Do alignments improve the gaming experience?

[N'raac]

I think I've made it fairly clear that I don't regard hit point loss of the sort that might occur in combat, or as a result of a skill challenge, as "an impediment to the ability to impact on the shared fiction" in the relevant sense. I am talking about things like being deprived of class features or XP on an ongoing or permanent basis. As I said, for the same reason I don't think I have ever had an AD&D undead drain a level from a PC.

So, again, you are not opposed to the removal of abilities in principal, only on the degree of the impairment (its duration, anyway - I had also thought breadth of abilities removed, but that's not clear from the above). So it's OK to deny access to one or more class features for some period of time, but not a period that makes it "ongoing", however long that may be.

Given that, I stand by my previous assessment that we are no longer addressing an absolute principal, but a question of the degree to which the player's ability to impact the fiction can be impaired.

I don't know quite what you mean by "the usual action resolution mechanics", but in this particular episode of play the skill challenge mechanics were being used.Those are one component of the usual action resolution mechanics.

See my post above for an idea of what I mean. I mean not "By fiat, your familiar is not available", but an actual rule you can cite by which the familiar is removed as a consequence of an action taken by the player in the skill challenge.

I also find your conclusion you have been "fairly clear" stands in contrast to the number of posts indicating a lack of clarity for various readers, but I guess you are entitled to your opinion of your clarity.

 

[Hussar]

Just as a point on clarity. I have to admit, that I don't read either Pemerton's nor N'raac's posts whenever they get more than about three quotes long. So, guys, I have to say, I'm totally not following your discussion. Brevity really is the soul of wit.

 

[Imaro]

Do you have a citation? The only relevant thing I can find is this, from the DMG p 162:

The deities of the D&D world are powerful but not omnipotent, knowledgeable but not omniscient, widely traveled but not omnipresent. They alone of all creatures in the universe consist only of astral essence. The gods are creatures of thought and ideal, not bound by the same limitations as beings of flesh.​

There is nothing there which implies that (for instance) Kord might be confused about what athleticism consists in, or that Corellon might fail to recognise beauty when encountering it.

In fact that whole passage is silent on whether or not gods can err (, although I think that error of some sort is inherent in the notion of evil.

The minute a being is not omniscient, not omnipotent and not omnipresent... it is fallible. As to a deity being infallible in his domain (and for the record Kord does not have athleticism as an actual domain) we've already shown deities are fallible from the logic above... Please give a citation an indication or reference in the book that this generally established fallibility doesn't extend to his/her domain? If the book establishes that these beings are fallible then it makes sense that if there was an exception it would be mentioned... where is that? Again this is not the default it's something you've personally created that is not supported by anything in the rulebooks... you created it whole cloth and then claimed it was the "default".

What thread?

A mis-type, I meant post...

 

[Cadence]

I also think I've made it fairly clear that I am not talking about role playing in general. I am talking about expressive and evaluative responses, and my desire not to judge these as part of my adjudication of play.

So, if the enforcement of the class penalties was up to the player (they decide if their violation deserves a warning or loss of power or whatever), and if there was some remediation available to those who lost a huge swath of power (maybe some training program to convert them into combat feats or whatnot that is about the difficulty of an atonement spell and quest?), and if the cosmology of fallen succubi were dealt with in a reasonable way,... what were the other deal breakers on alignment?

 

[Imaro]

Did you commit a reading comprehension fail?

I don't believe so...

I said "Some gods are infallible exemplars and/or upholders of certain values." You quoted that passage in your own reply. I also explained why I think Vecna is not such a god, and even had a paranthetical discussion of how a game might play differently if a player took a different view.

The 4e PHB, at p 23, states that "The commandments of [evil] deities exhort their followers to pursue evil ends or commit destructive deeds." That entails that those gods have a deficient grasp of value - either they don't care for any values (Gruumsh would be like that, and perhaps Tharizdun as well), or their hold on key values is corrupted (that is the view of Vecna taken by the invoker player in my game). A player who took the view that Vecna's comprehension of the value of secrecy was not corrupted would, I imagine, deny that Vecna is evil. As I said in my earlier post, that would be interesting and worth exploring in play. But my group takes the more conventional view of Vecna.

Now, I gather that Planescape's relativism cycnicism precludes judging that evil beings are in any sense wrong - "evil" in that usage sems to mean simply "disagree with those gods who live in the upper planes" - but I am using "evil" in its everyday English usage, whereby those who are evil have made some sort of error, either disregarding things that are valuable, or at least misunderstanding the demands of valuable things.

What everyday usage??? Here's the defintion of evil... and not once does it mention the disregard of things that are valuable or a misunderstanding of valuable things... again something you've made up wholecloth... If anything all that passage you cited says is that they're understanding of an ideal is used towards a harmful or injurious result... looks like #2 to me.

[h=2]e·vil[/h] [ee-vuh

l] Show IPA
adjective
1.morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked: evil deeds; an evil life.

2.harmful; injurious: evil laws.

3.characterized or accompanied by misfortune or suffering; unfortunate; disastrous: to be fallen on evildays.

4.due to actual or imputed bad conduct or character: an evil reputation.

5.marked by anger, irritability, irascibility, etc.: He is known for his evil disposition.

I know some people don't regard skill challenges as an action resolution mechanic. I'm not one of those people.

Neither am I, I've played enough 4e that I know what a SC is... how exactly did the SC allow you to both take the players imp and his magic artifact again... I mean you keep giving a broad answer that doesn't detail what mechanics were used to enable this action to take place...

Perhaps you're not familiar with the Eye of Vecna. It's an artefact that's been part of the game for over 30 years.

Yes, I'm familiar with it...

