Alignment restrictions? not in my campaign

[corcio]

Well its come up. finally a party member snaps and turns into the chaotic evil necromancer.
HOW do you handle alignment problems. obviously the good glowing cleric of lathander will have no choice but to smite this new evil. but pvp isnt always fun for everyone.
so...do you force the party to choose between good and evil....limit their choice to one or the other and make the decision for them. or do you play it out and see what happens?

can you banish alignments completly. i mean even good people have done evil deeds.
what if the evil assassin has a soft spot for kittens and saves him from being run over at the cost of several hit points...

could you just play an open ended alignment game and let the players actions simply bring on consequence? but if you did that then would you still have to punish the paladin with his loss of spells until he atones? as an example.

or do you just let the paladin continue to kill children and remain a good healing cleric if hes just temporarly whacked out from stress?

 

[frankthedm]

can you banish alignments completly. i mean even good people have done evil deeds.

They can in D&D too, they just stop having a good alignment eventually

what if the evil assassin has a soft spot for kittens and saves him from being run over at the cost of several hit points...

Many evil people respect non-sentient life more than sentient life. A lot of evil druids are like that.

As far as a paladin goes, in a game without restrictions on what alignment a character can be, his next foe to smite may be very nearby indeed. In that situation you then need to be ready for lethal inter-party conflict.

For paladins keeping thier powers after horrible deeds, an associate of mine had an idea of evil entities taking over for providing substitute paladin powers. A paladin who slides too far into law starts seeing Chaotic beings registering to what he thinks is still 'Detect Evil', Or Perhaps an ex paladin so far in denial he has slid to NE and now Vecna's divine force is supplying "Detects Evil[foes of Vecna's faith]" .

 

[edemaitre]

Alignments

Yes, for a more realistic game, you can just not use alignments, as many D20/OGL settings have done. However, in a world where multiple deities exist, Clerics heal, Paladins smite, and Necromancers pervert the natural order by raising and controlling undead, it's hard to use the D&D3.5 conventions without having alignments.

I usually recommend to my role-players that a new party of good and neutral characters is more likely to be successful than one with evil ones, but once they start adventuring, they're free to choose what to do, which is then reflected in my assessment of any alignment shifts. Most groups eventually have to deal with the ethical issues of slavery, privacy (via mind reading), the use of poison or torture, and whether to grant surrendered opponents mercy. As the real world has shown, even honorable organizations and people with good intentions can make horrible mistakes or deliberately compromise their values.

For characters other than Clerics, Monks, Druids, and Paladins, alignment doesn't restrict their behavior much. In my world, Barbarians can be lawful, and Druids and Rangers only need to have Neutral as part of their alignment (NG, CN, NE, LN, not just TN). A game based on cooperation, heroic goals, and defeating monsters and villians should encourage moral behavior, in and out of character. I didn't like the censoring of "demons" and "devils" from AD&D2, but in order to recruit younger players into our hobby, we should be aware of the sensibilities of parents and the general public.

However, not every game must do so (I've enjoyed the occasional evil party in D&D, the World of Darkness, or cyberpunk/Paranoia). It depends on the Game Master and player preferences...

 

[edemaitre]

More on alignments

The rules in various D&D3.5 books are specific on how a Paladin who has done evil must atone for his sins if he wants to continue serving his deity (and to regain his abilities). A clever evil character will continue to do as he pleases but work hard to avoid confrontation within the team that has helped keep him alive...

If Paladin disapproved of a Necromancer within your party, he might offer the offending character to try to redeem himself, work out an understanding (if both are Lawful and have other shared goals/foes), or inform the party that one or the other will have to leave as a matter of conscience. Non-Player Characters can help provide guidance, but the Game Master should allow each P.C. to have free will and deal with the consequences...

 

[delericho]

HOW do you handle alignment problems.

In my experience, the vast majority of alignment problems simply cease to be if you take a mature and reasoned view of alignments. Defining a 'mature and reasoned' view is the real trick, of course

Firstly, when creating characters, the players get to choose an alignment: Lawful Good, Neutral Good or Chaotic Good. I don't allow Evil or even Neutral PCs at character creation. (Naturally, I would make an exception for an 'evil campaign'. But I don't run such things.)

After character creation, alignment is determined by PC actions, and is monitored by myself. I do not 'enforce' alignment - the player chooses his character's actions, and if the aggregate of those actions follows another alignment more closely than the one on the sheet, then I change the sheet. I don't give warnings about out-of-alignment actions, and I don't make a fuss about it. (I have, in the past, made my players aware of my interpretation of alignments, and if they want more information they only have to ask.)

Unless the PC has an alignment restriction, that's it as far as alignments go. If the PC does have an alignment restriction, then the consequences of the change are applied, again without much fuss. I don't give the right to appeal a change of alignment - if you need that 'Good' entry on your sheet, make sure you act in a 'Good' manner. Don't follow the default CN alignment of most adventurers for months, and then complain when your alignment is changed to match your behaviour.

obviously the good glowing cleric of lathander will have no choice but to smite this new evil. but pvp isnt always fun for everyone.

