Do alignments improve the gaming experience?

[pemerton]

Reflecting on and riffing on [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s post.

I think actual play examples are helpful if we're asking how alignment might (or might) improve the gaming experience. They give a sense of how someone's game unfolds. They illustrate what someone cares for in gaming.

There's a reason that I've referred to this post multiple times in this thread. The post is the one about the dwarf "paladin" (fighter/cleric) who ended up being bound by a promise that he didn't want to keep, given in his name by companions who didn't want him to know about it and weren't intending to honour it (until he forced them to). Of all my actual play posts over the years of my 4e campaign, I think it's the best and clearest illustration of how I enjoy approaching moral questions in my game.

There are a few reasons for that.

First, it is relatively high-stakes in story terms. It's about brining a vicious murderer and pillage to justice.

Second, it shows how a GM can modulate the unfolding game - NPC personality and backstory, skill challenge framing from check to check, etc - to keep those stakes in the foreground, and so prevent the players from squibbing on dealing with them.

Third, it shows a player choosing an outcome on the basis of a sense of his PC's moral duty which does not depend upon the threat of external alignment sanction. It thereby helps rebut, in my view, the claim that there must, in general, be a conflict of interest in letting players decide what honouring their PCs' ideals requires. It also helps rebut the claim that, in general, immersion into the role of a paladin or cleric or similar conviction-oriented PC requires a sense of the GM as arbiter of moral truth.

Fourth, it shows how intra-party moral disagreements can be handled within the bigger D&D picture of party play, without need for an external dictation of moral requirements, and with recourse to the device of "we're all good aligned" or some similar externally enforced basis for intra-party tolerance.

There's probably some other reasons too, but the above are some of the main ones.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Very late to the party here, but just to add my experience - whether alignments improve the gaming experience or not depends entirely on how they are understood by the players, and what alignments are available.

Most problems I've seen with alignment in games come from one source - alignment being treated as a set of rules on has to mindlessly follow and which one will be penalized for disobeying. Unfortunately a number of 1E and 2E sources presented alignment precisely in that way.

This is why the most disruptive characters in any games I've run were 2E Paladins - not because an LG character was inherently disruptive if they treated alignment as a guide, but because the players of Paladins tended to be obsessed with avoiding "falling" (which the books went on about excessively and constantly loved to suggest as a plot device!), so treated alignment as hard rules they must follow or else, not as the underlying mindset of a character, leading to them obsessing over minutiae or getting into pointless arguments or the like (even when their behaviour was fine under a broad "LG" guideline).

Other players who played their PCs in a similar "Oh god I must follow these rules!" way with regards to alignment also tended to be disruptive and detract from the game.

Once everyone started treating alignment as a guide, not a set of rules, it rarely detracted. Unfortunately many classes still had it as part of their rules which complicated matters.

So I think keeping the understanding of alignment as a personality thing and less of a rules thing very much helps with keeping it as something that helps the game rather than hinders it.

The biggest step forwards for alignment in my experience was in 4E, with the addition of Unaligned. This was not the same as the frequently-confused "True Neutral" (which some books presented as Neutral Apathetic, others as Fascist Enforcer of Neutrality, and all sort of other things), but suited PCs who did not have a strong moral ethos (which is to say, most PCs, in my experience - I say that as someone who mostly plays NG himself), but wasn't devoted to Neutrality either. This made alignment a much easier thing to deal with.

 

[N'raac]

I don't really see how your feeling as to what falls within or outside a rules term is relevant. If my players and I have established a workable application of the phrase to our game, on what basis are we breaking the rules?

The question came up solely, in my view, because you stated you were following the rules as written. That statement was challenged, in my view correctly. However, as I have said a few times before, and in hindsight wish I had assessed earlier, whether the rules as written were followed, interpreted, varied, overridden or ignored entirely, was tangential to the discussion, at best.

I don't want to revisit why we think your analogies to other published materials are flawed. It's not relevant to the discussion, and it just upsets you, so why go back there?

