Do alignments improve the gaming experience?

[Imaro]

Which really speaks to Imaro's point that the paladin is gaining advantages by not following his code. In actual fact, poison instead of other more appropriate consumables is actually not more powerful and may well be less effective.

For example, anything with a burst effect would help his marking abilities.

What other more appropriate consumables within the same level range and price point are better for the paladin? I'm also curious how those with a burst effect would help his marking abilities since it isn't actually an attack and only targets one creature? It's all well and good to claim that something could be better suited to the paladin, but if this better item doesn't actually exist, well it's a moot point then, right?

Finally... neither you nor @pemerton has shown why the poison would put the paladin at a disadvantage, in the worst situation he gains no advantage from it (when hitting something like a minion, of course the poison works like that for everyone so it's a "disadvantage"shared by all)... in the best of situations he delivers an extra ongoing 5 poison damage that a save ends... mechanically I still haven't seen a reason that I would not want that advantage.

EDIT: And saying, that he could benefit from some hypothetical consumable that is better suited but does not in fact exist at the same price point is not proving anything.

 

[Imaro]

Hussar, your bigger point is interesting and I'll post something about that when I have more time.

I agree with all this. For a striker, target selection can be quite important. For a defender, target discrimination is much less a part of what you're trying to do - you're taking all comers! Which makes a single-target buff like poison less attractive.

I asked Hussar this, and I'll ask you the same... what other consumables? I'm also curious... doesn't the (PHB 1)paladin mark a single individual... not a group? So isn't he in fact taking on a single adversary?

 

[Mallus]

I've been meaning to post something to this thread for a few months. Fortunately, it's never going to end!

Let me start with this: do alignment improve the gaming experience? No.

At least not necessarily. Alignment is merely one tool for describing characters and framing the consequences of their actions. It's certainly not the only one available. Drama and fiction have gotten by for several millennia now without needing the terms "Lawful Good" and "Chaotic Evil".

Some gamers use alignment to great effect. Others... not so much. Quite a few opt not to use that particular tool at all (I'm more-or-less in that category, despite kinda-sorta using alignment in my AD&D campaign).

 

[Pickles JG]

Let me start with this: do alignment improve the gaming experience? No.

I am glad that's settled - I did not want not have to read all 140 pages

 

[N'raac]

It would wear off after 5 minutes - the default duration in 4e for otherwise unspecified effects. (There is also the question whether you can sheathe a poisoned weapon without wiping off the poison.)

None of this speaks to the honourable or dishonourable use of poison, though. It speaks to whether it is, or is not, tactically advantageous to the Paladin. Let us posit, then, a treasure of a Scabbard of Poison. The Paladin need merely sheathe his blade within that scabbard and, when he draws the weapon, it is coated in that 5 ongoing damage poison. Why would he choose not to use this magic scabbard? Let us assume he is the only party member whose weapon of choice will fit in this scabbard, so there is no question of a teammate using it to better effect.

As to the first sentence, you can assert it but it doesn't make it coherent. I mean, we could stipulate that there are deities with +30 Perception checks who argue over whether the sky is blue or green, but why are they arguing? How can someone with a +30 Perception check be confused about the colour of the sky?

Similarly for sociology. Why can these ultra-intelligent gods not make sense of social causation?

Do we have dozens of philosophers who, over centuries of writing, have addressed whether the sky is green or blue, yet never come to any form of consensus? I don't think anyone would apply a statement like "Sure as the sky is blue" to a concept of sociology. Disagreement exists because there is no objectively 'right' answer, or at least none that we have been able to determine, despite a lot of brainpower being applied to it over centuries.

The real issue is that they have different conceptions of welfare. But, contrary to your assertion about evil gods and the like, D&D does not permit this to be the case. Evil is not defined by reference to a different conception of welfare: it is defined as consisting in selfishness and a disregard for welfare, and has been so defined going back to Gygax. Evil gods (and evil people) know what human (and other humanoid) wellbeing consists in, and repudiate that.

I would say rather that evil beings have a different conception of whose well-being takes priority. To Good people, the purpose of power is to help everyone, especially those less fortunate. To Evil people, the purpose of power is to help myself and/or a select group, and possibly even to push some other group down. While we consider the latter group "evil" in abstract, I don't believe everyone who wants to, say, limit immigration to keep good jobs for "our citizens", or penalize cheap imports to maintain jobs here in "our nation" would consider themselves "evil", or be considered "evil" by modern society. But their altruism clearly isn't universal.

