Do alignments improve the gaming experience?

[howandwhy99]

D&D uses Alignment as a statistic so players can actually play with it in the game rather than hand waving it away as a story.

Let's be very clear. Almost no statistics or mechanics in the game are about your character. Character as a personality concept is utterly irrelevant to D&D role playing. The specific scores comprising your character are a small, almost insignificant piece of game world and rules. If you as a Player want to ignore your Alignment, you can do that without too much hassle

- as long as you are not playing a Cleric that is. Alignment is one of the key components of the cleric system. Just like AC, HP, and To-Hit tables aren't really important except to Fighters and Saving Throws to anyone, but Magic-Users. Alignment matters somewhat, but it is far more about what the alignment of everything else in the world is. How you treat the world has consequences on how it will treat you based on its design.

Also, cleric players choose this class because they are interested specifically in playing with Alignment game (and Morale, and Loyalty, and NPC personalities, etc.) They aren't in it for combat or magic, but all the subtle ins and outs of interacting with people. They have chosen that as their class and therefore the focus of their game.

Even then, I do strongly suggest each and every Cleric player determine for themselves the tenets of belief of their own deity (religion, philosophy, belief system, what have you). And the GM holds to the specific player on what their behavior means in these. Alignment still remains. Maybe their religious belief spans a few Alignments? Maybe its smaller than even one? I don't know, but Alignment is about how the rest of the world engages with your PC. Just like any other stat on the sheet.

 

[Jacob Marley]

Is alignment actually harmful to the game? I think that depends on how you fall on paladins running around slaughtering orc babies. Seriously, I think that's it. If you want orcs to be profoundly, inherently, irredeemably evil, such that massacring an undefended village of their females and young is a good act, then alignment is for you. The only consistent impact I've seen alignment have (other than cause arguments about itself, including this one) was to divide the game-world into 9 teams with different logos, colors, hairdoos, etc. that were otherwise fairly indistinguishable in the way they treated each other.

This is a trivialization of the position of those who utilize alignment. I expected more of you, [MENTION=6688937]Ratskinner[/MENTION].

 

[Celebrim]

The terms "good" and "evil" are, in ordinary use, not purely descriptive terms.

To begin with, I would argue that any RPG term is quite obviously a term of art and therefore equally obviously not employed in an ordinary use. The term may have a relation to some term from the real world, but a term like 'cleric' carries and conveys so much specific information that you can hardly say that when I refer to a D&D cleric I'm using the word in an ordinary usage and not in a way that is almost entirely descriptive. Why shouldn't a phrase like 'lawful good cleric' be descriptive?

Second of all, so what? You already admit that use I'm employing in relation to the D&D terms of art like 'good' and 'evil' is not unknown outside of D&D and that it is employed in literature. Your declaration that this is a non-standard employment seems to have very little basis other than convenience for your argument. I would argue that the only extent to which Milton's employment of the term is non-standard, is Milton's Satan is rather more self-aware than most people. You agree that the term is subject to analysis. In what sense is that less important than the fact the term is evaluative in the context of a work of speculative literature such as a fantasy RPG? Surely the experience of the thing is the whole point.

Whereas what you are asking me to do, in using the D&D alignment system, is to treat "good" and "evil" as purely descriptive terms.

Well, yes, what part of them being 'descriptors' made you think that wasn't the primary sense in which they were used.

"Good" implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others.

"Evil" implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others.​

"Altruism", "respect", "dignity", "help", "oppress" and "hurt" - all of which appear in these definitions - are evaluative terms that can't be applied without making some sort of judgement which can, at least loosely, be called a moral judgment.

I find this rather less difficult and arbitrary of a task as you are trying to make it seem. Altruism can be for example sufficiently well defined to make it a subject of study in the hard sciences (biology that is, as opposed to say sociology or philosophy). The common understanding of the meaning of those terms is I think quite sufficient. It is of course in the details that we can find disagreement, but this of course runs us right back into "Let evil be my good". It's precisely in these often non-standard ideas of what really helps and hurts that the alignments disagree. While the guy with the whip might really feel he is doing it for "your own good", and that's something interesting to think about, it hardly falls into the usual standard of 'altruism'.

