Do alignments improve the gaming experience?

[pemerton]

On what basis does the GM strip the Paladin of his Paladinhood for a single act?

Make it the 100th such act, then!

if the Paladin decides that he will kill the guard rather than let his brother be taken to face justice for his crimes, then I would certainly consider that an evil act.

<snip>

Or it may be objectively correct, but the character cannot see beyond his own prejudices to acknowledge that it is so. Bigotry is not a rational trait.

If the paladin/cleric serves a cosmological force of good, and loses abilities for it, how can s/he refuse to acknowledge that s/he acted evilly? I don't understand the reasoning process that would make sense within that campaign framework.

Whatever they decide is deemed to be perfectly in keeping with these beings of True Enlightenment, as we can never judge them to fall short of their ideals in any way. As such, they too must be fully enlightened, as they unfailingly select the choices in keeping with perfect enlightenment. Clearly, their conception is that they are perfectly enlightened, and thus it must be so, for no one may judge their enlightenment.

I don't understand any of this.

I don't know of any real-world doctrine of enlightenment that holds that complying with the ideals of enlightenment will itself render you, per se, enlightened.

And in any event, what makes you think the PCs never fall short? Just because the GM doesn't judge that doesn't mean that a player can't judge that his/her PC falls short (ie your claim about "no one" is false). I gave an example of that on one of the early pages of the thread.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Make it the 100th such act, then!

If the paladin/cleric serves a cosmological force of good, and loses abilities for it, how can s/he refuse to acknowledge that s/he acted evilly? I don't understand the reasoning process that would make sense within that campaign framework.

ad.

Reasons have been provided. Either you can swallow them or not. If you find this does not make sense, then probably not a good method for you.

In my opinion, it makes total sense. While i think most paladins who lose their powers do to an obvious act of evil, would accept. It is easy to imagine one that doesn't for a variety of reasons (ranging from the paladin is imperfect and morally flawed to the paladin simply believes the deity is mistaken in this one case, even if he is right in 99 percent of all others). The limited point of view that a PC has, is another factor, as is the diverse nature of the gods themselves (this varies from setting to setting of course). If a setting where you can have two lawful good gods, who disagree on minor points it isn't so crazy that a pc might diverge from the deity's opinion.

Also, you are holding up an extreme example where the god actually intervenes. Obviously it is harder to dismiss when the god does so. But gods don't intervene for everyhting. There is plenty of room for characters to develop minor notions that deviate slightly from their god's where it never rises to the level of requiring intervention.

The main thing alignment does is it puts these judgments in the hands of the GM and establishes there are these cosmic forces and gods who can express will in the setting. But as long as humans have free will, they can reject that expression because they are misguided, stubborn, disloyal, etc. That wont change the god's judgment. The paladin still loses his powers, but there is a lot of interesting stuff that can take place should a fallen paladin get it into his head that his deity was incorrect to strip him of power. I just do not see the problem. If the player feels this is how his character would believe or behave, then i am mot going to stop him. You may feel this is illogical or doesnt make sense in the setting, but that doesn't matter at my table where players do that thing all the time.

 

[Hussar]

So your telling me that the paladin does something, loses his status, and the player is convinced that the DM and thus his god is wrong, and accepts this?

You must have the most easy going players on the planet.

 

[Imaro]

I understand the first sentence. It makes me think of Sword and Sorcery, plus some takes on classical mythology. I just don't understand why anyone would call them the powers of "good" or "evil" if in fact sometimes they are wrong (in the case of the good ones) or right (in the case of the evil ones).

I think you are still approaching this incorrectly, they are not "wrong" about what is good or what is evil... they define it. That does not however follow logically that a man or woman cannot disagree with said tenets.

Calling them Team A and Team B seems a bit bland too. But why not name them (for instance) by their pantheonic characteristics or aspirations?

Well Moorcock's powers were referred to as the Lords of Law and the Lords of Chaos, sometimes straightforwardness and simplicity in naming conventions is an asset. Ultimately what you are talking about is so subjective that I'm not really sure how to address it, I mean if you want more exciting names, nothing in the book prohibits you from having your civilizations or peoples in your campaign world refer to the powers differently....