Although, in the broader scheme, a perception that "following the rules", not just "having a good game" is of greater or lesser importance seems like it may shed some light on different alignments and/or different interpretations of alignment.

 

[Hussar]

Heh, I was looking at the "Similar Threads" list at the bottom of this page and for S&G's I clicked on the oldest link: A Game Without Alignments - My Own Experience. There's some familiar faces in a nearly ten year old thread. And, funnily enough, the points made there in 2 pages pretty much mirror everything that's been said here. Interesting read.

 

[Campbell]

While I can't speak for anyone else one point I would like to bring up again is that not all of us who don't care for alignment have issues with personality mechanics in general. I know that [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] is particularly partial to Burning Wheel's belief system and I really like Blood and Smoke's Humanity, Aspiration, and Mask & Dirge mechanics. For my tastes it comes down to wanting players to have a say in what is at conflict and pushing play towards conflict rather than away from it. I would have no issue with a player defined vow mechanic for paladins that encouraged paladins to question the vows they've taken that would come up more often and be less all or nothing. One of my fundamental issues with alignment is how it either dominates play or doesn't matter at all. Either you're completely fine or whoosh - no powers at all.

 

[pemerton]

it comes down to wanting players to have a say in what is at conflict and pushing play towards conflict rather than away from it.

This reminds me of a comment I've seen from [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] (and others too, perhaps): that classical HERO-style or paladin-style personality disadvantages tend to make the player push play (as best s/he can) away from sites of conflict or temptation; and that when the GM then drops in such conflicts (eg orc babies) they act as something of a "gotcha" for the player in question.

Mechanics that reward the player for going along with the GM's conflict, and pushing towards it him-/herself, serve my purposes better.

 

[Abraxas]

For my tastes it comes down to wanting players to have a say in what is at conflict and pushing play towards conflict rather than away from it. I would have no issue with a player defined vow mechanic for paladins that encouraged paladins to question the vows they've taken that would come up more often and be less all or nothing. One of my fundamental issues with alignment is how it either dominates play or doesn't matter at all. Either you're completely fine or whoosh - no powers at all.

In my experience, players having a say in what is at conflict has nothing to do with alignment - it is about talking to the players and seeing what sort of game they want. Also, IME, alignment isn't all or nothing unless you make it all or nothing and view every action as black or white with no shades of gray.

That has been the curious thing about the various comments in this thread (and why I kept reading) - why must alignment be treated as absolute (and only alignment), but things like deities can be treated as a spectrum. In one case I got my answer - tho I must admit I found it puzzling. Of course I also found it puzzling to see the implications that people who use alignment are doing it wrong if they don't use it as a stick.

Oh well it was a mostly interesting thread.

 

[Hussar]

Of course I also found it puzzling to see the implications that people who use alignment are doing it wrong if they don't use it as a stick.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...e-the-gaming-experience/page130#ixzz2wn3tla3E

Well, what's the point of mechanical alignment if it isn't a stick? I mean, I use purely descriptive alignment - ie. alignment is simply a shorthand description with no mechanics tied to it. So, it can't be a stick. If you're using mechanical alignment as nothing but a shorthand description, why tie penalties to it?

Or, to put it another way, without any actual penalties associated with mechanical alignment, how is it mechanical alignment anymore? It's just so that Bane weapons and Detect Evil spells still work? Well, those things work in my game too, since you can still have alignment keyed effects in a descriptive alignment system. Basic and Expert D&D had that as well.

So, if there is no stick, what is the point of maintaining mechanical alignment?

 

[pemerton]

there's a reason why they are principles rather than procedures. Actual play doesn't exist in some sort of platonic state. What will work for one group of people who have particular ways they view gaming with their own particular social dynamics does not necessarily work for a different group.

Sometimes the right call for a given situation may not even be consistent with your usual GMing principles.