Thus, using these as pure descriptors requires treating someone's moral judgement - by default, the GM's - as having authority by fiat. I have to suspend my own judgement at the gaming room door.

While I don't disagree that the GM has fiat authority, I hardly see how this requires you to suspend your judgment at the gaming room door. If you want to make the honest case that scourging someone repeatedly with a whip in order to encourage greater vigor in them is a real kindness, you can make that honest case. What you shouldn't expect however is for that to be the ordinary understanding of what is meant by kindness. A person that actually believed that would necessarily be used to his words not fitting into the ordinary ideas that the words were associated with. Again, it's not freedom of play which is constrained, but simply your right to your own labels. But, obviously everyone can't have the right to their own labels if we are to be systematic.

To connect these two points by way of an example: if I choose to play a paladin, I do so because I want to explore and express what altruism and respect might mean within a value framework in which honour and duty are also core values (this is what anchors self-discipline and regard for social order). I don't choose to play a paladin so I can be told, in due course, what the GM thinks that these things require - and thus potentially have my conception of my character, and his/her place within the gameworld, undone by the GM's mere stipulation.

This is not a very Paladin like outlook. You are trying to approach the experience of being a Paladin by following the dictates of your own consciousness as the highest moral authority. That's not remotely what a Paladin believes. But in particular, if that really was a problem in a game, that would be a failure of DMing. I don't see why it should come as a particular surprise what is required of a champion of some deity or alignment, nor that it should be a surprise that the DM is ultimately the standard of defining the requirements of a deity or alignment within his cosmology since he is ultimately the animating principle of such a thing. For my part, I'm quite willing to work with a player to create a deity or organization that has a particular outlook he wishes to explore, but I reserve the right to say what 'bucket' that deity or organization goes into for the purposes of categorization.

if the alignment labels are treated as purely descriptive, rather than carrying their standard evaluative content, then any morally passionate character - eg a paladin, a monk, many clerics, some druids - is fundamentally wrong.

I don't agree, but I will say that within the religion and philosophy of my game world this is an intense point of controversy and there are certainly a great many NPCs in the world that would agree with you. There are other NPCs that would disagree for a variety of reasons, noting (in a more elaborate way) that just because the universe contains good and evil doesn't mean we should be indifferent to them, or that just because the observable universe is impersonal doesn't mean that good and evil are to be equally esteemed. You've read your Plato. What is piety?

 

[Manbearcat]

Pemerton, I think, mentions "being good only because it leads to the greatest rewards". It seems like this places the player/character in a similar position - behaviour consistent with your alignment will always generate positive mechanical results, so there is no disadvantage, no sacrifice, required to be a stalwart defender of the Right striving to exemplify the ideals of Law and Good.

I believe pemerton was referring to the 1st party feedback. I committ good or I commit evil and I'm tangibly or intangibly rewarded. Whereas I'm referring to the feedback to the player in the same way that the metagame considerations of XP for gold and prolific, punitive SoD traps and effects work together to create a certain approach by the players and a genre unto its own. Consider the following:

1) A player is running a character has a clear moral directive of "when the horde encroaches and crowds out the light, I will be an unrelenting bastion of hope."

2) The system either (a) provides the character with XP for putting himself in "against all odds" scenarios (win or lose) or (b) the character build specifically shines in those scenarios thus leading to better odds of success.

So the system is going to "push" the player, and by extension the character, toward an ethos in line with (1). If you take 3 or so of those moral directives and put them togethen then you have a focused value system that the system rewards (either by character advancement directly or by being "buffed" for facing conflicts that engage with those precepts and then having character advancement by proxy). The idea is that this will produce coherent play GM-side (GM frames the player into conflicts that test those moral directives) and player-side (player is inclined toward engaging with those conflicts which tests those directives, therefore the fiction churns out that archetype).

 

[pemerton]

Why can't the Paladin actually judge himself more harshly than his deity does?

