Do alignments improve the gaming experience?

[UnholyD]

I'd lik to thank you for showing exactly what I've been saying. Alignment is the tool for enforcing player behaviour.

Well, yes and no. It is a tool, but more for advisement rather than enforcement. Chaos generally doesn't adhere to Order, therefore, Chaotically aligned individuals and monsters are less likely if at all likely to follow "laws". Whether these "laws" be mystical, societal, or otherwise is open to debate but it means that given the choice between buying something or stealing something, if the potential risk is greatly overshadowed by the potential reward, Chaotic characters will steal. Should it be the vice-versa, they'll begrudgingly buy but only because it is the smarter/wiser thing to do. Which is where if you have a Chaotic Evil creature with low INT and WIS scores, they'll steal without question because they don't have the ability to think enough ahead that the act of stealing will result in greater risk than the reward is worth.
Good is generally not going to bring some form of harm or inconvenience to others unlike Evil which will do any of these and more should it benefit. Good characters might not always be charitable or even chivalrous, but they won't go out of their way to hurt others. Not to say that a low INT Paladin won't accidentally bring harm to those around him/her because of something they didn't think about.
All in all, regardless of alignment, a player should attempt to follow his/hers as closely as they can without constantly being reminded as to whether or not something will be against said alignment. And further, not all alignments are cut and dry, just because you play a Neutral character, doesn't mean you have to not care about others and only care about yourself and what you potentially get out of it. Neutrality is a balancing act, for every good deed is an equally evil one and for every law followed an equal one must be broken. Players shouldn't be punished for alignment based insurrections unless it was so far opposed to his/hers that it becomes a problem.

 

[UnholyD]

For those who apparently still don't get it, let me quote something from the Player's Handbook Edition 3.5:
"The compassion to pursue good, the will to uphold law, and the power to defeat evil-these are the three weapons of the paladin."
Compassion to pursue good? Quite honestly it sounds like Paladins want to do the right thing.
The will to uphold law? Sounds to me that Paladins want to be "boy scouts".
Power to defeat evil? Surely, it sounds like a Paladin's sole purpose is to defeat evil.
So a Paladin shouldn't, neigh, CAN'T steal as that is breaking the law.
A Paladin mustn't bring harm to the innocent as this is EVIL.
Anyone else see a pattern here? I know I do.
If you don't want to be a goody two-shoes, DON'T PLAY A PALADIN!
Anyone who thinks this way is a moron and/or never read the Player's Handbook of ANY D&D Edition. And as we all know, what happens to morons in D&D? They die horrible, gruesome deaths. Deaths that could have easily been prevented if they bothered to learn something. For every person on this thread I hear saying that Alignment doesn't matter and that there is nothing saying that a Paladin can't lie, cheat, and/or steal, I fell like hunting them down and force feeding them the section of their Player's Handbook that is specifically for the Paladin Class.

 

[Grydan]

Well, yes and no. It is a tool, but more for advisement rather than enforcement. Chaos generally doesn't adhere to Order, therefore, Chaotically aligned individuals and monsters are less likely if at all likely to follow "laws". Whether these "laws" be mystical, societal, or otherwise is open to debate but it means that given the choice between buying something or stealing something, if the potential risk is greatly overshadowed by the potential reward, Chaotic characters will steal.

Rationally weighing cost vs. benefit doesn't strike me as terribly chaotic.

Nor does behaviour that is predictable enough that one can say with any degree of certainty how a character will act given known conditions: chaos is unpredictability, not predictable violation of law. Someone who consistently behaves in the same manner when presented with a given scenario is acting in an orderly fashion.

Good is generally not going to bring some form of harm or inconvenience to others unlike Evil which will do any of these and more should it benefit.Good characters might not always be charitable or even chivalrous, but they won't go out of their way to hurt others.

This seems rather incomplete, at best. The archetypal adventuring paladin is a paragon of virtue who seeks out threats to smite ... they literally go out of their way to cause harm to others that they believe deserve it. A conception of "good" that doesn't at least include the idea that some forms of intentionally causing others harm are acceptable is difficult to reconcile with the genre conceits of heroic warriors (not that all characters must be heroic warriors, but it's certainly an archetype the game has always purported to include).

And further, not all alignments are cut and dry, just because you play a Neutral character, doesn't mean you have to not care about others and only care about yourself and what you potentially get out of it. Neutrality is a balancing act, for every good deed is an equally evil one and for every law followed an equal one must be broken.

And this is why, to the extent that alignment plays any role at all in my gaming, I think 4E's Unaligned is a much more sensible "middle" position.

Because frankly, striving to achieve balance between good and evil, law-abidance and law-breaking in the manner you describe is an incoherent position. "Evil triumphs when good men do nothing" ... and it triumphs even more quickly and easily when neutral men actively engage in evil behaviour. Intentionally committing evil acts isn't neutral ... it's just evil.

