I'm not so much making assumptions as talking about my own play experiences as I know it to have happened. And thereby explaining why alignment is, in fact, an impediment to getting out of the game those things that I want to get out of the game.
If I am reading you correctly (a major ‘if’), much of your objection is that, if you set out to play an honourable character, then the character will be played as honourable, and you don’t need alignment to play that honourable character. To me, that answers the thread title in the negative (alignment does not add to the game). However, if Lawful people act honourably, and your character acts honourably, I fail to see how that capital L on the character sheet in any way impedes your game.
Where I think this gets conflated, and [MENTION=2205]Hobo[/MENTION] refers to this below, is when alignment also starts to impact the mechanics. More on that later.
Because it's wrong to kill?
Says who? The whole thrust of your argument seems to have been that you do not want the GM, the game system, or anyone but you, defining “right” or “wrong” for you as a player or your character. So why can’t my Paladin believe that it is just and right to extract a forced conversion to the One True Way from heathen, heretic alike, and then kill them immediately so they cannot backslide or recant?
In my game, he cannot because Good implies respect for life, and this does not. But if Good is not subject to outside adjudication in your game, then how is it that you get to decide “it is wrong to kill” rather than “my character follows a code that says killing is wrong”?
Why would the player choose to play PC A, and then just on a whim ignore that earlier choice? This really goes back to my comments about assumptions that don't hold good at least within my group. Or, if the decision to kill the joker is not just on a whim - if it emerges out of play in something like the way I described upthread for my chaste paladin who had to reconsider whether chastity was the proper course for him - then why not? Character development of that sort seems to me to make for a good game, so why would I want a mechanic that impedes it?
No mechanic impedes your character choice, with the exception of a mechanic you as the player chose to impose on your character. More on that when we get to your discussion of PC builds.
The only character in my game who has ruthlessly killed captives is the somewhat vengeance-obsessed invoker/wizard (although that was back before he discovered that his lifetime spent in human form was just the latest of his 1000 lives as an immortal deva). The chaos drow, in particular, but also the dwarven fighter/cleric (who is, for story purposes, a paladin), take oaths of renunciation of violence from those who surrender or whom they defeat without lethal violence.
Fail forward is relevant because (i) it is associated with, on its flip side, "success means success", and hence (for instance) means that successful extraction of an oath to renounce violence won't just be ignored by the GM later on in the game, and (ii) it is associated with the GM not narrating consequences that bring the game to a halt, so if the paladin's virtue is part of the game then whatever consequence the GM narrates won't foreclose the continued exploration and development of that aspect of the game, and (iii) it means that the player of the paladin can afford to "lose" a scene without therefore "losing" the whole campaign.
Emphasis added. So the oath of nonviolence extracted at swordpoint is binding, and no mechanical consequence for its breaking need ever be considered because it simply will not be broken, as “success means success”. But your character’s oath is not only nonbinding, but can also have no negative consequences for your choosing to break it. Seems something of a double standard here.
So in your example of the paladin down to 3 hp, if the game is being adjudicated in "fail forward" style then if the player of the paladin interposes himself between the giant and the innocent NPCs, then there are a few options I can think of.
(1) The paladin - whether by marking, or Intimidate, or whatever other mechanic is relevant in the ruleset being used - successfully distracts the giant from the innocents. The GM is obliged to honour that success - so they're safe. And the GM will adjudicate the giant's subsequent pounding of the paladin in a way that does not result in the paladin's death, but rather keeps the game going. (Perhaps the giant beats the paladin to a pulp but then, finding the paladin's continued display of resolution distasteful, wander off to do something else.)
(2) The paladin valiantly intervenes but fails to save the NPCs eg because his/her Intimidate check against the giant doesn't succeed. In that case the player has not got everything s/he wanted out of the scene, but the paladin has not acted in any way dishonourably. The actual pounding by the giant - if it happens at all, which it may not (the GM might just have the giant wander off carrying the NPCs to munch on later, leaving the 3 hp paladin to lament his/her failure) - can be adjudicated in whatever fail forward style it would be adjudicated in option (1).
(3) The player of the paladin chooses to have his/her PC hang back, leaving the innocents to their fate. Because the player knows that, from the point of view of participating in the game with this PC, there is no special reason to make this choice - after all, options (1) and (2) still enable the player to continue to participate in the game with the same PC - then the player would only make this choice because s/he deliberately wants his/her PC to forsake his/her code. In which case we play that out in the game. Maybe in 3E we rebuild the paladin as blackguard, or in 4e we swap a blackguard at will for a typical paladin at will. Or maybe "playing it out" is, at least initially, a story thing without mechanical implications at the level of PC building.