That would mean that the paladin is mistaken, wouldn't it? (Unless you mean that the deity acts with mercy, and so does not inflict the fully warranted judgement. But I've never seen what D&D's theory of mercy looks like, and it doesn't seem to play a role in the alignment descriptors for the game.)

It seems like great role playing could easily arise from the Paladin's reconciliation of his standards with those of his Deity.

<snip>

It doesn't seem like this situation needs to be a game-wrecker by any means. It may be, perhaps, that the player is so inflexible as to be unable to run his character if there is any challenge to his preconceived notions, but I don't find that a sign of a great player by any means.

<snip>

I would have thought that challenge to the character's beliefs made for a stronger game, not a weaker one. You are setting out a case that those beliefs should never be challenged

<snip>

So really, then, there is no challenge to living up to the Paladin's Code as the player's vision, however harsh or lax it may be, will automatically be presumed to match that of his Deity's.

<snip>

Can't agree with that - it seems like the challenges to the character's belief can easily facilitate great role playing, rather than impede it.

Three things.

First, the fact that you might enjoy playing a particular game - the "great roleplaying" that would result from the player brining his/her character's behaviour into conformity with divine requirements as stipulated by the GM - doesn't mean that I would.

Second, you say you "can't agree" that I encountered situations - as described in my post - in which alignment mechanics would have been a problem in the game. That's bizarre - what you're saying is that I have radically misunderstood my own play experience! But really what I think you mean is that your play experience wouldn't have been hurt. Which is probably true, but - newsflash! - you're not me.

Third, you inference that a character's belief system can't be challenged if there is no GM enforcement of divine requirements is simply not true. For instance, in the real world, my belief system is challenged all the time, and I revise it (mostly on the margins, sometimes more signficicantly) in light of those challenges. The same can happen in a game. For instance, I've run games in which players have their PCs change allegiances (to NPCs, to gods, to one another) over the course of play as new things happen, as new deeds are done by those characters, as new aspects of backstory are revealed in play.

On one occasion when I played a paladin (mechanically a cleric built as a pseudo-fighter under the Skills and Powers rules) my character started out with a clear undertanding that celibacy was a requirement of his station. But in the course of play he became very close to another PC, and romantic feelings developed. This challenged both my conception, as a player, as to what my PC's paladinhood required, and also challenged the PC's own conception of the same thing. There are two main ways that sort of story arc can evolve - either the Lancelot-ish way, in which the good of celibacy is re-affirmed and the character either falls or recovers purity of heart; or the (probably more sentimental) way in which the good of personal love is revealed as an aspect of, and integrated with, the more abstract love and compassion of the paladin. I don't really see why the game is better if it is the GM by way of stipulatoin rather than the player together with the rest of the table by way of actual play of the character who choose which arc is explored. (And if you are assuming that players won't choose arcs in which their PC's suffer, you're making an assumption that has not been borne out by my own experience as a GM.)

I think part of the issue here is "challenge", which also goes back to my post upthread about the original purpose of alignment in D&D. The challenge I have just described is not really a mechanical challenge, and when I have seen players choose to take their PCs down paths in which their PCs suffer, it hasn't been the case that the player suffers: in some of these cases the player has had a grand old time as the PC and the PC's suffering become the focus of play for a while. And as a general principle I don't think the player should suffer just because his/her PC is suffering. A character who is falling, or transforming, should in my view still carry with it the mechancial capabilities which enable its player to impact upon the game. Hence I don't like "mechanical disempowerment" rules for clerics, paladins, monks etc. Look at Tai Chi Master, for instance - when the protagonist (played by Jet Li) "falls" from Buddhim to Taoism he doesn't lose his role in the movie, and remains capable of expressing his protagonism by beating up bad guys with awesome martial arts. Given that I see RPG play in terms of protagonism, I think this is the right sort of model. (So while the 3E paladin > blackguard transition is a bit cartoon villain for my taste, I think it is a mechanical innovation in the right general direction - I would just put the player rather than the GM in charge of the transition.)