Technically, you could apply the poison before combat began, presuming that you knew that a combat was going to happen soon, which is not a terribly unreasonable event. However, it would still only apply to the first hit you made in the combat - which could be very problematic - you could wind up using the poison on something like a minion drawing an Opportunity Attack or some such, which would make applying the poison before combat begins a dicey option at best.

There are certainly a plethora of other consumables that would suit a paladin a heck of a lot more than poison.

What are they, and why are they more suitable? If the answer to the latter is that they are more effective, that's not really a choice based on honour, but a choice based on expediency.

Of course, that brings up another point. The reason poison is seen as dishonourable is because it kills without a contest of skill. You didn't beat him through force of arms, you just poisoned him. So would other weapon qualities not also be seen in the same way? How is poisoning a weapon dishonourable but using a Vorpal weapon not? After all, killing someone with a Vorpal sword is not a contest of skill but simply random luck.

So, in a mechanical alignment system, can a paladin use a Vorpal sword? Where does it stop? Is any magical weapon dishonourable? Why not? Why is it forbidden for a 3e paladin to poison his sword, but, it's perfectly acceptable to use a +2 Frost Burst sword? How is it justifiable under the alignment system?

Why does the question restrict itself to mechanical alignment? Can an honourable warrior use superior equipment to gain an advantage over his foes? "Sure, Arthur, you're a big shot with Excalibur ensuring you never have to fight a fair fight!"

I agree with all this. For a striker, target selection can be quite important. For a defender, target discrimination is much less a part of what you're trying to do - you're taking all comers! Which makes a single-target buff like poison less attractive.

So, again, the choice of poison use is based on expediency, not on honour at all. The same logic would apply to all Defenders - fighters, Wardens, Battlemages (I looked that up - doubtless there are other Defender roles). Are all of these characterized by Honour (and, similarly, all Strikers characterized by being dirty fighters)? If I accept [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s contention that poison use is discouraged by the mechanics because it is dishonourable, and that the mechanics discourage its use by all defenders, indiscriminately, then it logically follows that the rules are intended to guide all defenders to honourable combat. I don't believe that is necessarily the case.

 

[jsaving]

That is why I think D&D does force those within the gameworld to acknowledge the legitimacy of each square, and therefore leads to incoherence. Because a LG person is obliged to acknowledge the full goodness of a CG person, and vice versa.

Someone who is CG values selflessness and freedom, and genuinely believes the synthesis of those two values will be best. On the other hand, someone who is LG values selflessness and order, and genuinely believes the synthesis of those two values will be best.

There are actually three separate questions to consider here. One is whether LG is inherently more virtuous than other alignments and will therefore be the alignment to which those who are most dedicated to selflessness with gravitate? A second is whether the principles of selflessness and freedom are logically inconsistent and therefore doomed to failure when put into practice? And a third -- the only objectively testable proposition of the lot -- is whether LG governance actually reduces suffering more than CG governance?

To the true-believer LGer, the answer to these questions is obvious. Of course LG is inherently more virtuous; of course it is the alignment to which any selfless person with a heart and a mind will gravitate; of course selflessness and freedom are inconsistent; and of course people will suffer more in a libertarian society than they would under a government that gently guides them where they need to go. But the fact that these answers are "obvious" does not make them objectively correct.

Because the standard 9-alignment grid makes no assumptions about which square is the "most evil" or the "most good" (forgetting for a moment the occasional 1e nod to LG), it is true that the LG individual is forced to acknowledge the full goodness of a CG person. But the reason he is forced to do so is that the CG person objectively shares his dedication to helping people. What the 9-square alignment system doesn't do is force the LG individual to acknowledge that Chaos and Goodness are a sensible combination or that they actually end up helping people.

So it is fine for an LGer to see internal contradictions between selflessness and freedom, and fine for him to think no one who uses their heart and mind would embrace those principles. It is also perfectly consistent with the PH for him to view the various squares of "Team Good" as markedly different in their practical impact on people's well-being, and to confidently say LG is better at helping people than the other Good alignments. It is even OK for the LGer to think he has more in common with LE, which at least provides necessary order, than CG, which inadvertently but inevitably harms people more than LE ever could. The one thing he does have to do, however, is admit that those who show up as CG genuinely embrace Goodness, no matter how misguided or even tragic the application of their ideas may be.