"Don't commit premeditated murder" is generally speaking one of the most significant laws on the books, with the heaviest punishments. How, in your construction of Neutrality, is one expected to deal with that law? For every person you don't murder, you have to murder someone else?

 

[Sadras]

As I have said upthread, for me that is utterly incompatible with the paladin archetype. The divine may move in mysterious ways, but it does not err.

It is your right to have/build such settings as you imply above, but those settings wherein the divine forces/deities are not infallible (cannot err) are not cannon to D&D, even within fiction, mythology & religion from whence Deities/Divine Forces were inspired from. Gods have egos (Ares) , get angry and lash out (The Deluge), fall in love with mortals (Zeus), strip powers from their servants (High Priest of Ishtar), they even punish their peers (The Avatar Trilogy) - divine forces are often wrong and arguably extremely self serving. Even in Mystara (BECMI) the immortals are mortals that have ascended - they keep the same personality flaws they had during their mortal existence when they ascend into godhood.

Given that the rest of us seem to be representing settings (with mechanical alignment) which reflect a rather classical D&D setting, IMO, removing alignment and along with those repercussions/consequences that are associated with breaching ones contract to the divine forces, would break immersion for my group and I feel many others here.
After reading through this entire thread i believe for me as I have come to the realisation (perhaps a little late), alignment is necessary not for "punishment/judgement", "playing as the DM wants you to play" or exploring the setting or even challenging the PCs - its primarily about MAINTAINING IMMERSION for the setting, a traditional D&D setting.

 

[S'mon]

On other occasions, though, this player will routinely talk about "My mistress insists upon this . . . " or "My misteress has done that . . ." without inviting or expecting mediation from me.

Thanks - that sounds like something I'd be ok with, with the proviso that the PC's knowledge might be imperfect. But I think my players would expect and allow me to intervene if they said
something 'as true' that the PC should know was wrong.
There's a PC IMC, Queen Esmerelda of Llorkh, who is widely revered as the prophesied Bane Child who will usher in the Dark Age of Bane. She doesn't even like Bane - she reveres Ilmater - but she will often make declarations of Bane wants x/y/z as part of her goal of keeping the Banites, who follow her, from attacking the
good guys. So far Bane seems to be ok with this; it probably helps that she does appear to be his daughter... The situation has created a lot of interesting drama, which I think is only possible because the player did not create this backstory and has no way to know what is objectively true, or what Bane's plans actually are.

 

[S'mon]

It is your right to have/build such settings as you imply above, but those settings wherein the divine forces/deities are not infallible (cannot err) are not cannon to
D&D

I guess in D&D canon, Lawful Good Heimdall may err, but the Lawful Good Alignment is
itself a cosmic force, and it never errs. So there is always a 'right thing' for a LG Paladin to do, an act in accordance with LG alignment. The Alignment itself seems to take the place of the monotheist conception of divinity from which the Paladin archetype was derived.

 

[Sadras]

I find it interesting that the responses have all been quite judgmental. No one (besides myself) has made any attempt to suggest there might be a justification for the play in question. So clearly you ARE judging the morality of the character. The only question is how that judgment plays out – is it truly more extreme to rule the Paladin has committed an evil act and loses his powers than to toss the player out on his ear? From the comments, it seems like “I would not game with such a player” is the most common response, especially from the anti-alignment posters.

Great point! Cant XP as usual.

 

[Sadras]

I guess in D&D canon, Lawful Good Heimdall may err, but the Lawful Good Alignment is
itself a cosmic force, and it never errs. So there is always a 'right thing' for a LG Paladin to do, an act in accordance with LG alignment. The Alignment itself seems to take the place of the monotheist conception of divinity from which the Paladin archetype was derived.

Fair enough, but just as a DM npcs LG deities I would imagine this LG cosmic force would indeed be treated in the same way by the DM (how it acts, how it communicates if at all). And so if the agent (paladin/cleric) of the divine force on the material plane became soiled/stained - he/she would no longer be worthy to channel such divine gift, for if anyone could do it no matter what personal creed they followed, then you would be reducing the channeling of divine powers to a teachable skill like 'climb walls' with no sense of narrative interplay. That sounds terribly awful to me.

Alignment is ingrained into the DMs setting one way or another. Whether one as a DM refuses to acknowledge their responsibility and instead relies on the player to define LG through his character actions alone without repercussion should the player err purposefully or not, well that is ones choice, but since setting is primarily and traditionally dependent on the DM, which includes alignment & associated divine powers, it is does seem fitting that the DM should be the arbiter of all associated with a PCs actions, alignment, deities/cosmic forces and the granting/negating of divine powers and the relationship between them all within a traditional D&D setting.

And the argument that two DMs may rule differently on the action or even the "punishment" of the character, this point has already been answered upthread.