Another sort of "challenge" can be the challenge of playing your PC as doing XYZ - because this is what the GM has stipulated your alignment requires - when if left to your own judgement you would have your PC do ABC. This can indeed be a challenge, but it's not one I'm interested in. This is the "subordiation of the player's judgement to that of the GM" that I described above as contributing nothing worthwhile to my personal play experience.

For those who balk at that LG alignment for their Paladin imposing any constraints, they will similarly argue against any enforcement of a Paladin's code imposed with no alignment system, or assert that their psychological limitations in a game where these are the hallmark of the Paladin mindset are being interpreted too restrictively, or complain bitterly when the GM uses their Pendragon system traits to their detriment on occasion. They want their "holy warrior" to be free to use dirty, underhanded tactics whenever this is most expedient, and not to have their character live up to his supposed ideals.

I can't help but feel that you are projecting some experiences of you own onto the rest of the RPGing world while having - apparently - basically no conception of what our games are like or how they are played. Because if you did have such a conception you would see that this has no bearing on the issues that I mentioned in the post of mine to which you replied.

My players who play honourable warriors don't need a LG elephant stamp on their sheet, and a star chart from me as GM, in order to have their PCs not kick NPCs in the nads, or slip poison in their drinks, in the course of play. Having chosen to play an honourable warrior they are capable of carrying through on that decision.

The issues I referred to are fundamental questions of value, and of loyalty - for instance, can a paladin conclude that the gods in heaven are misguided, and throw in his/her lot with the one god whom they exiled? Can a paladin discover that s/he was wrong in thinking that purity required chastity? Those are the sorts of issues that I am interested in when I play, or GM, a paladin. Whereas the alignment system requires answering these questions by stipulation.

I believe pemerton was referring to the 1st party feedback. I committ good or I commit evil and I'm tangibly or intangibly rewarded. Whereas I'm referring to the feedback to the player

Correct.

 

[Storminator]

"You must spread some Experience Points around before giving it to pemerton again."

Pretty seriously good post, man.

PS

 

[N'raac]

1) A player is running a character has a clear moral directive of "when the horde encroaches and crowds out the light, I will be an unrelenting bastion of hope."

2) The system either (a) provides the character with XP for putting himself in "against all odds" scenarios (win or lose) or (b) the character build specifically shines in those scenarios thus leading to better odds of success.

So the system is going to "push" the player, and by extension the character, toward an ethos in line with (1). If you take 3 or so of those moral directives and put them togethen then you have a focused value system that the system rewards (either by character advancement directly or by being "buffed" for facing conflicts that engage with those precepts and then having character advancement by proxy). The idea is that this will produce coherent play GM-side (GM frames the player into conflicts that test those moral directives) and player-side (player is inclined toward engaging with those conflicts which tests those directives, therefore the fiction churns out that archetype).

It seems to me that there is little challenge in role playing this character's strong moral directives when the player knows, and the mechanics dictate, that the character is always more likely to succeed by adhering to those moral beliefs than if he deviates from them. What is difficult is maintaining principals when one would benefit by compromising or ignoring those beliefs.

That would mean that the paladin is mistaken, wouldn't it? (Unless you mean that the deity acts with mercy, and so does not inflict the fully warranted judgement. But I've never seen what D&D's theory of mercy looks like, and it doesn't seem to play a role in the alignment descriptors for the game.)

So it is impossible for the Paladin to, in any way, misinterpret the tenets of his deity, hold to a standard higher than his deity demands or otherwise have his principals differ, even a single iota, from his deity's. If your standard for "LG" behaviour is that the slightest deviation from the GM's interpretation of LG ideals means los of paladinhood at best and death by bolts from the blue and eternal damnation at worst, then I certainly see why you would find alignment an excessive constraint. But I fail to see how so rigid an interpretation of alignment would give way to a much more reasonable interpretation of, say, a Code of Honour, or a Code of Chivalry, or any similar code or standard or ideal by which the character is judged.