Does integrating this into one's campaign improve the gaming experience? I think the answer to that question can be different for different gaming tables. People who like the idea of serious fault-lines within Team Good and a lack of clarity about which alignment is "objectively" best may find that the traditional 9-alignment system enriches their gaming experience. On the other hand, people who want to implement Team Good's predefined goal of defending PoLs against Team Evil's predefined goal of destroying them may find the 9-alignment system completely nonsensical, because it undermines the very foundation of the game. Neither approach is "better" than the other, but I've seen many examples of both and think both need to be supported in 5e.

Which brings me to the one thing 5e needs to do above all else: set up a firewall between the alignment rules and the mechanical portions of the game. As long as that is done, alignments at least won't interfere with the gaming experience anywhere, because gaming tables that don't like them can just drop them without having to worry about unforeseen balance ramifications (such as a class whose balance depends on it being a particular alignment). At least to me, a flavor-only 9-alignment grid best provides a sense of D&D history without provoking needless arguments around the gaming table (which we should remember could grow quite heated back when the consequences were losing a level or even "falling" from your class entirely).

 

[Mallus]

I am glad that's settled - I did not want not have to read all 140 pages

Glad to be of service!

Anyhow...

Two things [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] wrote early on in the thread really stood out. The first was the idea a PCs alignment should be determined by playing through the campaign itself. This is dead-on. Traditionally, D&D approaches alignment ass-backwards. It asks a player to choose an alignment before play even begins. At the time the player knows the least about the PC. Instead of declaring alignment to be the sum of the characters moral actions over the course their fictional lives, i.e. the campaign.

Personally, I don't really know who my PC is before play begins. I usually have no more than a vague idea, some backstory, and a stupid accent. I treat a campaign as both a (stage) play and the workshop in which the text and performances are honed. It takes time to discover who the PC is, and how they relate to the world, the other characters, and the events they participate in.

This is especially true since alignment goes way beyond personality. It's a characters objective moral place in the universe. Predetermining that seems, I don't know... really Calvinist.

I see no point in asking a player to decide their moral relation to the universe prior to the start of play, or in holding them to whatever answer they give. Consistency can come later, when the character is more developed. And let's not forget consistency is overrated. People, including fictional ones, can be fairly surprising.

Actually, come to think of it. I don't see why, as GM/DM, I need to evaluate/judge a PCs objective moral state at all. During the course of play I'll need to make a lot of judgment calls, as the PCs attempt to affect things in the game universe. But do I need to supply the game universe's judgment of them? What practical purpose does this serve? Other than allowing me the pleasure of telling a friend that they're morally wrong, by proxy.

The other really smart (or is it wise) observation from pen was something like "GMs should trust their players know what of aesthetic experience they want", i.e. if a player really wants to play an honorable or charitable PC, they'll do it on their own, because that's the play experience they're after. And if the player just wants to play an amoral, expedience-favoring fixer-thug, well than that's the experience they want and alignment systems won't change that.

The idea that players will always choose the expedient option unless penalized for doing so is really sells the community short. You've never seen gamers playing honorable, self-sacrificing, not-at-all greedy PCs just for the fun of it?

 

[Hussar]

Why does the question restrict itself to mechanical alignment? Can an honourable warrior use superior equipment to gain an advantage over his foes? "Sure, Arthur, you're a big shot with Excalibur ensuring you never have to fight a fair fight!"

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...e-the-gaming-experience/page144#ixzz2ySIhF7yd

Because in non-mechanical alignment, the player comes up with the answer. Maybe he believes that he cannot be honourable and eschews magical weapons (and in 4e, uses Inherent Bonuses - granted by his piety of course). Maybe he can come to some sort of reconciliation - The gods grant me powers (granted mechanically they don't, but, the character can certainly believe they do) and if it was wrong to do so, the gods would give me a sign.

Either way works and in no way requires any adjudication or judgement from me the DM. I would use either explanation (or a third one if that comes up) and weave that into the campaign. Thus, the players actually have direct ownership over the setting. Which, again, in my mind, is a very good thing.

Maybe we have two different paladins who believe different things. Who's right? I dunno. Don't care either. That's not my job. I'll weave both into the setting. This group eschews magical items in favour of a personal code. This other group embraces magical items as a sign of favour from their chosen god. I have no problem having both in a game.

Which I can't do in a mechanical alignment setting because, in mechanical alignment, one of those two HAS to be wrong. They can't both be right. Either it's honourable, thus in keeping with alignment adjudication, or it isn't. There cannot be any ambiguity.

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION], terrific post that sets out the GM-ing technique ("weaving the players' conception of their PCs into the campaign") really nicely. Sorry no XP for you today!

 

[Mallus]

Sorry no XP for you today!

I got you covered.