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*TTRPGs General
Alignment - Action As Intent
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<blockquote data-quote="buzz" data-source="post: 3610047" data-attributes="member: 6777"><p>Yup, I even posted a link to them earlier. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p>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 <em>imagines the character thinks of themselves</em>. I talk about the language used back on page 1 of this thread. Every single description talks about what PCs of alignment X <em>do</em>. They don't talk about what PCs <em>think</em> about what they do, i.e., what motivations the player assigns to them.</p><p></p><p>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!</p><p></p><p>The mis-reading also is totally oblivious to the fact that: </p><p></p><p>a) the only entity with any motivation or intent is the <em>player</em></p><p></p><p>b) the player's motivation/intent often has nothing to do with the PC's imagined conscience.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="buzz, post: 3610047, member: 6777"] 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 [I]imagines the character thinks of themselves[/I]. I talk about the language used back on page 1 of this thread. Every single description talks about what PCs of alignment X [I]do[/I]. They don't talk about what PCs [I]think[/I] 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 [I]player[/I] 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. [/QUOTE]
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