Quote Originally Posted by Andezzar View Post
Yes, but are they evil because their vampiric nature overrides their previous morals or are they evil now because they always were evil and the vampires select such individuals to become their kin, or did they simply stay evil because they wanted to without being enticed by their vampiric nature? Committing evil often simply is the easier choice. I'm not saying many vampires should be goody two shoes, but that there is no explicit cause and effect relationship between vampirism and continued evilness.The books do not say that vampires are in any way compelled or even enticed to commit evil acts. As such they should not have a more difficult time to refrain from such acts than any other character.
I'm in search of a good adjective for this kind of argument. I think 'disconnected' or 'noncomittal' might work, but I really want to use 'namby-pamby' just because its an awesome term. This is the kind of argument that comes from a lack of desire to actually explore the meaning of things in the game as if they were real situations. You're basically describing an approach to GMing which creates a very hollow game, because nothing is expected to have any meaning beyond what is actually written in the ink - there's no exploration of ideas or concepts. We're picking out vampire alignment as a specific thing here, but if you really want to follow your argument through then it applies to basically everything in the system. A fireball shouldn't be described as feeling hot, because thats not what the rules say a fireball does - it doesn't interfere with a character's sense of temperature (though by the rules, I suppose they don't actually have one unless they're being influenced by an illusion spell!).

I have zero interest in playing in or running such a game, and I also think that in general, most players will have a better experience in a game in which things are expected to have meaning and depth beyond just what the text says.

I disagree, RAW is what the players should be able to expect. It it the basis for the game. A deviation from it should be communicated and agreed upon with the players. Just as the players expect Power Attack to add 2 to the damage of a two-handed weapon for each -1 the player subtracts from his attack bonus, they should be able to expect that they are not forced to play their characters in a certain way if they become vampires.
We're never going to agree then. Basically the sort of game you describe is something I wouldn't want to go anywhere near - its 180 degrees from what I consider an acceptable tabletop experience.

How is "vampires usually select those to become vampires from evil people and thus almost all are evil" less consistent and compelling and more restricting to the players' characters than saying "you must act evil now"?
Its a brush-off. Its saying 'I don't want to deal with this issue, so I will propose something that conveniently makes it go away'. Note that I'm very much not saying 'you must act evil now' - I'm saying 'act however you like, but because you're a vampire your experience of the world is different and that is something you will need to deal with.'