There is an interesting discussion relevant to this point in the Burning Wheel Adventure Burner (p 251):

Announcing Risk of Failure Before the Roll
According to the Burning Wheel (page 34), when a test is made, the player announces intent and task and the GM announces the results of a potential failure. It's a good habit to get into, and a valid rule, but I confess that I do not explicitly announce the terms of each test. Why? Two reasons: I find the results of failure implicit in most tests. If I'm doing my job correctly as GM, the situation is so charged that the player knows he's going to get dragged into a world of [hurt] if he fails. We project the consequences into the fiction as we're talking in-character and jockeying before the test. . .

The second reason . . . is a bad habit of BWHQ. My players trust me. They know that I have a devious GM-brain that will take their interests into hear and screw them gently but firmly. I can't write rules about this kind of trust and, frankly, I think basing a game solely on trust is awful. It leads to all other sorts of bad habits. However, it does have its positive side. . . [It] allows for the game to move a little faster . . . and provides room for the occasional inspired surprise. . .

When I do announce failures before a roll, it's often after getting explicit intent and task from the player - we get everything clear about what's being rolled for. Even then, I'll keep my failure results vague . . . If the failure comes up, then I embellish with details. . .

Do I still support it? Announcing the risks of failure before a roll is absolutely a good rule and practice to follow. It forms good habits. It adds a new dynamic to the game - knowing that failure isn't arbitrary when you roll the dice. I'm a poor role model, so definitely follow what's written in the book.​

Of course that last sentence contains at least an element of irony - if Luke Crane really thought he was such a bad roll model, he wouldn't have given us the preceding page-length commentary on his rationale for departing from the rule, and the way such departure both flows from, and affects, the dynamics of play.

For me, the degree of detail in which one announces consequences of failure prior to actual resolution is one of those things where fluidity is important. If it's obvious at the table that (for instance) thwarting Vecna will anger Vecna; and if it's also obvious that the same mechanism whereby Vecna is acting provides him with a mechanism to channel his anger (eg having his Eye implanted in an imp); and if this is part of the whole rationale whereby the player implanted that Eye in that imp in the first place; then it seems to me that the precise consequences can be left unstated, to be revealed as an "inspired surprise", without deprotagonising the player.

4e also has a relevant mechanical difference here from BW - namely, a clear suite of basic mechanical devices pertaining to consequences (eg level-appropriate damage; healing surge depravation; burdens on normal recharge processes) - that mean that players familiar with the mechanics have a fairly clear idea of what sorts of results are in play, in general terms, without the GM having to specify the details every time.

But Luke Crane is absolutely right that in some cases, clarifying what failure might consist in is part and parcel of clarifying exactly what it is that is being attempted. And the original rule is also right, at least in some cases: it can improve play, by making clearer the stakes of a player action declaration, to state exactly what is at stake in some particular moment of resolution.

But sometimes, as he says in the quoted passage, those stakes will have been made clear without the need for any express statement.

 

[N'raac]

There is an interesting discussion relevant to this point in the Burning Wheel Adventure Burner (p 251):

Announcing Risk of Failure Before the Roll
*******************************************
For me, the degree of detail in which one announces consequences of failure prior to actual resolution is one of those things where fluidity is important. If it's obvious at the table that (for instance) thwarting Vecna will anger Vecna; and if it's also obvious that the same mechanism whereby Vecna is acting provides him with a mechanism to channel his anger (eg having his Eye implanted in an imp); and if this is part of the whole rationale whereby the player implanted that Eye in that imp in the first place; then it seems to me that the precise consequences can be left unstated, to be revealed as an "inspired surprise", without deprotagonising the player.​

I remain confused as to what, exactly, the failure was. Was there a failed roll early on which caused the familiar to either activate spontaneously? Did a later failed roll cause the familiar be harmed, or to have a reduced recovery rate, in resolution of the PC's actions? I thought the player's rolls succeeded, such that loss of the familiar was a consequence of success, not of failure.

No response needed if there was no failed roll. Just trying to clarify if there was an aspect to the sequence of play that I misinterpreted.

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