Alignment - Action As Intent

[buzz]

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?

I think this is being a little disingenuous with the usage of the word "intent." The example in question is also muddied by bringing in the concept of a fumble, which is not part of D&D core.

What matters is, given available data presented by the DM, what did the player have their PC do? If the fumble rule was in play, and the player was made aware that this created a chance that the PC's shot could hit the princess instead, I don't think that we can say the course of action really falls under Good. Regardless of the character's imagined intent, what they did was put an innocent life at risk, and Good PCs don't do that.

Now, this might not suddenly make a Good PC turn Evil, but I can see having some consequences for a paladin or other PC with an alignment restriction or religious code. Again, as in Hypersmurf's example, a Good PC's player will find another solution.

And, again, the DM who tricks a player into this situation ("Ha! Your paladin powers go poof!") is being a dickweed.

EDIT: You need to ground discussion in actual play. Hypotheticals and talk of "people" just confuses things. We're not talking about people; we're talking about D&D characters. In that context, the only concrete metric is what happened in the game.

 

[Nifft]

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.

Agree.

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?

IMC, it would have been a good act from the get-go. Eating them later would be a more evil act so the net effect would be evil, but until he declares the action, "I eat an orphan", he has done good.

It's certainly creepy if you ask a vampire why he saved you and he says, "for later", but it's not actually evil... yet.

Mua-ha-ha, -- N

 

[Hussar]

Agree.

IMC, it would have been a good act from the get-go. Eating them later would be a more evil act so the net effect would be evil, but until he declares the action, "I eat an orphan", he has done good.

It's certainly creepy if you ask a vampire why he saved you and he says, "for later", but it's not actually evil... yet.

Mua-ha-ha, -- N

Exactly.

I think, Buzz, I already addressed the paladin example quite well. Since killing the princess certainly wasn't a willfully evil act, (a place where intent does count - separate from the alignment rules as written) the paladin would have to atone, but, could certainly do so.

As I said, I would certainly extend this to any good aligned divine caster. I hold clerics to the same level of behaviour that paladin's are held to. Doesn't make much sense that the paladin has to be held to higher standard than a LG cleric.

 

[gizmo33]

True, but too radical for my current game.

Yea, that's something you'll have to judge for yourself of course. IMO sometimes people think that alignment helps their game more than it really does. Some people seem to have this idea that if they drop alignment, that the next time they play their players will be conducting mass human sacrifice and drinking blood to gain power and all of this. IME though people play their characters with exactly the same personalities - alignment does little to actually help clarify anything. But in any case, I'd have to know how the alignment system helps your game to make a better case.

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

I don't have a DM-centric version written in one place. It would also be missing the philosophy and motivation for why I made the changes I did - such context would be important IMO for the general public to make sense of it. Also many of the changes are mixed in among my rules for creatures and spells. I'll try to write it up in one place and let you know - I think it would help to get some more feedback on it anyway.

 

[Fifth Element]

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?

Okay, I think I see where you're coming from now. I'm inclined to agree that there can be enough intent in the declared action.

From your previous example, aiming at the princess is evil, because you know there's a good chance you could kill her. *Pretending* to aim at the princess, in order to deceive the necromancer, is not evil, despite the fact there's a small chance you might hit her.

I believe I understand you now.

 

[Nifft]

I'll try to write it up in one place and let you know - I think it would help to get some more feedback on it anyway.

Looking forward to seeing this.

Thanks, -- N

 

[Nifft]

Okay, I think I see where you're coming from now. I'm inclined to agree that there can be enough intent in the declared action.

From your previous example, aiming at the princess is evil, because you know there's a good chance you could kill her. *Pretending* to aim at the princess, in order to deceive the necromancer, is not evil, despite the fact there's a small chance you might hit her.

I believe I understand you now.

Great!

But just to make my point painfully, mechanically clear: in the example of the Necromancer's orders, you'd have three choices:

1/ Disobey blatantly; instead, try your best to kick him in the teeth somehow; or

2/ Obey; hope you miss; or

3/ Disobey secretly; make a Bluff check.

Action #2 would be evil; the other two would depend on the circumstances, particularly how much risk you put on yourself and removed from others.

- - -

If you risk your own life by making a Bluff check (you would be injured if the BBEG made his Sense Motive check) while saving an innocent, then Bluffing is just as heroic as kicking evil in the teeth.

Cheers, -- N

 

[buzz]

I think, Buzz, I already addressed the paladin example quite well. Since killing the princess certainly wasn't a willfully evil act, (a place where intent does count - separate from the alignment rules as written) the paladin would have to atone, but, could certainly do so.

Well, I guess the way I read it, the intent still doesn't matter. As a DM, I'd probably have to levy some consequences on the paladin regardless of the outcome, as the act chosen by the player, good (not Good, hehe) intentions or not, the player had his paladin put an innocent life at risk. To use Mark's word's above, the player was more willing for the paladin to be successful than to be right, and that just ain't the paladin way, baby.

If the player consistently made choices like these, I think it would be time to talk to them about working a fall from paladinhood into the campaign arc. And fallen paladins, especially ones that are not cliche Evil blackguards, are great story fodder.

 

[Fifth Element]

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.

Alright. (Bear in mind that I now largely agree with Nifft's interpretation, and said interpretation is in-game only, because it only has to do with how you determine what a character intended to do).

"Good" implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings.

No acts there. Things that lead to acts, yes, but not acts. It does not say "Good" implies doing things that are altruistic, respectful for life, etc.

People who are neutral with respect to good and evil have compunctions against killing the innocent but lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others. Neutral people are committed to others by personal relationships.

No acts there. It does mention compunctions and commitments.

"Law" implies honor, trustworthiness, obedience to authority, and reliability. On the downside, lawfulness can include close-mindedness, reactionary adherence to tradition, judgmentalness, and a lack of adaptability.

These are all things that can lead directly to actions, but by themselves simply describe attitudes and perceptions, and priorities. On a side note, I didn't know that judgmentalness was a word.

A lawful good character hates to see the guilty go unpunished.

There's another attitude.

He is devoted to helping others. He works with kings and magistrates but does not feel beholden to them.

That's neutral good, by the way. Again, referring to attitudes (much more helpful than the NG actions listed, which are "doing the best that a good person can do" - not much guidance there). He works with kings (action) but does not feel beholden to them (attitude).

Etc, etc.

I'm not trying to say no reference to acts are made, I am saying that intents and motivations are all over the place in the alignment descriptions, not just in that one first sentence.

 

[Fifth Element]

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!

Um, no. Sure the intent was to kill the BBEG, but assuming you know that those buttons can kill innocents, there's no way that's worth the risk. You're misrepresenting my words. I'm saying an act cannot be judged based solely on the act, you must consider the intent. When judging the button-pushing, you would consider both the act (pushing the buttons with a very high chance of killing an innocent), and the intent (killing the BBEG, which in this case would mitigate the bad result of the act a slight amount). On the whole, an act that would require atonement if done by a good character who knew what he was doing.

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.

I see. You're coming from a purely metagame perspective. If you separate a character from his or her player, you get a very different perspective. *In the game*, characters have motivations and intents.

Note that the rules refer to what a character does and thinks, not what a player gets his character to do. The rules assume you consider a character to be a separate person from the player.

EDIT:

EDIT: You need to ground discussion in actual play. Hypotheticals and talk of "people" just confuses things. We're not talking about people; we're talking about D&D characters. In that context, the only concrete metric is what happened in the game.

How does this jibe with your assertion that only players can have intent? If my character has a motivation in the game, is that not something that happened in the game?