after a revolution? Chaos. Sure the end product is both good and lawful but the ends do not justify the means in D&D.

Most DMs are not hardcore "Thou shalt not break alignment EVER" types but there will always be that fringe element that uses alignment like a cudgel. This is why I agree with you that alignment should be much more broad in scope and fairly vague.