Do alignments improve the gaming experience?

[pemerton]

But that is an evaluative judgement... when you say "valuable"who decides what is or isn't valuable? You are defining right and wrong...

Noting that "evil" implies some sort of failure to comprehend or adequately respond to the valuable isn't defining right or wrong - it's picking out a purely formal feature of the use of the word.

But judging that some person is evil, yes, that does involve taking a stand on right or wrong. If someone was never going to take such a stand, they would have no use for words like "good" or "evil".

Hence, to describe Vecna as an evil god is to take a stand on what is right and wrong: it is to characterise Vecna's self-aggrandising obsession with secrecy as wrong. Hence my remark upthread that a player whose PC took the view that Vecna was not corrupted or disordered in his/her conception of secrecy would presumably also not characterise Vecna as evil, at least when adopting the perspective of that PC.

Likewise, a player and/or PC might reach the conclusion that Ioun is evil, or at least dangerously naive, for the sorts of reasons you give in your post.

Can a player who destroys things that shouldn't be destroyed, fails to nurture what ought to be nurtured and disrespects that which deserves respect still claim to be good in your campaign... or even unaligned?

The character can claim whatever s/he wants. Others might contest that claim. In this respect I imagine the gameworld looking much like the real world, in which some people claim to be good, others denounce them as evil, and so on.

Can a cleric or paladin who does this claiming it is there deity or power that is the corrupted one and not them? You're defining what is and isn't "evil" in your campaign right here, so does it apply to characters as well?

I don't follow this. The connection between "evil" and "disregard of the valuable" is a formal or conceptual connection. If a cleric of Vecna denies that s/he and his/her god are evil, s/he is not disputing that formal connection. Rather, s/he is denying that s/he and Vecna disregard the valuable.

It's not part of my job as GM to decide whether or not that denial is true. That's the main point of abandoning mechanical alignment - to exclude these evaluative judgements from the domain of referee adjudication, and instead to permit each participant in the game to play the game and make the evaluative judgements s/he thinks are warranted by the material before him/her.

When alignment is abandoned, the questions "Is Vecna really evil" or "Is Ioun really naive" are not questions to whch the game materials or the GM gives an answer. Answering those questions is not part of the mechanical play of the game, anymore than it is part of the mechanical play of the game to decide whether the player of the fighter made the right decision in choosing to flank from this square rather than this other square.

You judged he acted wrongly in the eyes of Vecna. In the eyes of Vecna the right choice would have been to funnel souls to him.

This is a misdescription. I judged that he angered Vecna. I didn't even turn my mind to what Vecna would regard as right or wrong. In fact I'm not 100% sure that Vecna has a robust working conception of right and wrong. Be that as it may, none of the material on Vecna that I have read suggests that Vecna regards his self-aggrandisement as a moral entitlement, to which others are duty-bound to contribute. He simply takes the power that he can get.

you admitted that you totally disregarded the rules for the artifact and for the familiar.

The rules for a familiar state that it has 1 hp.

The rules for artefacts moving on, and for the Eye of Vecna moving on, I already quoted upthread (from the DMG pp 165, 168):

When an artifact decides to leave, it moves on in whatever manner is appropriate to the artifact, its current attitude, and the story of your campaign. . .

A malevolent artifact such as the Eye of Vecna has no compunctions about leaving its owner at the most inopportune moment . . .

The Eye of Vecna consumes its owner, body and mind. The character dies instantly, and his body crumbles to dust.​

How is it disregarding the rules for this artefact to have Vecna inflict 1 hp of damage on the familiar in whom it is implanted? Are you saying that it is permissible to have the imp crumble to dust, but not to have the imp take 1 hp of damage?

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION] - nice actual play example that (for me, at least) serves as a good illustration of what I mean by allowing the player to have his/her own evaluative and expressive response.

I also share your dim view of the Star Wars prequels.

 

[Hussar]

If you do this and allow this as DM, then you are in one way or another judging (evaluating) the characters actions in accordance with the deity they serve. YOU not the PLAYER - which is essentially what @N'raac and @Imaro are arguing. Which means you are essentially in agreement.

Between us we can certainly disagree on the type of punishment how it is all executed..etc. Some DMs are a little more heavy handed than others, it also depends on the setting.



Agreed.



No, I'm not meaning a bad out of character roleplayer. What if genuinely the character messed up, perhaps his interference made more of a mess of things which led maybe to riots, looting perhaps even death. Perhaps his emotions got out of hand and he struck a pompous politician or a self-righteous clergyman in his way. H could certainly punish him for failing. I'm assuming characters can fail objectives in your campaign - I mean if it was predestined success there would be no real point in playing.

So again that would call on the DM to determine if his deities in that setting judge on intent (within the paladins heart) or whether they judge on results of actions. Either way you as DM will be evaluating and from your first two sentence I do not think our outlook is all that different.