OK, I’m back to “the characters/players cannot actually fail”. No matter what happens, there will be no long-term detrimental result to the character and he can try, try again. The NPC’s are dead. So what? If that were a real concern to the player, his character wasn’t going to hang back and leave them to their fate.
Now, what if the two NPC’s are the Paladin’s sister and her child, central to his background and character conception – and let us say more central, at least in the eyes of the player, then his holy sword or Paladin powers and mechanics? Is it OK to kill them off in this scene, stripping that key component of the player’s concept of the character? If so, why is that OK, but it’s not OK to strip him of the magical gear, or his Paladin powers, on the basis they are key components of the player’s conception of the character?
I don't see what difference it makes to my response to generalise beyond fighting. The same remarks hold true - for instance, a 4e paladin is likely to be either strong and athletic, charismatic but not tricky (Diplomacy and Intimidate but not Bluff as class skills), or perhaps both. Also s/he has a good chance of being able to see the truth about those s/he meets (WIS plus Insight as a class skill). So if the paladin PC chooses not to fight, s/he is still likely to do better by trying to reason with a wrongdoer (Diplomacy) or simply stare the wrongdoer down (Intimidate) rather than to try the sorts of tricky things that Stealth, Bluff, Thievery etc involve. So my point - that a game can be designed so that a paladin's mechanical effectiveness is optimised not by being sneaky or underhanded, but by being bold and forthright, and that 4e is at least a rough example of such a game - can be generalised across both combat and non-combat domains of resolution.
And if we get a +2 Intimidate bonus (enhancing the Paladin’s area of strength” from a Torch to The Groin, and a +3 for torturing the target’s friend to death in front of the target we are trying to intimidate, why should the Paladin not take both steps and enhance his area of strength?
Now logically, based on your fairly consistent comments that the Paladin should have mechanics that provide bonuses for his honourable, righteous actions, motivating him to take such actions because, for him, they are mechanically superior, there should be mechanics which motivate the Paladin not to skin this captive’s comrade alive, then question him with an open flame held to his groin. Is the loss of his Paladin powers not a mechanical disincentive to taking these bonuses?
If, indeed, my choice to play an honourable and righteous Paladin was made because that is the kind of character I wanted to play, why would I even consider those actions? If I would never consider them anyway because of my sincere intention to consistently role play that honourable warrior, then how is the fact that I would lose my Paladin powers for taking an action I would never even consider in any way impeding my role playing?
The difference between these two characters, at least to my mind, is firstly a story one: one is blessed by the gods, the other is not - s/he is a mortal who admires the gods but isn't specially chosen by them. In some systems, but not all, it may also find mechanical expression via PC build. In AD&D, for instance, or in Rolemaster, the paladin's mechanical resources include spells. In 4e the paladin has options - particularly for self-sacrificial healing, for ranged attacks and for dealing radiant damage - that aren't open to the fighter. Those mechanical differences express the story difference - for instance, the paladin's prayers are answered in a literal fashion (eg the paladin speaks a "Name of Might" - ie the word of his/her deity - and his/her foes crumble before that power).
So why would the requirements for the “Chosen of the Gods” not differ from those of one who is not only “not specially chosen”, but who has been granted no special benefits by the Gods? Why is it hat the Gods may give, but they cannot take away?
Here, it seems, the problem departs from “alignment” and moves to “alignment as a mechanic that impacts other aspects of my build”. Part of the problem is that this was, in earlier editions, less a penalty. If you fell as a Paladin, you were a fighter of equal level. You lost those Paladin powers, but Fighters had no special powers, so you were more or less comparable with any other fighter. Now, however, you lose your Paladin powers, but you don’t get those Fighter bonus feats to compensate, so you are way behind. Perhaps the fallen Paladin should be able to become a fighter, and gain those bonus feats to result in more mechanical equality. Again, more later as this is an area [MENTION=2205]Hobo[/MENTION] also touches on.
D&D doesn't have mechanics for torture, of peasants at least. (Some editions have mechanics for torturing other planar entities in binding circles.) If it did, then I would expect that paladins wouldn't be very good at them. In those games which do have torture mechanics (eg Burning Wheel), paladin characters are not likely to be good at them. That is a feature, not a bug.
As noted by others, torture seems like a bonus to Intimidation, a skill the Paladin is pretty good at.
What you are positing here is a situation in which the player can choose to evolve his/her PC at the cost of having the GM strip him/her of basic mechanical elements gained via the PC build rules. I think that is incredibly poor design for a game that wants to encourage players to explore their PCs values, and valuation more generally, as it straight away establishes a coercive dynamic between certain choices and the GM's own view of the answer to those questions of value.
