alignment is bad and you should feel bad

[Max_Killjoy]

That's a ridiculous claim. You're inputting your own bias here with language like "platitudes" and "nonsense answers", dismissing the basics of the system without serious examination, and then your conclusion, "alignment will still be useless", is thus entirely tautological, because the "uselessness" of alignment is predicated only on your hand-waived dismissal of the merit of the system.

The only "oversimplification" in the alignment system is as it applies to a given alignment of a specific creature. And even that doesn't preclude more nuanced personality or moral/ethical mores or quandaries. it means only that each individual is ultimately judged by an ENTIRELY objective and dispassionate judge that does not waiver (the cosmic forces of Good/Evil/Law/Chaos). In the default D&D world, even the gods are beholden to these forces, and since the forces are completely objective and dispassionate, they are not swayed by any kind of excuses or moral vacillating. A given character may have justification for the horrible things he does. He may, in fact, be doing it for the greater good of a community or a population. His people may love him and think him a hero. But his actions will always be judged by an objective measure.

It is important to understand this: Alignment is [u]not[/I] an absolute barometer of action or affiliation.

Just because someone's alignment is "evil" doesn't mean that he's "Them", and just because someone's alignment is "neutral" or "good" doesn't mean he's "Us". And despite all your snide dismissal of alignment as only serving to be exactly that, the RAW disagree with you, and you are wrong.

I'm not trying to say "you have to like alignment" or "you have to use alignment". I don't care about changing people's opinions. But when you make fallacious claims about what is and is not fact, I must object.

Reread some of those posts. It's not both "us vs them" and "useless moral system" at the same time -- it's that it's a terrible Us vs Them OR a terrible Moral System. That there is also a conflation of the two that reflects a rather toxic real-world "us good vs them evil" mentality that's all too common is just icing on the cake.

"Us vs Them" is exactly how many players treat Alignment -- as permission to freely kill and steal from anything in the wrong / enemy jersey.

On the other hand...

The "objective morality" that both the detractors and defenders of Alignment alike describe... is sick, an absurdist horror show where supposed morality is defined simplistically by the actions one takes; where standing by and doing nothing is often more "morally safe" than taking action; where someone can be forced into "doing evil" in taking the least-bad option, when contrivance or circumstance arrange for nothing but bad choices. And it does in fact preclude any sort of moral quandaries or nuance, by establishing a checklist of "evil actions" and setting in stone that committing any of those actions is "evil", no matter what the circumstances are, no matter what the intent or motivation was, no matter what.

Unless of course you're killing anything wearing the Team Evil jersey, evidently? What does the Alignment system say about raiding a village of orcs and killing all the adults, or all of them to the last? After all, it's an objective system with ultimate unquestionable answers, it should have an answer for this one, right?