"Narrativist" 9-point alignment

[Manbearcat]

I'm assuming that we know what each player (via his/her PC) is advocating for at the level of labels or basic principle: in general, the two sides are LG and CG.

The sort of ambiguity that I'm pointing to is what I would call interpretive ambiguity or, perhaps, instantiation ambiguity.

Is the big city - with its cars and roads and factories and seemingly automaton people starting and stopping at every traffic light; but also with its clubs and speak-easies and avant garde galleries and near-unlimited minor variations on feasible social roles - a place that exmplifies wellbeing via social order and hierarchy, or a place that exemplifies wellbeing via self-realisation? Or is it not a place of wellbeing at all, but a place that stifles wellbeing (and increasingly so as it absorbs the population of, and extends its geographic reach over, the rural hinterland)?

I think that could be something to be worked out via play; so, at the start of play, the big city would be a given, but its relationship to law and chaos would be up for grabs. In that sense, there would be ambiguity about whether the city is an instantiation of law or chaos, as well as ambiguity about whether it is a means to good or evil.

Then I think we are on the same page regarding where the ambiguity should lie. In my post upthread I was taking it for granted that the implications of external constraint, internal restraint, societal organization (et al) on self-realization and the general welfare would be up for grabs. My usage of unambiguous was with respect to player flags. Further, I think they should be focused, profound, and pithy. Broad, nebulous, and overreaching are typically unhelpful in focusing player goals and clarifying intent (both to themselves and the rest of the table).

One of the reasons that 4e is thematically tight (with respect to classic fantasy tropes, romantic and other) is that it starts local (at the Heroic tier with Themes) and proliferates outward from there (with Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies). A D&D game focused on unraveling the mysteries of this instance (the current game played) of Law vs Chaos would do well to start locally. Questions such as the ones you mentioned above would certainly do the trick. There are several other classics of course. Peasant woodcutters, hired by a seemingly benevolent but possibly naive/too bold king, encroaching on an elven arboreal redoubt. Peasants have work that pays them well enough to support their families (who might otherwise suffer). Perhaps the logging is for a housing project for an influx of refugees fleeing war-torn country.

An elf player who sees a perversion of natural order and his heritage at risk has staked out one position.

A ranger player who is a veteran of the war that bore the refugees has staked out another position.

A paladin who loves the king but finds this policy reckless and inciting, in a time when the kingdom is vulnerable, has staked out yet another position.

Once this conflict has resolved itself, there would be a greater foundation established (both for the characters and the region/world) such that play could springboard toward a "bigger fish to fry" Law vs Chaos conflict and the players could then stake out new (metagame transparent) positions. There is a very Dogs in the Vineyard quality to this (but rather than questions of faith, sin, how justice is meted out, personal demons, and real demons...it is something of a positive versus negative liberty question).

 

[pemerton]

One of the reasons that 4e is thematically tight (with respect to classic fantasy tropes, romantic and other) is that it starts local (at the Heroic tier with Themes) and proliferates outward from there (with Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies).

Going slightly off-topic, this is one of the things about 4e that I really like. It consolidates and develops an approach to play that I think is implicit in D&D, and that I had stumbled into somewhat organically, but so as to maximise its strengths and orient the whole game around those.

 

[spinozajack]

I see pemerton has responded to something I wrote, despite having blocked him. Again. Sigh. Dude, if you feel the unbearable urge to respond to something I write, resist. I don't care. Go outside. Do something else. You're trying to continue a conversation with someone who's already told you multiple times they aren't interested.

 

[Manbearcat]

I see pemerton has responded to something I wrote, despite having blocked him. Again. Sigh. Dude, if you feel the unbearable urge to respond to something I write, resist. I don't care. Go outside. Do something else. You're trying to continue a conversation with someone who's already told you multiple times they aren't interested.

This is extremely interesting. I'm glad that you brought this up because it is something I think I, and everyone else, had overlooked in our prior contemplations. However, given the profound impact I think your point can have on the subject matter, do you think that you could elaborate on sentences 1 and 2 and 4? I think those are likely key but I'm just not making the connection.

Regardless, thank you for your contribution.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I see pemerton has responded to something I wrote, despite having blocked him. Again. Sigh. Dude, if you feel the unbearable urge to respond to something I write, resist. I don't care. Go outside. Do something else. You're trying to continue a conversation with someone who's already told you multiple times they aren't interested.

I'm puzzled that someone would block another forum user and then post in a thread where they are the OP AND the main poster who seems to be directing the whole conversation. No doubt I probably shouldn't say this here, but it just befuddles me.

 

[pemerton]

My usage of unambiguous was with respect to player flags. Further, I think they should be focused, profound, and pithy. Broad, nebulous, and overreaching are typically unhelpful in focusing player goals and clarifying intent (both to themselves and the rest of the table).

This seems right. Though "focused/pith" vs "broad/nebulous" I think can be a spectrum rather than a sharp contrast. (Especially when one considers not just the words used but the way the player actually approaches play over the course of a campaign.)

One of the reasons that 4e is thematically tight (with respect to classic fantasy tropes, romantic and other) is that it starts local

<sip>

Once this conflict has resolved itself, there would be a greater foundation established (both for the characters and the region/world) such that play could springboard toward a "bigger fish to fry" Law vs Chaos conflict and the players could then stake out new (metagame transparent) positions.

I see this as reinforcing the issue of ambiguity being about spectrum rather than sharp contrast. Playing through the local phase of the campaign gives the players a chance to focus/fine tune via play even if the descriptive language chosen is a bit amorphous.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This seems right. Though "focused/pith" vs "broad/nebulous" I think can be a spectrum rather than a sharp contrast. (Especially when one considers not just the words used but the way the player actually approaches play over the course of a campaign.)

