Why I don't like alignment in fantasy RPGs

[pemerton]

It seems to me this is really a difference in game philosophy.
Basically, there are two types of D&D here that share rules but not goals.

<snip>

I wouldn't want to play with a player if I had to worry about him/her exploiting the rules

I'd probably carve up the playstyle space a little differently, but I agree with the basic point of your post.

That's why in my OP I mentioned the difference a gamist game might make. But I still believe that, if you're playing that sort of game and you're relying on alignment, or other sorts of personality disadvantages, to rein in the players, then you're skating on thin ice.

 

[Krensky]

I think you might have missed my point here. I'm not talking about a situation in which a player decides to play a PC whose values are different to the player's. This is fine (at least in principle - in practice, sometimes it can be a little tricky depending on the values in question).

I'm talking about a situation in which the player believes that what her/his PC did is good, but the GM insists that it is evil. This is not just the GM passing judgment on the PC. It it also the GM telling the player that s/he cannot tell good from evil behaviour in the circumstance in question.

It seems to me pretty obvious that this is a good part of the reason why arguments about alignment, both in play and on message boards, become so heated.

No, I did get your point. I just can't remember anything remotely like that happening after junior high school. It's a game. One of the GMs job is to referee and run NPCs. If the GM and the player disagree on the moralit or ethicalness of an action, the GM's right until after the game when a philosophical debate can commence. It sounds more like a hypothetical argument about not offending people then an actual issue in the game.

This is a misdescription. I am talking about the player determining whether or not his/her PC lives up to that PC's moral code. And why would I want to do that? Because it produces interesting gaming, and it doesn't start any fights.

Actually, it was a mis-phrasing on mine, since I meant what you said. As for the rest,... the mind boggles. Letting the player act as his own judge?

Well, in my OP I noted that in a hardcore gamist game things might be different, although I also suggested that personality disadvantages aren't a very good mechanism for balancing in a hardcore gamist game.

Only when the GM abdicates his responsibility. "Let the player decide if his character is following his restrictions properly." *shakes head*

But the balancing point is also a bit of a red herring. Paladins in 3E are already one of the weaker classes. They don't need a personality disadvantage as a balancing factor. And in all the thread discussing CoDzilla, I've never seen it suggested that alignment constraints impose much balance. And the reason for this is pretty obvious, because if I want to play CoDzilla I just pick LN, TN or (perhaps) NG as my alignment and go from there. These are alignments that (in my experience) only rarely cause trouble at the table.

Wait, when did this become about 3.X?

Perhaps, yes, depending on what else is at stake. If the player paid PC build resources to get that oath or pact, then definitely yes. (Again, subject to the proviso that if the whole point of the game is for the GM to use that oath/pact to throw adversity at the PC, then perhaps not - but this does not describe any edition of D&D as written, and I've never seen D&D used to play this sort of game, in part because alignment is a huge impediment to it.)

Do you let your players just make up numbers for dice rolls too? If a player takes a disadvantage (code of conduct, duty, or whatever) in order to gain an advantage (spell casting, special abilities, more build points, etc) and then you don't make them feel that disadvantage you're just giving them free power.

If a PC enters into a deal with a more powerful character and the player gets to adjudicate that deal, they will almost never do so fairly. This whole scheme sounds more like player fiat then anything else.

 

[pemerton]

If you prefer to frame it like that, cool.

<snip stuff I agree with>

I trust my players

Mallus, everything you've said there is exactly what I'm talking about - including the importance of trust to this whole question.

Those are completely different questions, not really related to world building. They're really more about running the game then designing a world.

Mallus is describing an approach to RPGing in which designing the gameworld [/I]is part of[/i] - or at least a very deliberate prelude to - running the game.

by letting the players decide if they're living up to their churches tenants in a world where doing so gives them power (I'd guess almost every D&D world, Eberron and similar distant deity worlds are the exceptions here) means that to be consistant, you have to let them decide if the powerful NPCs they make deals with think the PCs are living up to their oaths, pacts, contracts, etc themselves.

Not necessarily. In the latter case the player probably has not paid PC building resources to create and cement the relationship (in this respect D&D differs from eg HERO, or HeroQuest), so the cases are not necessarily parallel.

If a PC gains power as a result of a deal with a more powerful NPC, it's the GM's job to adjudicate that deal.

Well, this is exactly what I'm disputing. I think this assumption about the GM's job - especially when it requires adjudicating using fundamental moral terms like "good" and "evil" - is a recipe for conflict at the game table.

would you let a Cleric or the Raven Queen who started working for Orcus in play still claim he was a member in good standing with her church? Yes, the cleric's powers and such can be left intact, etc, just say their patron shifted to Orcus from the Raven Queen, but I'm addressing the non-mechanical aspects.

