Re: what is it about angels?

Erol K. Bayburt posts, in part:

  Alignment flame bait: If an orphanage takes in
  foundlings and orphans, and finances itself by
  selling the older ones into slavery, then is
  rescuing those slaves a Good act of foiling a
  slaver ring, or an Evil act of stealing money
  from an orphanage?

I'd be interested in discussing that question, but not in a thread
where we're discussing the simplistic D&D alignment system.

In the present context, Grehalia appears to have been both stealing
from the orphanage and selling the orphans into slavery, and it
doesn't seem like either of these were considered societally
acceptable behavior.  I don't know the complete background for the
campaign, but I don't see any argument to be made that she was 'good',
or even neutral.

  I suspect that what Mary wants is for alignment to
  be real but not the complete and overwhelming
  answer. A powerful but still potentially-defeatable
  angel would fulfill this role well. It would forcefully
  remind the PCs about alignment, and the PCs
  couldn't ignore it. But the PCs *could*, possibly,
  rebutt it.

Nitpicky note:  it seems the angel has stats and was at least
potentially defeatable.  It just wasn't likely, and was even less
likely in an agreed duel rather than a sneak attack by the whole
party, but it wasn't impossible by fiat.  Of course, I haven't seen
the stats.

I don't really agree with your reasoning, though.  I think that player
characters will, in general, only be reminded about alignment by
encounters such as this if they lose.  If they win, they'll generally
just feel that they did the right thing, irrespective of what they
defeated.  The strength of the encounter is not the reminder; the
result is.

Warren J. Dew