I see this as reinforcing the issue of ambiguity being about spectrum rather than sharp contrast. Playing through the local phase of the campaign gives the players a chance to focus/fine tune via play even if the descriptive language chosen is a bit amorphous.

So, to actualize it, what would you consider to be a quality set of descriptors for PCs?

 

[pemerton]

The conflict really IS about good and evil, but its about how you define them through the lens of law/chaos in a sense.

I had a thought about this overnight.

The conflict within the fiction is between good and evil, in the sense that the good guys are trying to defeat the evil guys and promote human/demi-human wellbeing. It is the desire to thwart evil and promote good that motivates the heroes.

But the conflict when we consider the fiction as an object of critical study is between law and chaos as means to wellbeing. Thematically speaking, it is this second conflict that is the subject-matter of the campaign.

With this in mind, you can then see one-hundred-and-one ways to derail the campaign. Just to give one instance - a player brings in an obviously evil PC, and so the game turns into (say) a conflict between the players of the paladin and cleric, and the player of the assassin. That could be a fun game if handled deftly (or it could be a train wreck!), but it will probably derail things from the point of view of "narrativist 9-point alignment", because the game will turn into simply a battle of wits/arms between the good guys and the bad guy. The question of right means to agreed ends will have dropped out of sight.

 

[pemerton]

So, to actualize it, what would you consider to be a quality set of descriptors for PCs?

Can I tackle this in two stages?

In the context of the OP, I was assuming that the main descriptors are LG and CG.

For the reasons I gave in the OP, I think TN works better for NPCs than PCs in the set-up I sketched. A player who wants to play a PC who is LN, CN or some sort of evil is in a different situation. I've just posted a reply to you flagging this as a likely derail. But a bit more thought suggests perhaps it needn't be, if the player is happy for his/her PC to be a type of thematic foil for the main action. Relating this back to what we were discussing upthread, if I play a LE PC then I might be setting myself up to be a thematic foil for the player of the CG elf or ranger, who can point to me as a sign of the error the LGs are making.

(Some way upthread - post 23 - I talked about playing non-good PCs in this set up. On reflection I'm not sure it was all coherent, but I think the idea that a player might see his/her PC shifting from (say) LG to LN or even LE could be interesting - and in line with or elf/arch-devil discussion, the moment of redemption for that LE PC would be when s/he realised the truth of CG. Which I now realise is another departure from some aspects of trad alignment, which would see the move from LE to LG as easier than from LE to CG - whereas in my set-up once you've become LE you've completely discredited LG, along the lines we discussed above.)

Law and chaos are themselves rather ambiguous, both in general and in the D&D context, so when they are used as descriptors there is still a fair degree of flexibility (eg will the player of the LG PC emphasise social hierarchy, or rigid norms?). That's the sort of thing that I would hope could be worked out in play.

Now the second stage - what are quality descriptors in general? I'm not sure I have a very good answer. I can say generic stuff, like they should give the PC, and hence the player, a definite orientation in relation to the fiction, but that's not very helpful!

Perhaps because my approach to play is really pretty mainstream (compared to, say, The Forge - I think the fact that ENworld sometimes makes me look radical says as much about ENworld as about me!), for me actual play has always been more important than descriptors.

In my current 4e game, to get things started I gave every player four instructions for PC building:

(1) Everything in the books is legal;

(2) We're following the core cosmology and mythic history;

(3) Your PC needs to have at least one loyalty specified;

(4) Your PC needs a reason to be ready to fight goblins.​

The rationale for (4) was that I wanted to use the module Night's Dark Terror, which has a goblin assault on a homestead as its near-to-opening set-piece. Between this and (4), my hope was that I would get enough to give me hooks for developing the campaign.

What I got were responses that, in various ways, mixed (2), (3) and (4). So, for instance, I got a paladin of the Raven Queen (loyalty) who was ready to fight goblins simply because his mistress had teleported him from his home town to the place where the other PCs were gathered, and so she must have sent him there for a reason. I got an elven ranger who was also a Raven Queen cultist (loyalty) and whose hatred of goblins was the result of conflict between elves and goblins. I got a half-elven feypact warlock whose loyalty was to Corellon (his patron) and who was ready to fight goblins because they had raided the elven village where his mother lived. I got a human mage who was a former devotee of the Raven Queen and was a refugee from a town that had been sacked by humanoids - these were his loyalties, and also gave him a reason to be ready to fight goblins. And I got a dwarf fighter whose loyalty was to his dwarfhold, which he had nevertheless fled from for reasons that made him ready to fight goblins. According to the customs of the hold (as written by the player as part of his PC backstory), a dwarf could not graduate to adulthood until s/he killed a goblin in battle; but despite many years of military service this particular dwarf had never confronted a goblin in battle (always doing kitchen duty, or carrying a message, or otherwise finding himself not on the front lines). Hence all his age-mates had long graduated to adulthood while he was stuck, and increasingly a laughing stock. Hence he had left the hold to go and find a goblin to kill on his own!

These descriptors vary in their detail, and are mostly more about backstory than directly about value commitments. But they did give me enough hooks to hang interesting conflicts on, and the responses to these from the player in the actual course of play gave further directions to keep the game going (eg Orcus and Vecna cultists; refugees from goblin attacks; NPCs (dwarven and non-dwarven) teasing the dwarf PC over various aspects of his personal history and dwarven history more generally; etc).

That's a bit rambling, and I'm not sure it really answers your question, but I'll stop at this point!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, I was just thinking about what might be particularly thematic in the context of your particular setup. I've been thinking about descriptors generally because I'd like to have a robust way to evaluate them in general. So when a player comes along with a character and gives it some, or wants some suggestions I can think 'the rule of thumb says that will be effective', or 'maybe do this instead'.