First, the fact that you might enjoy playing a particular game - the "great roleplaying" that would result from the player brining his/her character's behaviour into conformity with divine requirements as stipulated by the GM - doesn't mean that I would.

At no time have I said the character must bring his behaviour into perfect conformity with any standard, be it divine or otherwise, stipulated by anyone. Nor did I say that you would enjoy such a game, or even that great role playing would result. I did say it could result, and I responded to your specific question of "How is that improving the play experience or the depth of either character, or player's engagement with the game?" which, to me, suggested the assertion that it detracted from the play experience, depth and/or engagement as an objective fact, and not in your subjective opinion.

You asked how it might improve the play experience. I answered. It may or may not improve your personal play experience, but that was not the question you posed. It would not improve the play experience for someone who wants his character to be a pawn on the chessboard, always making the best tactical move his player desires, rather than a living, breathing character with strengths and weaknesses either.

Second, you say you "can't agree" that I encountered situations - as described in my post - in which alignment mechanics would have been a problem in the game. That's bizarre - what you're saying is that I have radically misunderstood my own play experience! But really what I think you mean is that your play experience wouldn't have been hurt. Which is probably true, but - newsflash! - you're not me.

Again, I responded to your specific statement that these were For example of play to which an alignment system would be an impediment, see the two provided earlier in this post. I do not agree that, objectively, an alignment system would be an impediment to good play of those scenarios. You did not say it could be an impediment, or that it would be an impediment to some players, but that it objectively and universally would be an impediment. Perhaps you cannot envision game play where the Paladin is not hard coded with a full, detailed moral belief system that matches his deity's precisely, with no deviation whatsoever. I can easily envision that game, and it sounds like the differences would make for challenge, possible character growth and, overall, a much better game than the one you envision, where "Do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the law" since whatever interpretation you choose is automatically the precise vision of not only your character, but his deity was well.

Third, you inference that a character's belief system can't be challenged if there is no GM enforcement of divine requirements is simply not true. For instance, in the real world, my belief system is challenged all the time, and I revise it (mostly on the margins, sometimes more signficicantly) in light of those challenges. The same can happen in a game. For instance, I've run games in which players have their PCs change allegiances (to NPCs, to gods, to one another) over the course of play as new things happen, as new deeds are done by those characters, as new aspects of backstory are revealed in play.

I submit that, in the real world, the tenets of a person's religion (much less the views of a deity) are not set by that person. Unless you are Henry VIII, I suppose (but we can't know what his deity thought of his vision). As your deity's beliefs will always coincide with your own, presumably any vision that the standard should be higher or lower results in the deity's vision moving in lockstep.

On one occasion when I played a paladin (mechanically a cleric built as a pseudo-fighter under the Skills and Powers rules) my character started out with a clear undertanding that celibacy was a requirement of his station. But in the course of play he became very close to another PC, and romantic feelings developed. This challenged both my conception, as a player, as to what my PC's paladinhood required, and also challenged the PC's own conception of the same thing. There are two main ways that sort of story arc can evolve - either the Lancelot-ish way, in which the good of celibacy is re-affirmed and the character either falls or recovers purity of heart; or the (probably more sentimental) way in which the good of personal love is revealed as an aspect of, and integrated with, the more abstract love and compassion of the paladin. I don't really see why the game is better if it is the GM by way of stipulatoin rather than the player together with the rest of the table by way of actual play of the character who choose which arc is explored. (And if you are assuming that players won't choose arcs in which their PC's suffer, you're making an assumption that has not been borne out by my own experience as a GM.)

Who makes that call? The player, the player with the rest of the table (but without the GM), or the table including input of the GM? Again, you present your way (whichever it is, as I'm never quite clear from your comments who has a voice in the decisions) as de facto superior. I don't see it as superior simply because it may be your preference.

I can't help but feel that you are projecting some experiences of you own onto the rest of the RPGing world while having - apparently - basically no conception of what our games are like or how they are played. Because if you did have such a conception you would see that this has no bearing on the issues that I mentioned in the post of mine to which you replied.

I suggest that you also project your own experiences, as we all do.