Well, it hasn't happened yet - though I have a wizard PC who started play as a lapsed Initiate of the Raven Queen (but still a devout worshipper of her), became unlapsed early on in the game (2nd level multi-classing feat), has now retrained from multi-class cleric to multi-class invoker (dedicated not only to the Raven Queen but also Erathis at least) and is displaying more and more interest in Vecna. This started when the PCs came across evidence of Vecna worship, the Raven Queen paladin denounced this as heresy, and the wizard/initiate PC, somewhat defensively, pointed out that Vecna is also a god of wizardry. Since then I have been taking various opportunities to poke the player a bit further in that direction, to see what (if anything) happens. I certainly wouldn't object to him being an invoker of Erathis, Vecna and the Raven Queen - making, secrets and fate seem easily combined to me - although (as is noted in the invoker class description, I think) this could provoke some queries from more orthodox worshippers.

In an earlier campaign I have had PCs who were fighting heaven (or at least parts of heaven) and yet still, and at least in one case, correctly, regarded themselves as fully acting in the cause of righeousness.

Now, you like the more, mechanistic and distant deities ala Eberon. There's nothing wrong with that, in fact it's how my current home brew works. Regardless of why that descision was made for any give world, it's still a world building choice.

I don't think this is right. You seem to be saying that there are two options: (i) involved deities whom the GM runs, potentially at odds with the interests of the players, or (ii) distant deities a la Eberron. But my current campaign, and the previous one, have featured involved deities, but have eschewed GM control of those deities in such a way as to potentially hose the PCs/players who worship them.

And one of the things that makes that eschewal easier is not using alignment rules.

 

[pemerton]

Do you let your players just make up numbers for dice rolls too? If a player takes a disadvantage (code of conduct, duty, or whatever) in order to gain an advantage (spell casting, special abilities, more build points, etc) and then you don't make them feel that disadvantage you're just giving them free power.

In my view the only version of D&D in which a paladin's code and alignment restriction constitutes a clear disadvantage is 1st ed AD&D. In other versions of the game it's not a balancing disadvantage - in 3E because paladins are actually a rather weak class, in 4e because paladins are at the weaker end of the defender spectrum, and in 2nd ed AD&D because if a 2nd ed player in the typical 2nd ed gameworld can't turn being a paragon of virtue into an advantage (eg in leveraging it for benefit in social encounters) then they're doing it wrong!

 

[Arlough]

Wait, when did this become about 3.X?

Of the active editions, 3.x/Pathfinder is the only one that has alignment penalties built in for the paladin. 4e does not have a mechanic for enforcing alignment, in fact here is what the PHB1 has to say about it:

Paladins are not granted their powers directly by their deity, but instead through various rites performed when they first become paladins. Most of these rites involve days of prayer, vigils, tests and trials, and ritual purification followed by a knighting ceremony, but each faith has its own methods. This ceremony of investiture gives a paladin the ability to wield divine powers. Once initiated, the paladin is a paladin forever more. How justly, honorably, or compassionately the paladin wields those powers from that day forward is up to him, and paladins who stray too far from the tenets of their faith are punished by other members of the faithful.

So the dicussion has to be about 3.x and earlier. Plus, the BoED and BoVD have not been published for 4e.
And, at this rate, probobly never will be. Instead we will get a pair of powers and an unusable item in an upcoming edition of Drag-on. But that is a rant for another thread.

No, I did get your point. I just can't remember anything remotely like that happening after junior high school. It's a game. One of the GMs job is to referee and run NPCs. If the GM and the player disagree on the moralit or ethicalness of an action, the GM's right until after the game when a philosophical debate can commence. It sounds more like a hypothetical argument about not offending people then an actual issue in the game.

Actually, it was a mis-phrasing on mine, since I meant what you said. As for the rest,... the mind boggles. Letting the player act as his own judge?

Only when the GM abdicates his responsibility. "Let the player decide if his character is following his restrictions properly." *shakes head*


Do you let your players just make up numbers for dice rolls too? If a player takes a disadvantage (code of conduct, duty, or whatever) in order to gain an advantage (spell casting, special abilities, more build points, etc) and then you don't make them feel that disadvantage you're just giving them free power.

If a PC enters into a deal with a more powerful character and the player gets to adjudicate that deal, they will almost never do so fairly. This whole scheme sounds more like player fiat then anything else.

If, indeed, you have not had to enforce alignment since junior high, then the obvious implication is that in the time since either the players have been handling this just fine, or you have not played with a single Divine or Pact type character.