Well yes of course the DM runs NPC's. I don't think anyone denies that. And, presuming that deities take an active role in the game, such as Scarred Lands forex, then sure there might be direct interaction between PCs and deities.

But, the difference for me would be context. In a Mechanical Alignment game, the DM must judge PC actions based on the alignment elements set out in the phb, not based on the
NPC in question. Alignment definitions don't change based on who you are talking to.

For me, judgement would be based on the portfolio of the deity that the player chose. The player in choosing a deity has basically said that they will abide by the tenets of that deity. And these tenets are usually pretty clear cut. At least far more clear than alignment.

 

[S'mon]

[MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION] - nice actual play example that (for me, at least) serves as a good illustration of what I mean by allowing the player to have his/her own evaluative and expressive response.

That whole campaign arc was inspired by the Gray Company entry in "Threats to the Nentir
Vale", Nerathi who want to restore the fallen Empire of Nerath and are willing to reanimate
their own dead to do so - men who had already volunteered to be reanimated. It raised the whole "what are you willing to do in a good cause?" issue and "what do you do when two good causes collide?" - since the PCs were mostly Altanian barbarians whose existence as free people stood in the way
of Nerath Restored. Some player groups would have been able to engage in political conciliation and established peace. With this group it spiralled down into something resembling the Bosnian
civil war, they successfully managed to wipe out all the moderate Nerathi and most of the
living Nerathi (and one of the main moderates they killed was an undead warrior, the reanimated ancestor of Halvath Comarin the Nerathi commander), with victory going to a couple surviving Necromancers and their undead hordes. I definitely think that mechanical
Alignment would have hurt or stopped this campaign, eg it was important that there were
both 'good' and 'bad' Nerathi on the same side, fighting for the same cause.

 

[Manbearcat]

The below to me is the greatest proof that the anti-alignment posters decide what to qualitatively evaluate, which reflects a degree of inconsistency and a preference to a certain level of consequence-free settings.

Originally Posted by Sadras
If a Paladin does a good deed and is rewarded by his deity (and thereby judged by the DM) why isn't that admonished? Why is the good deed not a problem for the anti-alignment crowd? Is it easier to evaluate a good or lawful deed? Or is the only safe or acceptable approach a fail-forward approach?

Which is absolutely fine, to each their own, IMO it just means they prefer a less grittier and traditional version of your D&D settings and we all do in some way - I mean we still use hit points.

I'm going to attempt to answer this but I doubt it will be to your satisfaction. There are several different issues at work here for me and I absolutely do not believe there is any "degree of inconsistency" (as you suggest above) just as I absolutely disagree with the equivalence that [MENTION=1266]Abraxas[/MENTION] suggested above (between evaluation of physical consequences to action, and attendant fallout, and metaphsysical evaluation of ethos, and attendant fallout).

1) When a player has picked "Paladin" as their class of choice, they have insurance that their default state is "Grace." It is therefore assumed that this is its steady state; "Grace", "worthy of divine boon", or "champion of ethos".

2) As such, to move the Paladin to a transient state (momentarily away from its steady state of "Grace" or "Fallen" status), requires the introduction of an exogenous variable (external to the system) or the perturbation of an endogenous component (within the organism) that is typically considered to be unchanging with time.

3) Evaluating the effect required to move the system from "Grace" to "Fallen" involves some kind of sensitivity test; how resilient is the Paladin's state of "Grace" to an introduction of this exogenous variable or endogenous shake-up. To accurately perform that sensitivity test, you must understand (i) the precise nature of the state of "Grace" and (ii) the precise nature of the effect being applied to it.

Now I am no cosmological entity. I'm not equipped with heightened metaphysical perception nor intelligence agents. I'm not equipped with whatever measure of precognition they possess (mystical divinations or whatever the possess to say "weal" or "woe" during divine consultation) to adjudicate the long view at a level far removed from my mere mortal means of extrapolation. I think I can sink my teeth into (i) above reasonably ok. If my players tell me precisely what they think it is (such as through a few precise statements of ethos or belief), then I can make our mutual understanding considerably more robust than it would be otherwise. As such, aligning my perspective with how they expect me to frame adversity such that we test those micro-beliefs/ideals through focused conflict, is much easier. It is (ii) where most of the problems come in. (ii) will be, in part derivative of (i), but certainly not wholly. Whats more, whatever answer that comes (nature of variable and amplitude required to perturb the system) will not remotely be precise due to all of the various fallibility (of perception, extrapolation, precognition, and understanding) that I've outlined several times upthread.

At this point, I feel I should bridge to another concept of which I personally hold true to. Morality is a bank account of which we made deposits and withdrawals throughout our lifetime. Some of these deposits or withdrawals may be small, while others may be significant enough to create a surplus or a debt that is renders the morale bank account robust to future deposit or withdrawal.