Again, in this example I don't really see why we're calling those powers the powers of "Lawful good". Why not call them the "vicious retributivists"? Or something else more accurate or evocative? If they are capable of moral error, they don't seem very good to me.

Because "vicious retributivists" doesn't adequately describe their nature... they are promoting this behavior towards what are considered evil beings in this campaign world. They are not promoting the general act of vicious retribution (and IMO, that would be an overly simplistic characterization of what they stand for)... but instead prescribe it's use on a race of creatures that it considers wholly or majorily evil. If orcs are wholly evil and not redeemable, well the issue is settled. However, even if a few/some orcs are redeemable, the powers of LG may consider the risk of redeeming them too great, puts too many people, civilizations, etc. at risk and so on. Are they wrong? I would say no even if a player could successfully redeem an orc... that doesn't tell us what the ramifications of trying to mass redeem them would be, or even what the effects of trying to redeem the next orc one encounters is. What if that next orc isn't redeemable and while traveling with the paladin savagely murders a family who takes them in? Whose right or wrong now?

I also don't understand how a character who forms the view that the divinity to whom s/he is devoted is capable of error can be a

paladin. To me, that seems at odds with the archetype (apart from anything else, it seems to betoken a lack of appropriate humility). But obviously others see the paladin somewhat differently - to me that conceptions seems more like a (principled) warlock.

Again what "errors" are you speaking of... the power of LG did not err in defining what the appropriate action is considered for the force of LG (which would, I assume, take a much broader and more comprehensive view of LG than the fate of a single orc mattering). The paladin chose to do something different, yet how does this prove the cosmological forces were in error with their general tenet... nothing is 100% infallible not even the deities or cosmological forces... otherwise why are there 3 different types of good or evil? If I am the cosmological force of LG my views of good are not pure but instead influenced by my dedication to law and thus flawed in some ways.

I'm not talking about the in-character morality and views. I'm talking about the tropes and themes and aesthetics of the stories. I'm sure that, in the fiction, the priests of Set in REH's Stygia are very devout. But the author (with Conan as his some-time voice) regards their devotion as misguided. In D&D terms they are sorcerers or warlocks who are deluded (perhaps self-deluded). They are nothing like the saints and prophets and holy knights that the classic cleric and paladin archetypes are built around.

I still think you are mistaken. Moorcock draws a definite line between the pact making Melnibonean's and their relationship with the Lords of Chaos and the Pan-Tang priests who have no such birthright pacts and actually worship them. Not sure what (except the pact and worship) differentiates a cleric from a warlock in D&D?

 

[Bedrockgames]

So your telling me that the paladin does something, loses his status, and the player is convinced that the DM and thus his god is wrong, and accepts this?

You must have the most easy going players on the planet.

First, yes we are easy going. I think that makes for a better gaming experience. I prefer to be friends with easy going people, and my game group reflects that.

Second, this isnt what I am saying. I am saying the paladin does something, loses his status and the CHARACTER is convinced the god is wrong (the player may agree with the gm's alignment ruling or he may not, that is a seperate issue).

But if i personally disagree with the call a GM makes, i do accept it, because it is part of the premise that the Gm determines what is lawful, chaotic, good, evil or neutral in the setting. That is what gives it the sense of having objective weight for me---it all flows from the mind of one individual-the GM.

In fact, I don't really like playing with people who bog down the game by arguing over this stuff during play. I just don't get worked up if the GM makes a call i might disagree with. Now, if the GM consistently makes bad calls all the time, that is different, and he won't be the GM in our group for very long. The person we designate as GM needs to be a person whose judgment and fairness we respect.

 

[Nagol]

First, yes we are easy going. I think that makes for a better gaming experience. I prefer to be friends with easy going people, and my game group reflects that.

Second, this isnt what I am saying. I am saying the paladin does something, loses his status and the CHARACTER is convinced the god is wrong (the player may agree with the gm's alignment ruling or he may not, that is a seperate issue).
<snip>

Or even the paladin does something, loses his status and the CHARACTER is convinced he did the correct thing for the circumstances and he would do the same thing even though it violates his tenets.

