Do alignments improve the gaming experience?

[Dannorn]

Much of my distaste for alignment comes down to my objection to absolute understanding of moral issues. I don't like it when there are correct answers to right and wrong.

There aren't though. There are correct answers to Good and Evil but that is very different. An action can be the correct action to take and still be Evil. For example a group of good aligned characters has taken the Big Bad prisoner, do they take him in to face justice knowing he may well escape, or do they execute him here and now knowing the act of killing a helpless opponent in cold blood is an Evil one? Alignment has nothing to do with what's "right" unless the GM decides that Good is always right and Evil is always wrong. Showing mercy and letting someone live might be the right thing to do, the players and characters have no way of knowing for sure until they see the results of their actions, but it is the Good thing to do.

Alignment is only as restrictive as the GM and players make it.

 

[N'raac]

Imaro[/I] is playing a 3.5e Barbarian at my table. He has a code exactly the same as he's posted above. He claims that his barbarian is honourable by the code of his tribe. Ok. Fair enough. Because I believe that honourable is a lawful trait, his Barbarian just became Lawful, which means he may no longer advance levels in Barbarian.

@Imaro are you happy at my table? Has your gaming experience been improved? Note, you've said that it is absolutely my right as the DM to dictate alignment and adjudicate alignment in my game and you will abide by that adjudication. So, I have made my adjudication and you are now stuck as a 3rd level (or whatever level) barbarian and you may never again take barbarian levels and may no longer Rage.

In order to regain your class abilities and advance again as a Barbarian, you must now act in a manner that is dishonourable to you code that you have created.

Are you a happy player?

There aren't though. There are correct answers to Good and Evil but that is very different. An action can be the correct action to take and still be Evil. For example a group of good aligned characters has taken the Big Bad prisoner, do they take him in to face justice knowing he may well escape, or do they execute him here and now knowing the act of killing a helpless opponent in cold blood is an Evil one? Alignment has nothing to do with what's "right" unless the GM decides that Good is always right and Evil is always wrong. Showing mercy and letting someone live might be the right thing to do, the players and characters have no way of knowing for sure until they see the results of their actions, but it is the Good thing to do.

Alignment is only as restrictive as the GM and players make it.

Two posts that sum up the positions.

It's really too bad [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] and [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] could not discuss their respective views on alignment and come to a solution for this game, at this table. How unfortunate that the Barbarian must be Lawful if he has a single trait [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] perceives as Lawful. Of course, no character could ever be Chaotic with even a single non-chaotic trait, and the big "+" between the LC, CG, LE and CE boxes? That doesn't exist - that Barbarian cannot possibly be Neutral - he's either 100% Lawful or 100% Chaotic. His alignment will potentially change with each isolated action he takes, all read out of context. If that's the way you view your alignment (which it seems to be from your posts), then I agree you should not use it. But this isn't D&D alignment, it's some warped dictatorial vision of alignment rules which comes from parts unknown.

And, of course, whatever decision is reached on a single issue, at a single table, for a single game, must apply forevermore, in all past, present and future games, at all tables. [Hussar seems the epitome of Lawful, don't you think?]

In Dannorn's game, we take matters in context. We recognize that "absolute good" and "perfect law" will rarely, if ever, be achievable. Is executing the Big Bad Good? Well, it does not altruistically spare his life, so how can it be? Well, what about taking him back to face justice, knowing that his power is such that he will almost inevitably escape, and kill innocents, violating the requirement of Good that we protect the innocent. So...

In [MENTION=6762594]Dannorn[/MENTION]'s game, our characters role play their decision. Which aspects of Good must take precedence here? Perhaps our views are tempered by our views on Law or Chaos. Maybe some characters are pretty compromising (neither G nor E, but N). We have a moral dilemma (Hussar is bored because he doesn't expect to get any xp for this aspect of play, but that's another thread entirely). Our characters are motivated by concerns of Good, but no perfect Good solution exists. They come to a decision, and the GM assesses that there were no "perfect good" choices, and the PC's made their decision based on reasonable precepts of conflicting aspect of Good, so their alignments are perfectly safe.

In [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s we cannot take a Good action, so we all now all Evil. Well, it was a good run - we stayed Good for three whole encounters this time. But not to worry - as soon as we help a little old lady cross the street, he will shriek that we have taken a single Good action, and are all Good again.

Did I get that right?

 

[jsaving]

[MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] is playing a 3.5e Barbarian at my table. He has a code exactly the same as he's posted above. He claims that his barbarian is honourable by the code of his tribe. Ok. Fair enough. Because I believe that honourable is a lawful trait, his Barbarian just became Lawful, which means he may no longer advance levels in Barbarian.

[MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] are you happy at my table? Has your gaming experience been improved?

This nicely summarizes two thoughts on which most, though not all, of us would probably agree. One is that "honor" can't simultaneously be part of Law's definition and mean whatever any character at any moment in time wishes it meant. Otherwise you end up in Hussar's example where players and DMs are guaranteed to clash. The other is that alignment needs to be separated from class mechanics, so to the extent there is ambiguity in the alignment write-ups, players don't suffer numerical punishments because of it.

 

[Dannorn]

This nicely summarizes two thoughts on which most, though not all, of us would probably agree. One is that "honor" can't simultaneously be part of Law's definition and mean whatever any character at any moment in time wishes it meant. Otherwise you end up in Hussar's example where players and DMs are guaranteed to clash. The other is that alignment needs to be separated from class mechanics, so to the extent there is ambiguity in the alignment write-ups, players don't suffer numerical punishments because of it.

