Alignment - Action As Intent

[Nifft]

You make that determination based on the in-game declared action. Killing the princess was not the intended result of the declared action.

Correct.

But what is the declared action has an unintended, unforeseen result.

Then you may feel bad, and you may work to make restitution (as your conscience and moral code dictates), but you do not have to see atonement.

If you catch a butterfly in Greyhawk, you're not responsible for Ethereal typhoons in Eberron.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Fifth Element]

For the non-evil version, see above. Here's an example of how killing someone might seem equally accidental, but the declared action is different.

NPC Necromancer: "If you don't fire your crossbow at the princess, I'll kill the other princess!"
PC: "Hmm, she's two range increments out, I'll probably miss... okay, I fire at the princess."
DM: "Attack roll?"
PC: "Natural 20! Damn it. Confirm critical... another 20. Damn it!"
DM: "She's dead. You have gained a Dark Side point."

Cheers, -- N

Wow, now *that's* a contrived example.

But again, what about an act that cannot be reasonably foreseen to cause the death of an innocent, but which does? Fire a crossbow at a princess, regardless of whether you're taking a -4 penalty to hit, can certainly be foreseen to endanger the life of the innocent.

 

[Fifth Element]

Then you may feel bad, and you may work to make restitution (as your conscience and moral code dictates), but you do not have to see atonement.

Then I fail to see how you're divorcing intent from action. If you determine whether an act is evil based on the intended action, how is that not considering intent?

 

[Nifft]

Then I fail to see how you're divorcing intent from action. If you determine whether an act is evil based on the intended action, how is that not considering intent?

These are tricky concepts and words, and it may very well be that we're agreeing in substance but not terminology.

I'm saying that it's possible to have a useful definition of alignment which requires only knowing what a PC declares his actions to be -- not the outcome of the actions nor the (invisible to the DM) intent behind them.

Perhaps what I'm really saying is that there's enough intent in the declared actions to suffice. Would that sit better with you?

Cheers, -- N

 

[buzz]

Um, yeah. You did see the actual quote from the actual rules that I posted, right?

Yup, I even posted a link to them earlier.

Thing is, other than that one use of the word "attitudes" in that first sentence, nowhere else in the actual descriptions of what the alignments mean and how the mechanic works is there any mention of alignment being based on what the player imagines the character thinks of themselves. I talk about the language used back on page 1 of this thread. Every single description talks about what PCs of alignment X do. They don't talk about what PCs think about what they do, i.e., what motivations the player assigns to them.

This makes alignment much simpler to adjudicate than the typical mis-reading that brings intent into the equation. The latter inevitably leads to "burn the village to save it" thinking and pointless arguments about real-world morality. In Hypersmurf's BBEG example above, your mis-reading would mean that it's totally cool for a Good PC to randomly push buttons in hopes of maybe killing the BBEG. If that PC were a paladin, said action wouldn't even require atonement!

The mis-reading also is totally oblivious to the fact that:

a) the only entity with any motivation or intent is the player

b) the player's motivation/intent often has nothing to do with the PC's imagined conscience.

If we link (b) above to the paladin-dragon example, it's entirely possible, e.g., that the paladin is attacking the dragon because the player's been sitting around bored and wants to kill something, or because he knows that it's a good source of XP, or because it would make for a really dramatic scene, etc, etc.

Ergo, adjudicating by intent is a sure path to madness (and endless alignment threads). Thankfully, the rules make it very clear that what matters is solely the actions the player directs their PC to take, and the context in which these actions happen.

I'd urge you to read beyond that first sentence, because the text, IMO, is not backing up your interpretation. It does back up Nifft's.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I agree with most of this. IMHO, the only irredeemable (non-atoneable) acts are the ones that are made willingly and knowingly.

You can do the wrong thing and suffer for a bit, but if you are humble enough to recognize your mistake and atone, you can be forgiven. Pride, anger, fear, hate -- these lead to making more bad decisions, which lead to the Dark Side.

IMHO, it should be possible to commit Evil acts with good intentions, and it should be possible to atone for your sins. Makes for better stories.

Cheers, -- N

But does committing the act for which you have not yet atoned make you evil? What if the person has not realized it was evil, so does not feel there is anything to atone for?