In other words, the character accepts his fall because his beliefs no longer conform sufficiently to the ideal.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Or even the paladin does something, loses his status and the CHARACTER is convinced he did the correct thing for the circumstances and he would do the same thing even though it violates his tenets.

In other words, the character accepts his fall because his beliefs no longer conform sufficiently to the ideal.

Certainly could see this occuring.

 

[pemerton]

I think you are still approaching this incorrectly, they are not "wrong" about what is good or what is evil... they define it. That does not however follow logically that a man or woman cannot disagree with said tenets.

<snip>

"vicious retributivists" doesn't adequately describe their nature... they are promoting this behavior towards what are considered evil beings in this campaign world. They are not promoting the general act of vicious retribution (and IMO, that would be an overly simplistic characterization of what they stand for)... but instead prescribe it's use on a race of creatures that it considers wholly or majorily evil. If orcs are wholly evil and not redeemable, well the issue is settled.

<snip>

what "errors" are you speaking of... the power of LG did not err in defining what the appropriate action is considered for the force of LG

<snip>

The paladin chose to do something different, yet how does this prove the cosmological forces were in error with their general tenet

If the requirements of LG are settled, then choosing to do something different is choosing to do something that is not LG. If it causes you to immediately lose your paladinhood, that is sufficient proof that it is evil.

A paladin who nevertheless insists that s/he made the right choice is therefore asserting that it is good to do evil. On any non-ironic use of either "good" or "evil" that assertion is contradictory, given the premise that good has been objecitvely defined by those cosmological forces.

In the real world, people who reject the moral judgement of others - even the moral judgement of divine beings - are thereby denying that those beings are cosmological forces of obejctive goodness. But in the campaign set-up being described I don't see any scope for such denial, and hence don't see any scope for rejecting the moral judgement of the forces of good. The paladin, it seems to me, would have to concede that s/he chose evilly ie wrongly.

While i think most paladins who lose their powers do to an obvious act of evil, would accept. It is easy to imagine one that doesn't for a variety of reasons (ranging from the paladin is imperfect and morally flawed to the paladin simply believes the deity is mistaken in this one case, even if he is right in 99 percent of all others).

<snip>

The main thing alignment does is it puts these judgments in the hands of the GM and establishes there are these cosmic forces and gods who can express will in the setting. But as long as humans have free will, they can reject that expression because they are misguided, stubborn, disloyal, etc. That wont change the god's judgment.

Denying that the dictates of a cosmological force of objective good actually answer to the description "good" strike me as being in the same category as standing in lava and insisting that you are freezing ie devoid of all reason.

If a god has an opinion, of course someone might disagree with it. But a cosmological force of objective good doesn't have an opinion: it defines what counts as good. Arguing with it is like arguing that the square root of 4 is not really 2 even when someone has drawn you a 2x2 square and is holding it in front of your face.

As I said above, in the real world people can reject the condemnation of someone who claims to be good, while still affiriming their own goodness, because they can reasonably deny that some judging agents has a true grasp of objective moral requirements. But if the campaign starts from a presumption that there are objective cosmological forces who do have such a grasp, there seems to be no scope for such denial.

 

[N'raac]

Make it the 100th such act, then!

So, 100 times, the Paladin has been faced with the choice of either saving his mother or failing to prevent the certain destruction of the world at the hands of the Forces of Evil? Seems like the other 99 didn’t pan out quite as expected, did they?

If he does not immediately lose his Paladinhood, then do we now accept the act in question was not Evil? OK, so what is our justification for removal of his Paladinhood? Has he committed 100 non-lawful acts in a row, or 100 out of 10,000? You are tossing out some mathematical number with no context whatsoever, which leaves no answer.

