Do alignments improve the gaming experience?

[sheadunne]

If you like another approach that is cool, but for those of us who prefer the GM to handle this stuff, it isnt about the gm being more capable. It is mainly we just want a non-player making these kinds of calls and eant that person to be a single individual over the course of a campaign. I don't want to make decisions about stuff outside my character like how the gods feel about my actions. It is just preference, but i feel sometimes like the other side paints us as worshiping GM authority, when it isnt really about that.

For me it's simply a different view of the deity and the source of divine magic/powers/abilities in D&D. For me, the followers of gods (paladins, clerics, etc) get their powers through faith and not through any direct act by the deity. Their source of power is through belief. This belief is internal and not subject to being turned off by deities (they don't have the power to shut it off, but they do have the power to appear and kick butt I suppose, although why they would bother I have no idea). A DM controlling a deity really has no impact on whether divine magic happens. It happens because the person believes and those beliefs focus the magic into effect. When the follower questions himself (by say breaking his oath), that focus is lost and his magic and powers wain. Paladins and clerics believe more strongly in the divine than other characters. This is why they use holy symbols as a focus for their magic, it helps to channel their belief into effect.

This is based on 3x. 2e had some other notions about divine magic.

 

[Celebrim]

[MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION], I certainly respect your faith-driven reasons for abstaining from DitV. Its not unreasonable and its not unfair for you to invoke it. That being said, I've played the game with a committed Christian conservative (and a hell of a good man and father and an exemplar of his faith), atheists and those in between. It is certainly possible.

Under Romans 14, we are given a lot of freedom. Maybe my inability to approach the game is my own weakness I must bear, but I think you completely misunderstand the nature of my problems with the game.

1) I'm not LDS, so its not as if the subject matter cuts too close to home in that regard. Still, it does make me wonder what someone like Tracy Hickman would say regarding the game.
2) It's certainly not the tough and mature subject matter that is the problem. I believe in respectfully and tastefully dealing with the vary sorts of subject matter addressed by the game. To do otherwise, to have evil without consequence, is gratuitous in itself.
3) It's not that the faith is too different than my own. Quite the contrary, it's that it is too similar. Though I'm not a LDS, the LDS position on RPing is one I find 'wise', namely, that the saving grace of a FRPG is ultimately that it is trivial. Were it not trivial, it would be harder to justify. It's the very fact that it is but a minor vanity that prevents it from becoming a serious spiritual concern.

Fundamentally, the problem I had is that I am very much a Thespian in my own RP. I RP in first person and with full dialogue. As a player, I often go as far as to use a method acting approach. So I set down to approach the character of a Dog, imagining this first character along the most straight forward lines - that what you saw was in fact what you got, and that the depth of character would proceed from that. And I sat down to imagine how I would play that, and immediately ran into all sorts of trouble. Because I found I couldn't play that character in a way that wouldn't blur the lines between fiction and reality. Anything the Dog said, or sang, or prayed, or proclaimed, or quoted, regarding the faith of the fiction would sound in pretty much every respect identical to what one might say, pray, or sing in a poetic fashion about the One True God of this universe. A game which not only assumed a monotheistic universe, but which was grounded the religious life, rites, and offices of that universe would fundamentally require my role play to look in pretty much every respect like worship.

And that's not something I decided I could play with. It's a character I am perhaps too well qualified to animate. I don't have to just say, "I pray", I can easily imagine and invent what he would pray. I don't just have to say, "He sings a hymn out of joy" (or sorrow or whatever), I can riff on real hymns. I can invent real sounding scripture, riff on common poetic phrasing, and so forth. And at some point the line just gets too blurry and you have to ask yourself, "Am I not in fact taking God's name in vain?" At some point, you are treating what is sacred in a way that is too profane. At some point, all this fake worship starts look like real worship of something that isn't quite God. And, if it is in fact not fake worship, if my make my play a literal act of worship (as an actor playing a sacred role might), then not I can no longer tolerate the heresies of the setting for fear of spreading false teaching and to say nothing of the fact that this game has become very serious and earnest indeed and I'm probably just completely wierding out everyone (including myself).

