Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Killing shouldn't be the solution for everything!

Once again, I think we should get rid of any alignment system.

I think choice and consequence is enough.
You do something and other people react to it. Different groups of people might react differently. So the assassin guild likes and dislikes other actions than an order of pacifist monks.
Whatever alignment system you chose, you can always create a situation where this specific alignment system (whichever you choose) will fail or at least lead to strange consequences.
If you use some kind of system that determines how people react, hide it from the player and show us only the consequences.

My personal opinion:
good examples:
- The witcher (only played part 1): You have many choices but no alignment system. When you face the consequences the game reminds you that this is the result of your choice. Some consequences hit you at once, others do it many hours later.
- Age of Decadence: The ultimate example of c&c in RPGs. The game is almost perfect in simulating a "realistic" world. However, the game forces you to extreme specialisation: Either you use a char that is optimized for avoiding combat (the easy way, I have beaten the game this way) or you have a char who focusses only on one type of combat ( I had no chance as assassin even though I tried to optimize my char). Anything else will kill you. I think D:OS2 should be a bit more forgiving, so in some situations fight, talk and sneak may be all viable options for a char.

bad examples:
- Baldurs Gate 1+2 and similar games: Each char has a fixed alignment that is completely independent of what that char actually does. (See the post about Viconia. You lose reputation for saving an evil person. This person is evil because of her race, she has done nothing wrong)
- KotoR 1+2: Both games are very good, but the alignment system encourages you to follow one extreme path, even in situations where it does not make sense. (You get stat and spell bonusses depending on your dark/light side).
KotoR2 is great (and Kreia is one of the best chars in gaming history) because it shows that whole good vs evil thing is nonsense. But even a game that tells you that the whole good vs evil thing is the cause of most suffering uses exactly such a system. This is an example where the story (which is very good) gets in conflict with game mechanics (not so good).