So, with that out of the way, yes, I feel perfectly comfortable in adjudicating when someone makes a deposit into their morale bank account. I understand concepts of good will, commitment to duty that bears no immediate fruit personally, pursuing the just path despite the lack of tangible returns (in fact, most times the just path is tangibly punitive to the party that pursues it), being kind without cause, being steadfast in your ability to be relied upon and in taking accountability for your own failures. These things are easy to wrap my head around. I feel qualified in my personal life to say "yes, Bob has just deposited into his moral bank account...any good faith observer should see him as better than was before the transaction...I certainly deem him so." However, withdrawals are abundantly more difficult to quantify and qualify. I don't know all of the various moving parts that may be equal parts a hard decision between two bad choices, political expedience, egoism, reckless endangerment, or being thrust into an unwinnable situation but taking responsibility for it while others shirked. And I certainly don't know whether good intentions will lead to the road to hell (as no historical villain considers his intentions "evil" when he is committing to an agenda that historians will deem wicked).

So, in total. If Thurgon is a Paladin of the God of Battle and Bravery and he leads from the front in a great battle, tests his mettle against the overwhelming force of the enemy's vanguard, and leads the good guys to victory in protecting a peaceful settlement/kingdom locked in the cross-hairs of the horde...yes, you bet I'll feel much more comfortable deeming his moral bank account as in the black and deserving of a boon than I would in deeming his moral bank account in the red while in the midst of all manner of unquantifiable murk, mire and moral circumstance (with some vague, handwavey sensitivity test) and deserving of divine retribution (temporarily casting out from Grace). Specifically when I'm calibrating against the moving, oft at odds, targets of D&D Law vs Neutrality vs Chaos and Good vs Evil. Give me an extremely straight-forward belief that requires virtually no interpretation (especially one of which myself and the player have agreed upon) and I would be much less reluctant.

 

[Manbearcat]

@Grydan , I'm sorry I can't XP your terrific post.

Covered and yes, terrific post.

 

[Cadence]

Any common-use definition of chaos, as well as more formal definitions used for scientific applications (chaos theory) include the idea of unpredictability. Behaviour that follows a predictable pattern isn't chaotic.

Isn't mathematical chaos entirely predictable if you know the exact equation and exact starting values, since it's entirely deterministic? (But, of course, if you don't know either of those it's indistinguishable from true randomness to you).

It might be 'Chaotic' with a capital C in game jargon, but that just means it's poorly labelled ... If I needed a blanket term to describe "characters who, when given the choice, would rather break the law than obey it, given that they believe they can avoid being punished", I'd perhaps label it 'unlawful' ... but I don't think I particularly need such a blanket term.

Even ignoring the dictionary and math, chaos does seem to have a lot of in game interpretations: rebelliousness and actively resenting authority, freedom and simply ignoring authority, random behavior, and the anti-laws-of-this-universe insanity called the far realms. In terms of cosmology they certainly don't seem to mesh together as one thing that should be called Chaos (is there anything that could serve as an exemplar of all four?). Law seems to have the same problem with things like desire for social law and order, determinism, and stasis.

alignment is a curious creature

 

[Sadras]

"There are no good guys here..." - He had seen himself as the heroic good guy, but he
realised his behaviour wasn't morally justifiable. It was a very dramatic moment, and it couldn't have happened if I as GM had declared* "OK, you are Evil alignment now" the moment he killed
the captives.

*This tends to work out a lot like George Lucas to Anakin Skywalker's player in Revenge of
the Sith.
GM:
"You killed Mace Windu?! You're Evil now!"
Anakin's player:
"What?! ..... (pause) ....Might as well go massacre some baby Jedi then."

Typical. So the conception is DMs using alignment behave like prats and a -for-tat would be DMs not using alignments play in a consequence-free environment. I guess we are both happy now.

 

[Hussar]

Isn't mathematical chaos entirely predictable if you know the exact equation and exact starting values, since it's entirely deterministic? (But, of course, if you don't know either of those it's indistinguishable from true randomness to you).

Actually no. In a chaotic system you have emergent properties that cannot be predicted.

 

[Hussar]

Typical. So the conception is DMs using alignment behave like prats and a -for-tat would be DMs not using alignments play in a consequence-free environment. I guess we are both happy now.

Hang on a tick.

Throughout this thread the alignment side has repeatedly stated the need for the DM to adjudicate player alignment. This has been consistent throughout the thread. This is considered one of the biggest reasons why we need mechanical alignment.

Yet every example of a DM actually adjudicating alignment is brushed aside with the idea that we are insisting on bad DM's.

Give me an example of a DM adjudicating player behaviour where both the player and DM are acting in good faith - so no baby murdering paladins - that you would consider a legitimate adjudication.