I find it interesting that his “basic mechanical elements” were gained by the PC build rules, but the fact that those same PC build rules specify that those elements are lost should the character not adhere to the requirements of the Paladin is ignored. If I want to play a Wizard, my spells are a “basic mechanical element”, and if I fail to meet the requirements of those spells, such as having my spellbook at hand and getting adequate rest and time to re-learn them, being able to speak and/or gesture and/or access material components, I lose access to those mechanical elements. My familiar is a mechanical element, and it can be killed, requiring me to dedicate resources (gold) and time to recover it, and do without it in the meantime.
I don’t see the requirement for the Paladin to stay true to his alignment being any more subject to abuse by a mean, nasty GM than the wizard’s need for his spell components. The GM can structure a series of events where the wizard loses his spellbook and component pouch while far from any location where they can be easily replaced. In fact, structuring such a scene seems to require far less co-operation on the part of the Wizard player than a scene where the Paladin violates his requirements to an extent so great his abilities are stripped from him.
It is good design for the sort of game that @Bedrockgames described above - in which the players explore the ins and outs of the GMs moral conception for the gameworld - but as I hope I've made clear I am not interested in that particular approach to play either as player or GM.
Then don’t select a character whose mechanics depend on conformance with the moral conceptions of the GM, or of an NPC in the campaign world (even an NPC so powerful a God of Law and Good). Select a character who is free to act as he will, whether or not in conformance with the vision of any third party, whether a Deity, some Philosophy or a mundane group such as a guild or arcane order, without mechanical repercussions.
I can cash the piety example out by reference to the example of the paladin who turned on the heavens, for instance: in his view he wasn't being impious at all. By upholding the values to which the heavens at least paid lip service, and by achieving a solution to the cosmological crisis that made the heavens compliance with their old pacts unnecessary, he was - in his view - being more pious than would have been the case had he blindly followed heaven's will, because he was realising the true intent of the gods and the heavens rather than (what he regarded as) their actual corrupted intent. (For my part, in framing the elements of the campaign that drove this forward I was partly inspired by Wagner's Ring Cycle, in which Wotan is trapped in chains of his own making, and can ultimately be liberated and have his will realised only by Siegfried, the wild man beholden to no one who sets himself against Wotan's will.)
That sort of play - in which the player considers what piety requires and then gives effect to that judgement through play - is not consistent with the GM imposing his/her judgement of the values in play onto the player and his/her character.
And as I've already asked several times, how would my game have been better had I told the player that he was wrong, that his paladin was being impious, and that he therefore loses most of the mechanical effectiveness of his PC (and in practice, therefore, has to retire it and bring in a new PC)? How would that make for a better game?
I have two issues with this.
First, I don't think it's coherent for a character in a D&D world containing mechanical alignment to judge that a lawful good god, living in the Seven Heavens, is in fact mistaken as to what lawfulness and goodness require. The god has an INT and WIS in the neighbourhood of 25 each (using AD&D ability scaling) or 30+ each (using 4e ability scaling). If you're playing in standard AD&D s/he has been imbued with the ethos of an aligned plane for an eternity or so. In some interpretations of the Great Wheel cosmology, s/he is literally an incarnation of law and good, as are his/her servants like archons, devas etc. So I don't see how it is really open for the character to decide that the good is wrong if the paladin is stripped of power.
Second, I think that when what is at stake is PC build it is generally quite fine for players to determine the consequences of their actions. PC build is a part of my game that the players, not the GM, are in charge of. If the player chooses to have his/her PC fall, and wants to rebuild to reflect that, then that is his/her prerogative, but why would I as GM want to force that on him/her? I don't see how my game would be improved by forbidding players from playing the PCs they want to play.
Now before you retort with "What about the players who want to play paladins who torture peasants for information?" let me repeat that I don't, and never have, played with any such players. Given that so many people seem concerned with such players, and with building the game around the threat of them, I guess they must exist. But whether by dint of good fortune or good management I'm not having to deal with them.
First, it's OK for the player to play his/her PC because that's the player's role within the overall dynamic of my game.
Second, the player isn't imposing his/her definition of "Good" on anyone. S/he's just playing a character, which s/he takes to be good. If other players (and/or their PCs) disagree, they can voice that disagreement. That happens all the time in my games. In my current 4e game, the paladin of the Raven Queen regards the invoker who serves (among many gods) the Raven Queen as a backslider, and regards the ranger/cleric who serves the Raven Queen as insufficiently pious. They both regard the paladin as a bit simplistic in his zealotry, while the non-Raven Queen worshippers - a paladin (= fighter/cleric) of Moradin and a sorcerer who is part of a Corellon-worshipping secret society of drow - regard the whole Raven Queen cult as something to be tolerated but not indulged. No one is imposing a moral conception on anyone else. Each of the paladins regards the other as morally flawed. The game mechanics don't need to take a view on this, and if they did then the whole setup I've just described would be impossible to get off the ground.