From page 168 of the DMG, here is how the Eye "moves on":

The Eye of Vecna consumes its owner, body and mind. The character dies instantly, and his body crumbles to dust. Even if the character is raised from the dead, he forever carries an empty eye socket as a souvenir of having once possessed the Eye.

The Eye rejoins its divine namesake. Vecna immediately gains all the knowledge of the former wielder and savors the secrets so acquired. After a time, he sends the Eye back into the world to glean more secrets from other unwitting or greedy arcane characters.​

Ah, here we go another surprise that wasn't mentioned in the play post... so you were tracking the concordance level of the artifact and it reached a zero, is that what you are now claiming because you made no mention of that whatsoever?

Though looking over the actions that cause concordance with the artifact to drop... there is no mention of how denying Vecna souls would cause it to drop, in fact that's not even mentioned as one of the artifacts goals... So you disregarded the actual rules for the artifact and just decided that the eye blew up and killed the imp? Were you even tracking the character's concordance level with the artifact, I mean since you are questioning my knowledge of the artifact, I'm now questioning your knowledge and use of the resolution mechanics for it in 4e?​

Page 167 of the DMG describes the Eye's mode of communication:

The Eye of Vecna communicates silently with its possessor, delivering vivid hallucinatory visions about what it wants.​

So... it showed the imp hallucinatory visions?? I'm not understanding what that has to do with you taking the artifact and killing the imp arbitrarily...​

When you stick this thing in your imp familiar, you're taking your chances!

I guess that includes taking the chance that your DM decides arbitrarily that you have displeased Vecna and that as a punishment you loose your magic artifact and your imp familiar...

 

[Cadence]

As an aside...

[h=2]e·vil[/h] [ee-vuh

l] Show IPA

I completely agree that IPAs are evil and a few bottles of them would make a great graphic for that entry in the dictionary!!! Down with over-hoppiness.

 

[Hussar]

So, if the enforcement of the class penalties was up to the player (they decide if their violation deserves a warning or loss of power or whatever), and if there was some remediation available to those who lost a huge swath of power (maybe some training program to convert them into combat feats or whatnot that is about the difficulty of an atonement spell and quest?), and if the cosmology of fallen succubi were dealt with in a reasonable way,... what were the other deal breakers on alignment?

Do there need to be more deal breakers? I mean, this is pretty far from what the alignment mechanics actually say.

1. Pemerton has removed the need for the DM to track and adjudicate alignment violations for characters (probably the biggest sticking point in alignment).
2. Remediation would then be decided by the player, possibly with input from the DM, again, empowering players over their own characters (which is probably the number two issue for me.
3. "Fallen" then takes on a new meaning. No longer is it, "Did the character (PC or NPC) follow the guidelines set down in the PHB as interpreted by the DM" but becomes, "Did the character radically alter his or her concept in such a way that now a new set of ideas and ideals is needed?"

That pretty much fixes alignment for me. Alignment then becomes a nice little sign post where you can start from instead of a pretty strong mechanic which allows DM's to enforce specific behaviour from the players.

 

[Cadence]

Do there need to be more deal breakers? I mean, this is pretty far from what the alignment mechanics actually say.

There don't need to be!

I'm trying to picture what changes would need to be made in PF's handling of alignment so that it wasn't hamstringing the fun for about 1/2 the posters in this thread. I can picture an optional alignment system that handles those issues, is pretty straightforward, doesn't require rewriting all kinds of creatures, domains, magic items, and spells, and probably wouldn't change the actual play of the game for lots of parties.

Just want to make sure I'm not leaving out any other big sticking points. (For example, are there concerns that detecting alignment of non-outsiders/undead makes it too easy to ruin some types of mysteries or something like that...)

 

[UnholyD]

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.

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 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?

First: Apparently you didn't read my post that well because I even stated that these rules can be overlooked in instances of wise or intelligent creatures. Dumb demons kill without regard for survival as they generally don't care as long as they are serving a "higher purpose" usually in the form of a Greater Demon or cause. Greater Demons are usually going to use "disposable minions" to serve their needs. I'd say the point makes itself but as evidenced by prior posts, I'm having better luck convincing a wall to stand aside.

Second: Basically you just said that anytime some form of entity acts a certain way that can predictably be noted, it is no longer Chaotic. Demons can't be Chaotically Aligned because they quite predictably murder and bring darkness into the world? Are you daft or is it you don't know what you are talking about?

Third: I should have stated "innocent" in my prior post and for that I apologize. Hopefully this clears things up.

Fourth: 4th Edition oversimplified everything. So to say they did Alignment correctly when it was merely an afterthought is proof that some people don't have the ability to play games beyond WoW.

Fifth: Again, you apparently didn't read what I had written in my prior post. I said EQUALLY balanced. It doesn't mean as simply kill one then don't kill another. It means that all things even out in the end. If a Neutral person went around murdering everyone in sight, they wouldn't be Neutral or "Unaligned" as they'd be EVIL. Same thing goes if they gave every gold they ever earned to charity, they'd be GOOD. "Unaligned" is a simple way to say that they don't do enough on ANY AXIS to be regarded as Good, Evil, Lawful, or Chaotic. It is the same F-ing thing.

Sixth: You, sir, should get your facts together and straightened out before attempting to debate over something you quite clearly know little to nothing about. It makes you look like a simpleton.

Mod Note: As always, folks - please don't make the discussion personal. Address the logic of the post, not the person of the poster. Resorting to personal jabs does not make you, or your points, look good. ~Umbran

 

[pemerton]

I don't read either Pemerton's nor N'raac's posts whenever they get more than about three quotes long.

Weak, I tell you, weak!