It just gets too meta at that point. My players don't generally know this, I'm the kind of guy that prays that my work will be edifying before running a session of D&D. This would just go too far.

There are other issues as well. Back during the occult scare in the '80's I considered making an RPG that was deeply Christian (three attribute scores, Faith, Hope, and Charity, a skill list that was the Fruits and Gifts of the Spirit, that sort of thing), and immediately ran into these same sorts of problems. I dared not run it. It scared me in I think the way that Tolkien was scared when he realized people were mining his novels for religious value. It's a terribly serious business representing the Faith. Turning my game - this trivial leisure activity akin to watching TV or putting a jigsaw puzzle together - into a Bible study with me as its defacto leader is heady stuff. I felt I could either drop the game and tackle the issues head on and respectfully, or I could drop the serious stuff and leave it just a game, but not both. And I certainly didn't ever want to run a game where I was having to put myself in the place of God and act in his place. So that game died early and I realized the value of having distance from reality in your fantasy.

Finally, when I think of movie archetypes that might in form the notion of righteous characters, High Plains Drifter decidedly does not come to mind. If these characters are supposed to be God's representatives on the earth, they are going to look more like Wild West versions of Homer Smith from 'Lilies of the Field', or Jess Birdwell from 'Friendly Persuasion', Father Anatoly from 'The Island', or even Jean Val Jean from 'Les Miserables'. They aren't going to be characters written by someone decidedly hostile to religion and its precepts. It's not that I'm rejecting the notion of a Christian with a six shooter, but I suspect it would look decidedly different than most people would expect - in the way that Frodo or Bilbo is a decidedly different sort of hero than Heracles. In other words, I think if your game "looks like that", you are probably doing it decidedly wrong and you'd only call it right if you hated The Faith in the first place.

 

[Desdichado]

Once a character takes a resource during character creation (i.e. the act of playing a paladin) that resource is now in the players hands, even if it was originally created by the DM. The player knows what the code is and how it applies to his character better than the DM. In my experience this is true.

In my experience this is not assumed to be true by a large number of DMs. Or players. This is my big aversion to playing paladins, or frankly, even to their inclusion in the game. The way the paladin code and alignments are generally interpreted by most people I've gamed with stands in direct and blatant opposition to the implicit social contract that governs what is the player's bailiwick and what is the GM's.

Which is, of course, exactly why they are notorious as a source of conflict. And the same is true to a lesser degree for clerics.

 

[sheadunne]

In my experience this is not assumed to be true by a large number of DMs. Or players. This is my big aversion to playing paladins, or frankly, even to their inclusion in the game. The way the paladin code and alignments are generally interpreted by most people I've gamed with stands in direct and blatant opposition to the implicit social contract that governs what is the player's bailiwick and what is the GM's.

Which is, of course, exactly why they are notorious as a source of conflict. And the same is true to a lesser degree for clerics.

I don't disagree with you which is why I think there needs to be explicit resolution mechanics (roll a die) or no mechanic effect on the character (does not lose powers).

 

[Imaro]

For me it's simply a different view of the deity and the source of divine magic/powers/abilities in D&D. For me, the followers of gods (paladins, clerics, etc) get their powers through faith and not through any direct act by the deity. Their source of power is through belief. This belief is internal and not subject to being turned off by deities (they don't have the power to shut it off, but they do have the power to appear and kick butt I suppose, although why they would bother I have no idea). A DM controlling a deity really has no impact on whether divine magic happens. It happens because the person believes and those beliefs focus the magic into effect. When the follower questions himself (by say breaking his oath), that focus is lost and his magic and powers wain. Paladins and clerics believe more strongly in the divine than other characters. This is why they use holy symbols as a focus for their magic, it helps to channel their belief into effect.

This is based on 3x. 2e had some other notions about divine magic.