If the players have been handling it by staying within their alignment, then why wouldn't they handle the scenario where their character acted out of alignment (due to coercion, confusion, control, no good choice, or whatever) with the same level of good judgement?

If the players have not played a divine or pact bound character in that time (or if I am misreading what you are saying), then what aspect of your play group makes you think that the players, when playing a character with a strict moral code, would "never do so fairly"?
Is it your experience that players will cheat whenever they get the opportunity to? Do your players try to fudge on die rolls? Does the DM of your group have to keep copies of everybody's character sheet for the purpose of making sure they are not giving themselves too much in the way of a bonus?

I trust the players to play out their characters as though they were living the character's life. I like to have copies of everybody's character sheets, but that is more so I can evaluate what the party is talented at in skill challenges and have a pretty good idea what their defenses and hit points are. This allows me to adjust skill challenges, monsters, and NPC's accordingly soas to never put the PCs in a no-win situation.

 

[Ariosto]

There's a "recipe for player-GM conflict" at every turn for some folks. They seem to be a lot more common in ENworld than in my gaming experience.

Yes, the DM defines the alignments. That should not be news, any more than any of the DM's other duties. It is (or used to be) laid out in the handbooks that worlds do tend to differ one from the other, so one should not assume that the customs prevailing in Poughkeepsie hold sway in Elfland.

This was certainly evident in TSR's follow-up to D&D, Empire of the Petal Throne, in which what was noble or ignoble for a person might depend on clan, cult and class (both social and professional) -- and the whole was plainly not a "Wisconsin Yankee in King Conan's Court" sort of thing.

Try working together, and you might find that playing the game is even more fun than arguing.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

It is true that some sort of agreement among the group is necessary for play to proceed.

But only (A)D&D-style alignment rules require this to be agreement in respect of what good means. It is because such agreement is, in practice, not going to be forthcoming except in the most politically and culturally homogenous of groups that the game has a default namely, the GM's opinion is what counts.

Perhaps this is why I've never had any issue with alignment, at least not on the level you are discussing. (Sometimes I've had games were it wasn't particular useful. So it was ignored or at least downgraded. But that's campaign specific.)

If the people sitting around the table haven't come to some kind of rough consensus on what is "good" (or at least some limits), then most likely, I don't want to be at the table. Because my experience is that what I'll get is one of these:

1. It will be almost entirely silly, hack and slash, or otherwise not focused on any kind of ethics whatsoever. I like a certain amount of lighter things in my gaming, but not entirely devoted to it.

2. There will be one or two jerks (posting guidelines prevent me from using a more accurate noun), who assume that they know what "good" or "evil" or whatever is, and that "every correct-thinking person" of course agrees 100% with them. They'll not infrequently use "gray is more interesting" as a synonym for, "me getting away with something that I know I can't justify if asked to spell it out." And even if such talk is supposed to be removed from the table, they'll still feel compelled to "share" their opinions as some kind of tribal marker or loose and useless commentary on current events. They'll confuse "everything is grey" as being "nuanced". They'll espouse appreciation for sophistication, and be very simplistic in their arguments. Basically, sophomoric college philosophy nonsense. No thanks!

Alignments are a jargon. And like any jargon, they only usefully communicate as long as all the participants largely agree on the definitions. Whether I use a version of D&D alignments or not, I want the agreement on the definitions--if only to tell where the agreements fall short.

BTW, that's why so many alignment discussion degenerate so rapidly. People are fighting over semantics in order to assert that something IS good in reality, or they are staking out territory in the jargon in order to make it a prescriptive tool to get the game they want. Which is exactly backwards to anything useful, as near as I can tell.

tl;dr: If I'm sitting at a table where the DM and a player had a terrible falling out over, say, a paladin, his actions, and the alignment consequences--then I'm sitting at a table with at least one person that I don't want to be gaming with. The solution to this problem has nothing whatsoever to do with alignment.

 

[Mallus]

Seems like a meaningless distinction to me, but to each their own.

The distinction is central to the DM'ing approach I'm outlining, so let me try to clarify.

It's the difference between accepting a character's premise and then challenging that character vs. invalidating a character's premise, making it difficult for a player to enact their chosen premise in the first place. Here's a good example, from my pal shilsen's long thread about his, ahem, earthy paladin, Sir Cedric.

Cedric's premise is simple: he's a paladin who frequents prostitutes. He saw this as perfectly acceptable according to the tenants of his faith . Quite a lot of his fellow churchman disagreed. And yet, his god still blessed him with cool powerz.

The gist of the thread, and possibly its title, was "Would you allow this paladin in your game?"