My players who play honourable warriors don't need a LG elephant stamp on their sheet, and a star chart from me as GM, in order to have their PCs not kick NPCs in the nads, or slip poison in their drinks, in the course of play. Having chosen to play an honourable warrior they are capable of carrying through on that decision.

How is it that everyone can agree without question what constitutes "honourable" and "dishonourable", but if we label something "Lawful Good", suddenly no possible agreement can exist? My players need no star chart from the GM to have their LG PC's not gut a shopkeeper and steal his goods rather than pay for the goods they wish to possess, nor to treat the King with respect rather than spit on his shoes. Those seem just as "challenging" as your examples of honourable behaviour.

The issues I referred to are fundamental questions of value, and of loyalty - for instance, can a paladin conclude that the gods in heaven are misguided, and throw in his/her lot with the one god whom they exiled? Can a paladin discover that s/he was wrong in thinking that purity required chastity? Those are the sorts of issues that I am interested in when I play, or GM, a paladin. Whereas the alignment system requires answering these questions by stipulation.

Can there be consequences for the decisions the character makes? If a Roman Catholic priest decides that "he was wrong in thinking that purity required chastity", will he remain ordained after shacking up with his girlfriend? If a Paladin derives his powers from a deity in exchange for exemplifying the values that deity espouses, why would he expect to keep those powers after turning his back on that deity? Perhaps that one exiled god chooses to grant him the same powers - does that somehow prevent that deity being Evil, and using the Paladin to his own ends, rather than being benevolent as the Paladin has come to believe? Why is it impossible for him to misjudge anyone or anything?

 

[Dwimmerlied]

* If you take the more standard approach, and regard "good" and "evil" as labels not just of behaviour that will be rewarded or punished by certain cosmological forces but also, and primarily, as labels of behaviour that has or lacks certain value and therefore that characters have a reason to perform or to repudiate, then the issues that I mentioned come up: players have to subordinate their own judgements of value to the GM's.

At tables with adequate communication and reason, this wouldn't be an issue. I don't want to use the term subordination because it's loaded, but as a GM, I'm happy to compromise towards the views and feelings of my players. Is that subordination to my player's judgements? I guess it is, but the term then has lost any significance.

For instance, suppose a GM decides that (say) inadvertantly killing someone in a context of defence of others is not evil. And then a paladin PC inadvertantly kills someone, and the player of that PC takes a different view from the GM (s/he has a stricter view about the impermissibility of various forms of non-intentinal homicide, either for real, or as part of his/her conception of his/her PC). Now there is a gap between the value framework within which the player is conceiving of his/her PC, and the value framework that the GM is applying - the player expects that his/her paladin should be subject to divine sanction, but the GM doesn't deliver. How is that improving the play experience or the depth of either character, or player's engagement with the game?

There will always be gaps. The problem could always arise; communication seems a stronger solution, to me.

In circumstances where the gap between the PC's convictions and the moral truth is narrower, or once we get into territory where there can be reasonable moral disagreement (eg the example above about the wrongdoing involved in inadvertant defensive killing), then I wouldn't necessarily expect the player's and GM's judgements to overlap. But as a player I want to be free to react according to my own evaluative judgement, and to play my PC according to my own coneption of him/her (be that as a good person, if I'm playing my paladin, or as a fallen person, if I'm playing my KGB agent). I don't want to simply abandon my own evaluative perspective and find out what it's like to share my GM's value scheme as expressed in his/her campaign world; and when GMing I don't want my players to abandon their values and simply play their PCs in accordance with my judgements as to what is right or wrong within the fiction. That's simply not what I'm looking for in an RPG, either as GM or as player.

I don't think the alignment system restricts the way you play your character though, it just offers a picture of how the universe responds to it.

Yes, but it's nearly 30 years ago so I can't remember the details. In 1985 (or thereabouts) I read an article in Dragon 101 called "For King and Country" which helped me work out why alignment was hurting rather than helping my game, and I've not used it since then.

Cool, if I can find this somewhere, I'll have a read.

