Li Shenron
Legend
Let's see if I understand this right:
DM has set up an encounter with a moral dilemma, DM knows the "solution" to the dilemma. or "what is the right thing to do".
1. Sense Motive to detect the dilemma.
If Sense Motive succeeds, the player is informed by the DM that there is a dilemma (and supposedly the DM actually tells the player what the dilemma is), continue to step 2.
If Sense Motive fails, the DM tells nothing to the player who cannot therefore attempt the Religion check to solve the dilemma. Skip step 2 and go to step 3.
2. The player can attempt to solve the dilemma with a Knowledge(Religion) check.
If Religion check succeeded, DM tells the player that action 1 is going to be considered Good and action 2 is going to be considered Evil (or otherwise the player tells what she's going to do and the DM tells if it's good/evil/whatever). The character can freely choose whether to do the good or evil one. It's a conscious decision, no penalty for doubts so no need for Will save, skip step 3.
If Religion check failed, DM does not tell the player anything, the character is left with doubts but is still free to choose what to do. Continue to step 3.
3. Irregardless of the actions taken by the character, you reached step 3 if either one of previous checked failed. You either noticed the dilemma but didn't solve it or you found too late that you should have thought about it. You have doubts and need to make a Will save to avoid "penalties for doubts".
4. Irregardless of steps 1-2-3, if you did something inappropriate (as decided by the DM), such as an "evil" act if you're a paladin, you suffer specific consequences.
Some problems:
The system is NOT simple at all, and "doubts penalties" definitely are not needed in most games. What the system does, is (1) to give you a chance to detect that a certain action will bring consequences to you depending on class moral obligations and (2) give everyone a chance for a potential penalty for doubts.
If someone's concern is only (1), a Wisdom check (or Sense Motive if you prefer) would be a much simpler way to handle this: whenever the Paladin character is afraid of losing her ability if she does a certain thing, make her roll Wisdom/SM and if successful tells her if she's at risk. The other 2 rolls are unnecessarily complicated.
Then the net effect of (2) is that now moral dilemmas are important for everyone in the game, because even if you have no chance of losing class features (e.g. you're not a Paladin or Cleric) everyone can suffer penalies for doubts. This is quite the opposite than what you seemed to want your system to be able to accomplish... not to care about dilemmas.
The only result is that with this house rules, you don't have to THINK about solving a dilemma (you roll instead of thinking), but you get potential penalties anyway. But the problem is that without your system, you could just as well not think about it and move on. There are always many characters who normally have no moral dilemmas at all. Some are simply selfish and often fall in the evil side of alignment, why should they be necessarily affected if they simply don't care at all? Good characters may just DO something without thinking too much, and later be sad if they realize they did the wrong thing, but your systems FORCES them to be always like this. Is this really what you wanted?
This system also does not avoid argument, because it's still the DM who decides what is good or evil. A player will still think his Paladin should do something else rather than what the DM tells him it's "good" if he succeeds at the Religion check. What is the Paladin player going to do? Acting as the DM tells him or not? In neither case he's going to get the Charisma penalty but may still get stripped of her powers if he chooses the "evil" action.
Let's go back to what you wrote:
"Are you sick and tired of arguing with your DM over how a paladin is supposed to act?
Do you live in fear that you are going to lose your abilities?
Are your fellow party members annoyed because your code imposes restrictions on them without any reward?"
Does your system avoid arguing?
No, you'll still argue if you disagree with the DM about what he says it's evil. Maybe you tell the Paladin player that killing the orc babies will not turn him evil, and letting them live will because they'll grow and slaughter innocent. But perhaps the Paladin player still decides to spare their life, and you strip them of her powers, she disagrees and you two argue. How can your system avoid that? Definitely not just by telling her in advance, since you don't need a system for that. At best it simply gives you an xp compensation as a consolation prize, but isn't that a bit like saying "I'll pay your silence"?
Will you not have fear of losing your abilities? Paladins will have a chance to know beforehand, but on the other hand everyone else (and the Paladin too) will be afraid of penalties for doubts. Ok, they are not a tragic loss and can be removed more easily, but still it's a risk to be afraid of.
Are the fellow members happy? I don't think so, the code is still very much there, and now they have personal problems too
I'm not saying that overall it's a bad system, it's got its points. I'm just saying it doesn't accomplish what it says it does.