Did I mention this was thread was long?

Most posters agreed Cedric sounded like an excellent character --especially after shilsen added snippets of fiction fleshing him out. But many had problems with him being a paladin. They suggested alternate classes, that he start off as a fallen paladin or an aspirant fighter who might become a paladin once he changes his ways.

In other words, they suggested playing a character with a different premise. They were challenging shilsen to play the character he conceived of.

My response was to Sir Cedric was: cool concept.. I'd love to run a game with him in it. My mind turned to all the possible conflict inherent in the concept, in Cedric dealing with both supernatural evils and a Church hierarchy on the verge of labeling him a heretic.

I was thinking about how to challenge shilsen using the character he conceived of. I think the distinction is extremely important.

Those are completely different questions, not really related to world building. They're really more about running the game then designing a world.

I don't keep issues of world-building and campaign-running separate. That strikes me as putting form too far ahead of function. Why was the game world created in the first place?

If I'm writing a novel, the setting need only meet my requirements; it needs to support the kind of fiction I plan to write.

But if I'm creating a setting for the purpose of a role-playing game, then the setting needs to support the fiction(s) I'm interested in and the fiction the players want to create. The joint needs to be big enough to handle more than my story. It's a very different form of subcreation, one that, tacitly, at least, acknowledges multiple authors.

If a PC gains power as a result of a deal with a more powerful NPC, it's the GM's job to adjudicate that deal. If a Divine caster gains power by following the tenants of his faith, or a knight by upholding his oath of fealty, or a monk by following a stringent philosophy, or an infernalist by signing a pact with a devil I'd venture that it's generally accepted that it's the GM's job to decide how well the PC is living up to that deal.

Not a fan of this. For starters, the unintended consequence of this is to incentivize the playing of generic classes with less, or at least less interesting connections to the game world/game fiction because they're less vulnerable to having the DM strip them of their core abilities. That's pretty much the opposite of what I want to encourage.

I also think it's a mistake to consider a god to be just another NPC in this context. A PC who decided to double-cross a mortal patron/partner can lead to interesting play. It could be an interesting challenge. The same can't be said of a god, the kind of entity that can pop into the nearest burning bush or thundercloud and essentially do whatever they like to the character. It makes for a bad game. Because the player can't win. There's only one move available; do as the god says (or retire the character).

... I bet you thing this thread is about you.

I do!

Not really. You're assuming I don't have a similar relationship with mine.

I didn't mean to, sorry. You threw me with the "license to commit moral relativism" line... you sounded like someone adopted the "DM-as-ethics-cop" stance.

It seems to me pretty obvious that this is a good part of the reason why arguments about alignment, both in play and on message boards, become so heated.

Proxy-fights over actual morality can be fun!

If a player takes a disadvantage (code of conduct, duty, or whatever) in order to gain an advantage (spell casting, special abilities, more build points, etc) and then you don't make them feel that disadvantage you're just giving them free power.

If we're talking about systems that employ behavioral advantages/disadvantages, then I agree.

Mallus is describing an approach to RPGing in which designing the gameworld [/I]is part of[/i] - or at least a very deliberate prelude to - running the game.

Exactly!

I'm interested to see someone put up a vigorous defense of designing a game world without any concern for the people playing in it, but that might be something for another thread.

 

[pemerton]

Mallus, nice post.

Not a fan of this. For starters, the unintended consequence of this is to incentivize the playing of generic classes with less, or at least less interesting connections to the game world/game fiction because they're less vulnerable to having the DM strip them of their core abilities. That's pretty much the opposite of what I want to encourage.

I also think it's a mistake to consider a god to be just another NPC in this context. A PC who decided to double-cross a mortal patron/partner can lead to interesting play. It could be an interesting challenge. The same can't be said of a god, the kind of entity that can pop into the nearest burning bush or thundercloud and essentially do whatever they like to the character. It makes for a bad game. Because the player can't win. There's only one move available; do as the god says (or retire the character).

Agreed. This captures well what I've been trying to get accross by saying that the player should also have some say in how the god, as an NPC, responds to the PC's conduct.

 

[pemerton]

If I'm sitting at a table where the DM and a player had a terrible falling out over, say, a paladin, his actions, and the alignment consequences--then I'm sitting at a table with at least one person that I don't want to be gaming with. The solution to this problem has nothing whatsoever to do with alignment.

Unless I've misunderstood you, I agree with this. But I see this as a reason against alignment mechanics. If there's no problem at the table, GM-enforced alignment adds nothing to the game. If there is a problem, GM-enforced alignment adds nothing to the game. Hence, GM-enforced alignment adds nothing to the game.