IMC, that's a decision for the player. The cleric is not absolutely required to smite. If he chooses to do so, we deal with the consequences in character.

can you banish alignments completly.

Yes, it can be done. I choose not to, except in unusual campaigns.

i mean even good people have done evil deeds.

Yes. And alignment is determined by the aggregate of their actions. Therefore, an otherwise good character with a blemish on his record is probably Good, unless his misdeed was truly heinous.

what if the evil assassin has a soft spot for kittens and saves him from being run over at the cost of several hit points...

Likewise, the kitten-saviour is probably Evil, unless the pattern of his actions leans significantly more towards kitten saving than cold-blooded murder.

could you just play an open ended alignment game and let the players actions simply bring on consequence? but if you did that then would you still have to punish the paladin with his loss of spells until he atones? as an example.

Yes, and yes. In the specific case of the Paladin, the boundaries we follow are as given in the PHB. Any evil actions, and the Paladin loses his class features until he atones properly. Any alignment shift away from LG, and he loses his class features until he returns to the LG alignment and then atones. And if he grossly violates the paladin code, as stated in the PHB, he loses class features until he atones.

But those are the limits. I never say to a player, "you can't do that, you're LG" or "you must do that, you're LG", where LG can be replaced with your alignment of choice.

or do you just let the paladin continue to kill children and remain a good healing cleric if hes just temporarly whacked out from stress?

A DM could do that. I wouldn't be comfortable playing at his table, though. I have this thing about Evil people and Evil deeds being labelled as Good.

 

[Stormborn]

Allignment is less important than group identity and cohesion. You can do away with alignments, but it does make things more complicated due to many spells and mechanics in the game. But even a party of all good PCs can have different goals and agendas that cause party conflict.

As others have said the first thing you have to say to a group is "Have a reason to be together." Sure a player can have a CE necromancer if he wants, but if the rest of the group is LG or CG then they are just going to kill/imprison that character the first time they catch him doing something and then that player needs a new character. Better for all involved to talk about how the characters they want to play can fit into the group.

In other words, create a group and then create characters. If a group already exists then the player is restricted in his choices based on what fits that group. No CE characters in an otherwise Good group.

In this case I would talk to the player who wanted a CE Necromancer and ask if there was a way to modify that and compromise with the group. Maybe a CN Necromancer, who studies the undead to fight them with their own means. A Paladin might not like his methods, but might agree with his goals so that any party conflict is only philosophical and they can "agree to disagree" rather than fight.

If you do away with alignment then the basic idea still applies - create a group first and later create characters to fit that group. Loaner, antisocial, or antithetical PCs get old quick.

 

[gizmo33]

IMO PvP is a seperate issue from alignment. IME PCs will want to fight with each other for the same reasons whether or not you have alignment. Not using alignments (I don't use them as written IMC) doesn't mean that people in the campaign world don't know what the words "good" and "evil" mean anymore. If Lathander's creed teaches that undead are evil and people that traffic with them are evil, then the cleric and necromancer are going to have as much reason for PvP as before.

 

[Umbran]

Well its come up. finally a party member snaps and turns into the chaotic evil necromancer.
HOW do you handle alignment problems. obviously the good glowing cleric of lathander will have no choice but to smite this new evil. but pvp isnt always fun for everyone.
so...do you force the party to choose between good and evil....limit their choice to one or the other and make the decision for them. or do you play it out and see what happens?

When I start a campaign, I ask what the players want. My group has always wanted to be the good guys, but I ask anyway, just to be sure.

Given that choice by the party majority, I've told players: you can be evil, or you can turn evil. But I, as DM, will not protect you at all from the consequences. If you are not ready to have your character die at the hands of the rest of the party, don't play evil in this campaign.

Simple, direct, and clear. I've never had any problems.

 

[gizmo33]

Sure a player can have a CE necromancer if he wants, but if the rest of the group is LG or CG then they are just going to kill/imprison that character the first time they catch him doing something and then that player needs a new character.

I agree. In fact, I would go farther and say that the ONLY reason the character would even be tolerated at all is that he was a PC. To test this theory, just make up a necromancer NPC and try to have him join the party. IME the players aren't going to sit around and wait to have a problem with him before acting. At best, they're going to say "Hey, me and the group noticed a lot of body-parts in your spell-component pouch. And we heard you talking in your sleep last night about your army of undead. We'd like you to leave." More likely they're just going to roll for initiative.

IME the PvP situations are far too often a situation of one or more players taking advantage of the artificial party cohesion that makes the DnD game playable to begin with. I don't like having an opinion about what kind of character someone plays in my campaign, but if a PC fails the above "NPC test", I usually intervene rather than let the situation deteriorate. It's just not good roleplaying for a good cleric to allow an evil necromancer in the party to begin with.

 

[Piratecat]

When someone turns evil in my game, they generally become a NPC. An evil campaign simply isn't the type of game I want to run.