Only if you declare a player Lawful, or even Neutral, for having a single Lawful trait. If you're holding players to the restriction that no Chaotic character can have any traits or take any actions that don't qualify as Chaotic or vice versa I assure you nobody is going to have fun at that table. If on the other hand you have a gradient scale a single Lawful trait is something to be noted, but doesn't warrant a shift. Now if a player gives their Chaotic character a few Lawful traits, and regularly takes Lawful actions, then you consider a shift, but you warn the player first, and work with them to either avoid the shift or make it as painless as possible.

 

[Bluenose]

Only if you declare a player Lawful, or even Neutral, for having a single Lawful trait. If you're holding players to the restriction that no Chaotic character can have any traits or take any actions that don't qualify as Chaotic or vice versa I assure you nobody is going to have fun at that table. If on the other hand you have a gradient scale a single Lawful trait is something to be noted, but doesn't warrant a shift. Now if a player gives their Chaotic character a few Lawful traits, and regularly takes Lawful actions, then you consider a shift, but you warn the player first, and work with them to either avoid the shift or make it as painless as possible.

So what is alignment used for again? If people have a mix of traits of a variety of alignments, then it is probably rather hard to judge from the alignment alone how they'll behave. Or are NPCs supposed to live down to every cliche of their alignment?

 

[JamesonCourage]

Now, let's move forward though. @Imaro is playing a 3.5e Barbarian at my table. He has a code exactly the same as he's posted above. He claims that his barbarian is honourable by the code of his tribe. Ok. Fair enough. Because I believe that honourable is a lawful trait, his Barbarian just became Lawful, which means he may no longer advance levels in Barbarian.

Again: [sarcasm]Why do you always have to interpret things in the worst possible way that always screws the players? [/sarcasm]

 

[Hussar]

Again: [sarcasm]Why do you always have to interpret things in the worst possible way that always screws the players? [/sarcasm]

Heh.

I'm just playing by the rules that have been given to me. A DM had the absolute authority to determine alignment. But now when I use that authority, I'm wrong.

I have to admit to some confusion here. Can I as DM determine alignment for my game or not? To me, a character that is self described as honourable and follows a code if conduct is lawful.

I'm actually surprised that this is contentious.

 

[JamesonCourage]

Heh.

I'm just playing by the rules that have been given to me. A DM had the absolute authority to determine alignment. But now when I use that authority, I'm wrong.

I guess if you use it unwisely, you might be accused of doing it wrong. ("Unwisely" in the sense that you don't know how to use the authority to positively affect the experience for everyone.)

I have to admit to some confusion here. Can I as DM determine alignment for my game or not? To me, a character that is self described as honourable and follows a code if conduct is lawful.

I'm actually surprised that this is contentious.

I'll just say I'm not surprised by the "confusion", but I'm not going to debate whether or not / how Hussar should implement alignment. Because Hussar shouldn't.

 

[Hussar]

I guess if you use it unwisely, you might be accused of doing it wrong. ("Unwisely" in the sense that you don't know how to use the authority to positively affect the experience for everyone.)

I'll just say I'm not surprised by the "confusion", but I'm not going to debate whether or not / how Hussar should implement alignment. Because Hussar shouldn't.

But there's the point though. Being honourable and having some sort of code of conduct is pretty easily supportable as a lawful trait. Just about every single example from deities to NPC's to cultures to magic items- anything described as honourable is lawfully aligned in DnD.

Imaro claims that being honourable is alignment agnostic. I disagree. But now I should let the players determine alignment? When that was so strongly argued against?

So are we now at the point where DM's should only determine alignment when it happens to agree with what the players want?

 

[Dannorn]

So what is alignment used for again? If people have a mix of traits of a variety of alignments, then it is probably rather hard to judge from the alignment alone how they'll behave. Or are NPCs supposed to live down to every cliche of their alignment?

Alignment is a net indicator of behaviour. A character who's largely Chaotic but has one or two Lawful traits (being honourable, keeping to their word) is still Chaotic, they just aren't at the extreme of Chaotic behaviour. I use a numeric scale -15 to +15 for Good/Evil and Law/Chaos, a character declares their alignment at creation and from there their actions and traits are measured and added or subtracted. A Chaotic Neutral Barbarian starts at -15, 0 giving the character a code of honour they adhere to bumps them closer to Law depending on how rigid it is (no more than +3 in my experience). The character isn't in danger of an alignment shift until they hit -6, but over the course of play they'll probably bounce around within a 5 point spread (Lawful actions and Chaotic actions). Once a player who's supposedly playing Chaotic looks to be in danger of crossing over to Neutral I discuss with them, out of game, what actions they're regularly taking that are largely Lawful, and discuss if they want to change to Neutral or adjust their play to be more Chaotic. If you're curious I've had this conversation with players twice in over a decade of gaming, most players keep alignment in mind when they know the GM is doing the same.

Heh.

I'm just playing by the rules that have been given to me. A DM had the absolute authority to determine alignment. But now when I use that authority, I'm wrong.

Not wrong, just extreme. If you're going to hold Lawful and Chaotic characters to such a rigid line that any action or trait not in line with their alignment will shift it to the polar opposite that's your choice, but I doubt you'll have many Chaotic or Lawful characters having fun in that game. I've had a seat at that table, it ruins it for everyone, the GM included.

I have to admit to some confusion here. Can I as DM determine alignment for my game or not? To me, a character that is self described as honourable and follows a code if conduct is lawful.

I'm actually surprised that this is contentious.

You can it's just a matter of degree what your players find acceptable. Again if a group is happy playing with rigid adherence to alignment that's great, more power to them, but not everyone does.

As for adhering to a code of conduct and honour being Lawful, you're right, but you're focusing on that single trait in a vacuum outside the character's other traits and actions. A character who believes they should be allowed to do as they please because they can, and despises attempts of outside authourity to restrict his behaviour is still Chaotic (in my mind) even if he has a personal code of honour he adheres to.