Does an evil person who unwittingly performs a good act suddenly become good until he realized his mistake and...what would he do...dis-atone?

 

[Hussar]

That's right, because the PC did not *intend* to kill the princess.

If you want alignment without intent, how can killing an innocent princess, regardless of intent, not be evil?

Deity: "You killed the princess! No more paladin powers for you!"
Paladin: "But I was trying to kill the necromancer."
Deity: "Intent is irrelevant! You better go get some atonement."

An act by itself cannot be called good or evil. Acts don't have morals, people performing the acts have morals. Casting a spell with an [Evil] descriptor can't really be called an evil act, rather it's something only an evil person would do.

Are you saying that a paladin, or any other good PC, who kills an innocent through their own actions wouldn't have to atone? Killing an innocent is an evil act. Full stop. Since paladin's only permanently lose their status by "willfully commits an evil act" (SRD), he is in no danger of that here. However, if a paladin PC whacked an innocent and then ignored that, I'd be having some problems. Same goes for any Good aligned divine caster IMO.

Sorry, while it wasn't a willfully evil act, it's still an evil one.

Intent does have some place in alignment, but, it's a very, very small one. What matters is the act, not the intent. The only way to change alignment is through actions. I can sit around thinking evil thoughts all day, but, if I never act upon them, my alignment never changes.

Back to the vampire for a moment. The act of saving the orphans is a good one. There's nothing precluding a vampire from performing good acts. The fact that he later uses the orphans as a steady supply of blood is an evil act, but, that doesn't retroactively make saving the orphans an evil act.

Put it another way. Say the vampire intends to eat the saved orphans when he saves them. So, his intent is pretty clearly evil. However, fate intervenes in the meantime and Mr Vampire is cured. Does that retroactively make saving the orphans a good act since he's no longer going to eat them?

Intent might explain why someone does something, but, alignment doesn't really care. The why's of an action are not explained by alignment, merely described. An act might be good or evil, but, that's based on a fairly absolute scale by RAW. If it's altruistic and selfless, then it's good. If it's the opposite, it's evil. Adding intents into the picture just blurs the distinctions and doesn't really serve any purpose.

 

[gizmo33]

Bingo. That's exactly what I'm trying to "fix" by divorcing invisible (to the DM) intention from alignment.

Allowing the PC to be judged based on only what is visible to the DM (and thus more than is visible inside the game world, but less than would be visible to an omniscient deity).

Does that make sense? Thanks, -- N

Yes it makes sense. The problem, as I said, is that alignment is about your means and intentions, not the result. Your in a better position to judge results than intentions, no doubt - but then you could always determine a persons alignment by the color of hat that they wear - that's even easier to judge.

IMO if you want to get out of the business of judging intent, the better thing to do is not put yourself in a position where you need to. Why do you care about alignment? - It's because certain rules (spells, character classes) force the DM to. If you remove/modify those rules, you can actually just let people play.

I realize this is a big departure from the RAW and probably not for everyone - but I dropped alignment as written 15 years ago or so and have never regretted it. Granted, "good", "evil", "law", and "chaos" are still forces in my world. Demons are chaotic evil. But mortals are a mixture of the four alignments, Spells and such have to change, it's not a trivial change to make - but it's gotten me out of a lot of problems with alignment, including the one you describe.

 

[Nifft]

But does committing the act for which you have not yet atoned make you evil? What if the person has not realized it was evil, so does not feel there is anything to atone for?

These are campaign-specific, IMHO. How much evil can you do before you become evil? (And by "become evil", I mean "detect as evil".) This is not something I feel we can reach consensus on.

IMC, it would take three to five starkly Evil acts before one of my PCs (who are all basically good) would detect as Evil.

Does an evil person who unwittingly performs a good act suddenly become good until he realized his mistake and...what would he do...dis-atone?

In my campaign, it would take several starkly Good acts before the NPC in question started to turn from Evil.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Nifft]

Why do you care about alignment? - It's because certain rules (spells, character classes) force the DM to. If you remove/modify those rules, you can actually just let people play.

True, but too radical for my current game.

I realize this is a big departure from the RAW and probably not for everyone - but I dropped alignment as written 15 years ago or so and have never regretted it.

If your system is available for viewing, I'd appreciate a link!

Thanks, -- N