I understand why people might want to abandon the alignment system, but I do believe that it's weaknesses are often overstated.

 

[Dwimmerlied]

Apart from any moral or philosophical arguments, what constitutes "Lawful Good" and "Chaotic Neutral" are going to be judged by a human at the table, and that human is the DM. What constitutes "lawful good" behavior? DM fiat. In some cases the DM's preferences and the players' may align closely, and I suspect those are the tables where people have no problem with alignment. But in many cases they will not. And even when they do, I expect the player is in for some "surprises".

I guess my POV should be clear with what I've posted before, but the reason I disagree with your quotes, [MENTION=91777]Dungeoneer[/MENTION], is because I think it represents overly antagonistic gaming. That aside, surprises can't be too much of a problem for folk who can communicate and compromise. And if such antagonism exists, there would be many other problems the game with so much potential ambiguity.

The only way to find out for sure if you are following the requirements is for the DM to slap your hand and say "Paladins wouldn't do that."

Or ask before, or even during the game. And hand-slapping is never necessary, who would do that? I as a DM would discuss, or offer thoughts, and determine to be receptive to my players vision of their character, then I'd work within that. Is that so out there?

Alignment isn't a mechanic, it's a mind-game.

D&D is a mind game!

and the fact that alignment requires the player to read the DM's mind

That's not a fact, that's an opinion!

Alignment needs to either have explicit, objective steps a player can take to cement their alignment status (Like "save three kittens a day" or something) or it needs to be dropped. Or at the very least, relegated to the optional 'rule' it pretty much has become.

I don't think it should be dropped, but I do strongly support modularity, yep! Although I disagree with the arguments as you see them, I do wonder why shouldn't every gamer be able to easily ignore rules they don't like (so yeah, make it modular and make sure the mechanical implications can easily be unplugged).

 

[pemerton]

At tables with adequate communication and reason, this wouldn't be an issue.

<snip>

There will always be gaps. The problem could always arise; communication seems a stronger solution, to me.

I don't see why communication and reaching a table-wide agreement about what "good" means in this campaign is stronger than not insisting on a table-wide usage of "good". The latter allows everyone to play their characters, and for the GM to handle backstory and setting, as s/he thinks is appropriate - and the collisions between these things help drive the actual play of the game.

For me a comparison would be this: the PCs meet a dragon and decide to try and defeat it in combat. Do they succeed or not - ie is it true or false in the fiction that the PCs beat the dragon? One way would be for everyone to sit around, think hard about what the PCs can do and what the dragon can do, communicate frankly about this, and reach agreement. Another way would be to play the game. I prefer playing the game to work out what happens to the dragon; and I prefer playing the game to work out whether or not a particular player's evaluative conception of his/her PC, as expressed through the play of that PC, is viable/worthwhile/good/bad/admirable/despicable. In my experience the results can be interesting.

I don't think the alignment system restricts the way you play your character though, it just offers a picture of how the universe responds to it.

But that the universe responds in that way itself has implications for the truth or falsehood of certain moral and cosmological conceptions. For instance, if the universe is neutral as between being good or being evil - as is the case in Planescape, where both are valid alignments able to shape the planes by way of belief - then the typical mindset of a paladin (according to which the universe is on the side of good, and providence will ensure that honour and duty align to reinforce rather than oppose one another) has already been refuted, and the paladin is consequently self-deluded.

As I said upthread, this can work in some games - eg in a Conan game a paladin would be self-deluded - but doesn't work for the sort of fantasy game I default to, which is romantic fantasy a la Tolkien and King Arthur, not REH-esque.

It seems to me that there is little challenge in role playing this character's strong moral directives when the player knows, and the mechanics dictate, that the character is always more likely to succeed by adhering to those moral beliefs than if he deviates from them. What is difficult is maintaining principals when one would benefit by compromising or ignoring those beliefs.