 

[Manbearcat]

Originally Posted by N'raac
I find it interesting that the responses have all been quite judgmental. No one (besides myself) has made any attempt to suggest there might be a justification for the play in question. So clearly you ARE judging the morality of the character. The only question is how that judgment plays out – is it truly more extreme to rule the Paladin has committed an evil act and loses his powers than to toss the player out on his ear? From the comments, it seems like “I would not game with such a player” is the most common response, especially from the anti-alignment posters.

Great point! Cant XP as usual.

I don't think that is a fair representation of the responses seen. My responses have been aimed at the antithesis, for instance, and I'm pretty certain that most others of my same disposition are generally in agreement. Its about:

1) Good, informed, educated, smart people can, and inevitably will, differ on trappings of moral evaluation. As such, any top-down view by a mediator attempting to wear multiple hats at once, many of those hats multiple times removed from first party insight, is rife with fallibility. Interestingly, there is another Paladin thread that just popped up on 3.x. There they are debating the nature of "willful evil" versus "duped evil" (with the intent for good ends and buy-in due to that intent) and if a Paladin should fall for the latter. Good, informed, eductated, smart people. Differing.

2) Evaluative judgements often fail the test of time. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." An act that may seem to produce the most good in the present may be fraught with latent chaos, waiting to manifest it some time down the road, overwhelming whatever present good was achieved. The inverse is also true. Most historical villains believe that "you have to break a few eggs to make a good omelette." Erstwhile, that good omelette never becomes manifest and, often, all you end up with is a shortage of chickens for the next generation or an outright chicken genocide as they can't seem to get the omelette quite perfect enough with their first 9 million attempts. They aren't twisting their greased mustachios, manically laughing as they scheme their next villianous plot.

3) And finally, if the usage of alignment is a stick for curbing the behavior of potential insincere, Machiavellian players, then the answer is "I don't play with insincere, Machiavellian players" or "that sort of caustic behavior is best handled at the social contract level...if that social contract is not observed, then, just as you would with any other willful toxicity, I will excise it." I have no problem making judgements in my micro-ecosystem of a gaming table. It is a trivial thing and everyone does it every day (as they should). That is a far, far, far cry from adjudicating the pratfalls of macro-cosmological alignment with all of the varying players, 2nd and 3rd order interactions, and perceptions twice removed.

 

[Abraxas]

1) Good, informed, educated, smart people can, and inevitably will, differ on trappings of moral evaluation. As such, any top-down view by a mediator attempting to wear multiple hats at once, many of those hats multiple times removed from first party insight, is rife with fallibility. Interestingly, there is another Paladin thread that just popped up on 3.x. There they are debating the nature of "willful evil" versus "duped evil" (with the intent for good ends and buy-in due to that intent) and if a Paladin should fall for the latter. Good, informed, eductated, smart people. Differing.

They can also differ on expectations of how the game world will react to the actions they have their character take - so aren't all decisions on such reactions rife with fallibility?

2) Evaluative judgements often fail the test of time. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." An act that may seem to produce the most good in the present may be fraught with latent chaos, waiting to manifest it some time down the road, overwhelming whatever present good was achieved. The inverse is also true. Most historical villains believe that "you have to break a few eggs to make a good omelette." Erstwhile, that good omelette never becomes manifest and, often, all you end up with is a shortage of chickens for the next generation or an outright chicken genocide as they can't seem to get the omelette quite perfect enough with their first 9 million attempts. They aren't twisting their greased mustachios, manically laughing as they scheme their next villianous plot.

What does this have to do with using alignment in the game? Unless you are suggesting that if it is used there can only ever be one right answer to a situation for a PC/NPC to take based on its alignment. In which case it's the "straight-jacket" view all over again that none of the pro-alignment crowd are advocating.

3) And finally, if the usage of alignment is a stick for curbing the behavior of potential insincere, Machiavellian players, then the answer is "I don't play with insincere, Machiavellian players" or "that sort of caustic behavior is best handled at the social contract level...if that social contract is not observed, then, just as you would with any other willful toxicity, I will excise it." I have no problem making judgements in my micro-ecosystem of a gaming table. It is a trivial thing and everyone does it every day (as they should). That is a far, far, far cry from adjudicating the pratfalls of macro-cosmological alignment with all of the varying players, 2nd and 3rd order interactions, and perceptions twice removed.

Don't game with jerks is universal so it makes no difference whether or not you use alignment. There are threads on these boards with people asking what they should to curb "naughty" players. People respond with actions the NPCs should take to punish the player's character so they "get the point".

It seems, to me at least, you are going out of your way to make alignment as difficult as possible to use. If you have a "There can be only one" mentality with how it applies to character actions - yeah, it's going to be a headache. I find it pretty easy to adjudicate because it's not some grand universal truth - it's what works for my gaming table. This will differ from table to table, just like reasonable game world reactions to player chosen character actions will.


Also, as an aside - you are one of the few posters who's posting style is verbose (I can't think of a better word at this time, but please don't take it as an insult - you just write a lot) that I haven't put on the ignore list. If you choose to respond would you be willing to try to be more concise?