Let me boil this down. You are viewing this as “the player chose the Paladin powers as part of his PC build, and it is unfair to take them away”. I view this as “the player chose the Paladin powers and restrictions as part of his PC build”. He has now turned against the beings which grant him those powers. How, then, can he reasonably retain access to them? Is there some other force which now grants him these powers? If not, how has he retained them? Do those heavens on which he has turned, and is now actively opposing, nonetheless still bless him with their holy might? If so, why?
@pemerton : Let me try approaching this in a different manner since we are now speaking specifically about your play experiences...
You are a proponent of DMs (and only DMs) framing scenes since you worry that the players may frame themselves into easy situations or with easy obstacles to overcome... yet you trust the paladin player to adjudicate his own actions when it comes to his code. Why don't you share the same concerns when it comes to the paladin, since he is in essence (through creating his own code, deciding the gray areas of the code, and having the ability to ignore it if he truly wants) also choosing whether a moral obstacle or scene is weak or strong... I'm finding it hard to see a difference in these two areas and also wondering why you don't trust your players as a whole to create meaningful, strong obstacles and thematic pressures through scene framing but you do trust that whoever is playing the paladin will not do the same through self adjudication and occasional manipulation of his code?
OAN: A paladin in 4e is pretty good at torture, i.e. Intimidate...
Very good questions, and linked to my perception of some double standard issues.
If your deity expects you to act in a particular way, then the rules should reflect that by making acting that way beneficial. And conversely, not acting that way should have consequences too, if not always as major as falling.
And the rules do make acting that way beneficial - the character is rewarded with blessings not made available to others, being his Paladin powers. When the character fails to act that way, the consequences can include loss of those powers.
Different deities should have different views of what is a proper way for their followers to act. I'm inclined to say that in the specific example of a paladin retreating in the face of a giant and leaving a mother/child to die, some gods (FR's Helm, for example) would make a very different judgement than some others (FR's Red Knight, to pick another).
That different deities might prioritize different aspects of Law and Good is perfectly reasonable. My approach would be to allow for judgment on the part of the Paladin – he doesn’t fall because his judgment may not precisely align with someone else’s judgment in close calls. He falls when he abandons the tenets of Law and Good.
I could also see some merit in setting out more detailed codes which indicate how the various deities (and through them their orders) prioritize tenets of Law and Good, with the expectation a Paladin of one would adopt similar prioritization. This would also provide for a Paladin who fails in the eyes of Helm becoming a Paladin of Law and Good, or of the Red Knight, retaining his Paladin abilities. That’s certainly at least as reasonable as a Cleric changing deities, which I would also allow.
This is an interesting point, because it also highlights another "feature" of alignment. For most characters, alignment isn't that big a deal, and more or less ignoring it is OK. But where it seems to inevitably "break" is with paladins, and to a lesser extent, clerics--because the mechanics of falling and atoning and whatnot inevitably lead to disagreements between the player and the DM about what exactly is appropriate behavior for those kinds of characters.
In a sense, my dissatisfaction with alignment is somewhat misplaced--I think alignment is superfluous, most of the time, and occasionally has deep claws in the subconscious of some players who then act accordingly. But where I really have a genuine problem is with the paladin class, and to a lesser extent the cleric class, and their interaction with the alignment rules. You get rid of those two classes, and I find alignment much less offensive.
Still superfluous, and I'm still not interested, but I'm not actively annoyed by it anymore either.
I think you hit squarely on the question I’ve danced around above, and in other posts – is the issue that I must categorize my character into one of the alignments, whether I base his personality around the alignment or select his alignment based on his personality? There, I can see alignment not adding to the game for many players, but not really detracting from it either.
When alignment is part of the mechanics, then I think the answer is for those who dislike alignment to simply not play characters who have alignment issues. To me, this is no different than a player complaining that he hates having to keep track of which spells he chose this morning, and which spells he has already cast today, or how many spell slots his sorcerer has used. That’s part of the class mechanics, and if you find it such an issue to abide by those restrictions, and track the use of your spells, pick a character who doesn’t have those mechanics.
Would those of you who play 4e put up with a player complaining that he doesn’t like having to track which encounter powers have already been used, and how recently his dailies were utilized, so he should just be able to use all of his abilities without restrictions on frequency, or would the player be required to abide by the mechanics of his abilities? Assuming the latter, why is maintaining the alignment precepts set out by the rules (or by the deity or philosophy) so different?