This paragraph begins by talking about the player - and whether it is hard or easy to roleplay a particular character - and then ends up talking about the PC - who is maintaining certain principles. Talking in that way already involves many assumptions about playstyle that are not true for the way I play or GM the game. For instance, I don't expect my players to find it hard to roleplay their PCs being challenged. I hope that they will find it easy and enjoyable, and challenging only in the sense of setting an intellectual and aesthetic goal to aspire to - but in that respect, playing your PC being rewarded can be equally challenging, although often less dramatically engaging.

I submit that, in the real world, the tenets of a person's religion (much less the views of a deity) are not set by that person.

Once again you seem to be confusing the player with the PC. Most people don't get to decide who their parents were either, but players frequently do that for their PCs. Heck, GMs set the whole cosmology in which their NPCs live, but no one supposes that all of the NPCs are therefore gods who got to create their own universe!

How is it that everyone can agree without question what constitutes "honourable" and "dishonourable", but if we label something "Lawful Good", suddenly no possible agreement can exist?

They don't. That's part of the point of playing a paladin - finding out what your own conception of "honour" might require, and finding out what happens when that comes into collision with other participants' conceptions.

I responded to your specific statement that these were For example of play to which an alignment system would be an impediment, see the two provided earlier in this post. I do not agree that, objectively, an alignment system would be an impediment to good play of those scenarios. You did not say it could be an impediment, or that it would be an impediment to some players, but that it objectively and universally would be an impediment.

A poster - was it [MENTION=6706967]Dwimmerlied[/MENTION]? - asked for example of play in which alignment had been an impediment. I gave some. I didn't describe scenarios that other's might play using alignment rules. I described examples of play. Part of those examples - inherent to them - is the experience that I and the other participants had in playing them.

The second example - about the paladin turning on the heavens - at various points along the way incorporated material from the WotC scenario "Bastion of Broken Souls". I'm sure there are some people who could, and did, enjoy playing that module using alignment rules as part of the game. I know that I couldn't, and hence I didn't. Hence I am an example of a play experience which would have been impeded by the presence of alignment rules.

It may or may not improve your personal play experience, but that was not the question you posed. It would not improve the play experience for someone who wants his character to be a pawn on the chessboard, always making the best tactical move his player desires, rather than a living, breathing character with strengths and weaknesses either.

Actually, as I posted upthread, alignment rules seem to have been invented precisely for players whose PCs were pawns on a chess board. They introduced an extra constraint on the play of those pawns, in return for better access to certain benefits (like hirelings, healing and resurrection).

Conversely, once you are playing living, breathing characters why do you need alignment? You just play your character. If one of your character's "weaknesses" is that s/he won't fight dirty then just play him/her that way - though the whole idea that not fighting dirty is a weakness rather than a strength strikes me as wildly misguided unless the focus of the game is on nothing but extracting benefits from others via the most efficient application of physical force.

Who makes that call? The player, the player with the rest of the table (but without the GM), or the table including input of the GM?

This question doesn't really make sense to me. No one has to make the call. Who gets to decide whether Denethor is evil, or simply misguided? No one does. Each reader is called upon to make his or her own judgement. For that matter, who gets to decide whether Tolkien's ultra-conservative vision of human affairs is admirable or not? Each reader is, again, called upon to make his or her own judgement.

Likewise in the games I run. Did the paladin who turned on the heavens and established a new cosmic order do the right thing or not? I'm pretty sure the player though that he did. If other participants though differently, that's there prerogative. No one needs to "make a call".

In another game, when a PC, depressed by the death of his only true love, agreed to sell out his home city in return for the promise of a magistracy, was the PC doing the right thing or not? The player didn't think so - the player was playing his PC's collapse into moral degeneration. I think the player of the other PC who procured the sell out might have taken a different view. No one needs to "make a call", though - we just play the game, see what happens and enjoy the experience.

Ultimately, alignment is about stipulating, in advance, what sort of behaviour is required to be a virtuous person. One of my main interests in fiction is being pushed to think in new ways about what a person might be and do. I think it's obvious that these two things are not compatible - that prior stipulation of what virtue requires is an obstacle to thinking in new ways about what a person might be and do. Alignment therefore being an impediment to my preferred play, I don't use it.