DM has set up an encounter with a moral dilemma, DM knows the "solution" to the dilemma. or "what is the right thing to do".
1. Sense Motive to detect the dilemma.
If Sense Motive succeeds, the player is informed by the DM that there is a dilemma (and supposedly the DM actually tells the player what the dilemma is), continue to step 2.
If Sense Motive fails, the DM tells nothing to the player who cannot therefore attempt the Religion check to solve the dilemma. Skip step 2 and go to step 3.
2. The player can attempt to solve the dilemma with a Knowledge(Religion) check.
If Religion check succeeded, DM tells the player that action 1 is going to be considered Good and action 2 is going to be considered Evil (or otherwise the player tells what she's going to do and the DM tells if it's good/evil/whatever). The character can freely choose whether to do the good or evil one. It's a conscious decision, no penalty for doubts so no need for Will save, skip step 3.
If Religion check failed, DM does not tell the player anything, the character is left with doubts but is still free to choose what to do. Continue to step 3.
3. Irregardless of the actions taken by the character, you reached step 3 if either one of previous checked failed. You either noticed the dilemma but didn't solve it or you found too late that you should have thought about it. You have doubts and need to make a Will save to avoid "penalties for doubts".
4. Irregardless of steps 1-2-3, if you did something inappropriate (as decided by the DM), such as an "evil" act if you're a paladin, you suffer specific consequences.
Some problems:
The system is NOT simple at all, and "doubts penalties" definitely are not needed in most games. What the system does, is (1) to give you a chance to detect that a certain action will bring consequences to you depending on class moral obligations and (2) give everyone a chance for a potential penalty for doubts.
If someone's concern is only (1), a Wisdom check (or Sense Motive if you prefer) would be a much simpler way to handle this: whenever the Paladin character is afraid of losing her ability if she does a certain thing, make her roll Wisdom/SM and if successful tells her if she's at risk. The other 2 rolls are unnecessarily complicated.
Then the net effect of (2) is that now moral dilemmas are important for everyone in the game, because even if you have no chance of losing class features (e.g. you're not a Paladin or Cleric) everyone can suffer penalies for doubts. This is quite the opposite than what you seemed to want your system to be able to accomplish... not to care about dilemmas.
The only result is that with this house rules, you don't have to THINK about solving a dilemma (you roll instead of thinking), but you get potential penalties anyway. But the problem is that without your system, you could just as well not think about it and move on. There are always many characters who normally have no moral dilemmas at all. Some are simply selfish and often fall in the evil side of alignment, why should they be necessarily affected if they simply don't care at all? Good characters may just DO something without thinking too much, and later be sad if they realize they did the wrong thing, but your systems FORCES them to be always like this. Is this really what you wanted?
This system also does not avoid argument, because it's still the DM who decides what is good or evil. A player will still think his Paladin should do something else rather than what the DM tells him it's "good" if he succeeds at the Religion check. What is the Paladin player going to do? Acting as the DM tells him or not? In neither case he's going to get the Charisma penalty but may still get stripped of her powers if he chooses the "evil" action.
Let's go back to what you wrote:
"Are you sick and tired of arguing with your DM over how a paladin is supposed to act?
Do you live in fear that you are going to lose your abilities?
Are your fellow party members annoyed because your code imposes restrictions on them without any reward?"
Does your system avoid arguing?
No, you'll still argue if you disagree with the DM about what he says it's evil. Maybe you tell the Paladin player that killing the orc babies will not turn him evil, and letting them live will because they'll grow and slaughter innocent. But perhaps the Paladin player still decides to spare their life, and you strip them of her powers, she disagrees and you two argue. How can your system avoid that? Definitely not just by telling her in advance, since you don't need a system for that. At best it simply gives you an xp compensation as a consolation prize, but isn't that a bit like saying "I'll pay your silence"?
Will you not have fear of losing your abilities? Paladins will have a chance to know beforehand, but on the other hand everyone else (and the Paladin too) will be afraid of penalties for doubts. Ok, they are not a tragic loss and can be removed more easily, but still it's a risk to be afraid of.
Are the fellow members happy? I don't think so, the code is still very much there, and now they have personal problems too
I'm not saying that overall it's a bad system, it's got its points. I'm just saying it doesn't accomplish what it says it does.