It’s not a spreadsheet. The Paladin does not compute that, if he rescues his mother, there is an 80% chance he can still shut down the Gate and prevent harm befalling anyone, a 10% chance that there will be 1-6 deaths (3.5 on average = 0.35 deaths), a 5% chance there will be 1-10 deaths (5.5 on average = 0.275 deaths) and a 5% chance that 2-16 people will die (9 on average = 0.45 deaths) which totals 1.075 statistical deaths which is more than 1 so saving his mother is not the greatest good for the greatest number (oh wait, we need to factor in alignment of those we will save – if some are not innocent, that throws the figures out again). He makes the call that certain death for one person is, or is not, an acceptable loss weighed against the risks from the delay in dealing with the Gate. Is Heroism sacrificing the few to save the many (well, tear out that baby’s throat, I guess) or is it finding a way (or striving to find a way) to save them all?

If the paladin/cleric serves a cosmological force of good, and loses abilities for it, how can s/he refuse to acknowledge that s/he acted evilly? I don't understand the reasoning process that would make sense within that campaign framework.

The Paladin does not have a Player’s Handbook to tell him what circumstances cause a Paladin to be judged, nor does he get an explanation from the GM. He has to make his own calls. Perhaps he acknowledges he made an error. Perhaps he has decided that the Gods of Good are unwilling to make the hard choices – it’s easy for them, up in their Heavens – they are not down here in the fray. Maybe he has drifted from their “perfect good in an academic sense in their ivory tower” to a belief that compromises are a necessary evil here in the real world.

I don't know of any real-world doctrine of enlightenment that holds that complying with the ideals of enlightenment will itself render you, per se, enlightened.

You keep shifting between Real World and Fantasy Game. We were discussing those PC’s who serve beings of perfect enlightenment. You have indicated none but the player may judge that his character has strayed in any way from the tenets of his beliefs, and the wishes of the force he serves. So if the player says the character never strays, then the character must be behaving in the manner of one who is perfectly enlightened. How can he do so, if he himself is not fully enlightened?

If the requirements of LG are settled, then choosing to do something different is choosing to do something that is not LG. If it causes you to immediately lose your paladinhood, that is sufficient proof that it is evil.

Have you lost Paladinhood for straying from Good (you have become LN), straying from Law (you have become NG) or for committing a single Evil act? How do you know?

A paladin who nevertheless insists that s/he made the right choice is therefore asserting that it is good to do evil. On any non-ironic use of either "good" or "evil" that assertion is contradictory, given the premise that good has been objecitvely defined by those cosmological forces.

Or perhaps he has decided LG is not the ultimate Good. Perhaps LG sacrifices too much Order to individual rights. Perhaps it is too willing to allow a few to suffer for the good of the many. Or perhaps he has come to realize (believe) that the standard set by the powers of LG is one that cannot rationally be attained in the real world, only in their paradise where the forces of Evil and Chaos are far, far away and don’t really need to be opposed.

As I said above, in the real world people can reject the condemnation of someone who claims to be good, while still affiriming their own goodness, because they can reasonably deny that some judging agents has a true grasp of objective moral requirements. But if the campaign starts from a presumption that there are objective cosmological forces who do have such a grasp, there seems to be no scope for such denial.

And denying the rightness of a paragon of Lawful Good seems, to me, to deny that Lawful Good is the best alignment – perhaps LN or NG is the best alignment, and those LG’s have it all wrong. The followers of each alignment believe their way is best. To accept your position that one is clearly right requires me to also accept that all the others are clearly wrong. I do not accept that.

 

[pemerton]

You keep shifting between Real World and Fantasy Game. We were discussing those PC’s who serve beings of perfect enlightenment. You have indicated none but the player may judge that his character has strayed in any way from the tenets of his beliefs, and the wishes of the force he serves. So if the player says the character never strays, then the character must be behaving in the manner of one who is perfectly enlightened. How can he do so, if he himself is not fully enlightened?

I already answered your question: to act in the same way as an enlightened being would act isn't, per se, to be enlightened.

Have you lost Paladinhood for straying from Good (you have become LN), straying from Law (you have become NG) or for committing a single Evil act? How do you know?

Because the GM told you (and your character learned in a dream)? - as per the GMing advice that you and others have given in this thread.

Or is alignment a dissociated mechanic?