This is from the 3.5 SRD Under Divine Magic... It doesn't really mention anything about having faith or the power being internal, so while you have every right to play the way you want, I don't think what you're saying is the official stance in 3.x

Clerics, druids, experienced paladins, and experienced rangers can cast divine spells. Unlike arcane spells, divine spells draw power from a divine source. Clerics gain spell power from deities or from divine forces. The divine force of nature powers druid and ranger spells. The divine forces of law and good power paladin spells. Divine spells tend to focus on healing and protection and are less flashy, destructive, and disruptive than arcane spells.

 

[Manbearcat]

@Imaro , I'll think on that and try to put something together for you that is coherent. Off the cuff, Divine Spark informing your ethos, abilities and quest is definitely the primary line of demarcation.

@Bedrockgames , I certainly don't want to make caricature of your position. I was just talking of one facet of things (primarily from a GMing perspective). I certainly get that there is a decently sized cross-section of folks who advocate for deep immersion play run exclusive from Actor Stance. They have a very low threshold for tolerating metagame components of play or rules elements that induce excessive table handling time on "out of character" matters. I get it. I've known plenty of them and GMed for plenty of them. Your interests are not lost on me.

@Celebrim Couple things:

1) Great post until the end. I understand your position and respect it. You made it abundantly clear and advocated for it superbly.

2) You can use Pale Rider and Preacher as your exemplar for a Dog. You can use any archetype and turn the piety up to 10 or throttle it back. But not all Dogs are goings to be (nor should they be) infallible or anywhere approaching it. Some of them should be borderline monstrous (in their ferocity, methodology, and in their tolerance for sin, and maybe even in their dangerous dealings with the supernatural). That is the point of play (to see what happens as conflicts unfold, characters evolve, and towns fall or survive). Yes, the genre fiction that I mentioned is precisely how you "do it right." You may not like that but so be it. Its a system for Story Now, episodic, cinematic genre emulation. It isn't trying to be a granular world simulator of mid-to late 19th century Utah to the degree that you're clearly inclined toward (given your posts). Although important for the thematic conflict, that is just the setting colour and backdrop for the genre emulation.

No I am not a nihilist, an existentialist, nor a postmodernist. Not even close. And I absolutely don't "hate Faith." You don't have to possess any of those qualities to play Dogs in the Vineyard in the way I play it. Some of the things you've said are getting really, really personal and it takes an amazing amount to offend me. We're at the point where if you said that to me in real life and implied some of those disrespectful things in your last two posts, then you better have a stout chin and be able to throw hands to back up those words. So, given that, I think its probably best if you and I just walk away from this engagement or its going to escalate. So, you can have the last word on this and we can certainly go back and forth in the future on other gaming issues (I won't put anyone on ignore and I generally enjoy your posts even if I disagree with some of them). But I won't be responding to anything in the future on this specific issue.

 

[sheadunne]

This is from the 3.5 SRD Under Divine Magic... It doesn't really mention anything about having faith or the power being internal, so while you have every right to play the way you want, I don't think what you're saying is the official stance in 3.x

Clerics, druids, experienced paladins, and experienced rangers can cast divine spells. Unlike arcane spells, divine spells draw power from a divine source. Clerics gain spell power from deities or from divine forces. The divine force of nature powers druid and ranger spells. The divine forces of law and good power paladin spells. Divine spells tend to focus on healing and protection and are less flashy, destructive, and disruptive than arcane spells.

Never claimed that it was. It based of the 3x notion of divine forces (not deities) powering spells (law and good in the instance of paladins), the idea of ethics and moral beliefs limiting spell selection, the power of faith to turn undead, the notion of a paladin meditating rather than praying for spells, and not having to be devoted to a deity to gain spells.

 

[Bedrockgames]

@Bedrockgames, I certainly don't want to make caricature of your position. I was just talking of one facet of things (primarily from a GMing perspective). I certainly get that there is a decently sized cross-section of folks who advocate for deep immersion play run exclusive from Actor Stance. They have a very low threshold for tolerating metagame components of play or rules elements that induce excessive table handling time on "out of character" matters. I get it. I've known plenty of them and GMed for plenty of them. Your interests are not lost on me.

Thank you, though i wouldn't describe it as actor stance personally.

 

[Celebrim]

For me it's simply a different view of the deity and the source of divine magic/powers/abilities in D&D. For me, the followers of gods (paladins, clerics, etc) get their powers through faith and not through any direct act by the deity. Their source of power is through belief. This belief is internal and not subject to being turned off by deities (they don't have the power to shut it off, but they do have the power to appear and kick butt I suppose, although why they would bother I have no idea). A DM controlling a deity really has no impact on whether divine magic happens. It happens because the person believes and those beliefs focus the magic into effect. When the follower questions himself (by say breaking his oath), that focus is lost and his magic and powers wain. Paladins and clerics believe more strongly in the divine than other characters. This is why they use holy symbols as a focus for their magic, it helps to channel their belief into effect.

- emphasis added

This is good example of why I have long said that the question of whether alignment should appear in a game, and in what form, is itself an alignment question.

Let me just say that it is as strange as all get out, that the source of power of a lawful character would be internal, individual, compartmentalized, disconnected, unreviewable, and personal. It's like saying that the source of power of a Paladin is Chaos, and the cultivation of that power in a Lawful character is greater introspection and greater self-actualization. It would be strange in the extreme for a Paladin to believe that the source of his power is himself, which in your conception, surely every educated Paladin must believe.

When you use words like, "believe more strongly in the divine", what does 'believe' and 'the divine' actually mean there and in what sense is belief empowering? I'd like to also point out that belief/faith are associated with the divine by only a very narrow spectrum of the world's religions, and notably not the ones that usually inspire D&D cosmologies. Under virtually every religious description of the world, belief is irrelevant. Odin doesn't care whether you believe he is good; he only cares whether you feed him and keep his cups filled with mead by observing the proper rituals established for that purpose. Certainly I never got the impression D&D magic was in any way dependent on Faith as the word is used in a religious context. There is nothing necessarily wrong with the cosmology you outline, but it seems incoherent in the context of a Paladin and rather at odds to the normal description of 'divine power' and indeed the multiverse given in most D&D material. I certainly can see this approach being encouraged in the followers of Chaos, whose animating principles presumably encourage this sort of independence and existential view, but as universal interpretation of divine magic, it seems decidedly lacking.

 

[Imaro]

Never claimed that it was. It based of the 3x notion of divine forces (not deities) powering spells (law and good in the instance of paladins), the idea of ethics and moral beliefs limiting spell selection, the power of faith to turn undead, the notion of a paladin meditating rather than praying for spells, and not having to be devoted to a deity to gain spells.

Thanks for clearing your point up, it was unclear to me since it seemed you were claiming the that the idea that the divine classes had internally granted as opposed to externally granted power was based on 3.x

EDIT...

For me it's simply a different view of the deity and the source of divine magic/powers/abilities in D&D. For me, the followers of gods (paladins, clerics, etc) get their powers through faith and not through any direct act by the deity. Their source of power is through belief. This belief is internal and not subject to being turned off by deities (they don't have the power to shut it off, but they do have the power to appear and kick butt I suppose, although why they would bother I have no idea). A DM controlling a deity really has no impact on whether divine magic happens. It happens because the person believes and those beliefs focus the magic into effect. When the follower questions himself (by say breaking his oath), that focus is lost and his magic and powers wain. Paladins and clerics believe more strongly in the divine than other characters. This is why they use holy symbols as a focus for their magic, it helps to channel their belief into effect.

This is based on 3x. 2e had some other notions about divine magic.

I'm curious in the way you view divine power... why can't a pious fighter/wizard/rogue/etc. believe in a deity or force so much that they gain powers... i feel like there has to be more than just believing or having faith since anyone can have that.