Alignment - is it any good?

[Nifft]

Is spitefully grabbing the first post on a page an [Evil] act?

- - -

IMC, we use our own version of alignment, which separates "conduct" from "sponsorship"; the various spells apply to alignment descriptors rather than to behavioral tendencies. You can't Smite an non-magical Drow; you can Smite the cleric of an evil god who channels negative energy. And you can smite demons & the undead. Of course.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Corvus69]

The point of discussion is the reason, why to use/not use it. The experience with it and insights on the designer's goal with it.

ok. I think that designer's goal is quite clear: to help players to play their characters.

But my experience points out that it does more harm then good for reasons I stated in my previous posts and to incorporate alignment to rules/spells/items was just bad idea.

And it doesn't matter if I play DnD or not (I played my share of it anyway)

 

[I'm A Banana]

So, based on her actions, she'd be CG with sometimes N tendencies. Whereas motivation-wise, she was very CN, maybe even a little E (if you go by D&D's lumping extreme selfishness in E).

Though you did claim several actions that were not Good: she'd scoffed, cheated, deceived, all out of selfish desires.

Furthermore, while alignment is determined by actions, actions are determined by motive. If someone stops an orphanage from burning down, it's not inherently Good, any more than casting fireball is inherently evil. If someone tries to protect the orphans, it's Good. If someone tries to impress the onlookers (using the orphans as a tool), it's Evil. If someone wants to rescue their own orphan, it's Neutral.

Your view of alignment is more simplistic than the system truly is. I'm all for blaming alignment for the flaws it really does have, but "forbidding complex characters" isn't one of its flaws.

 

[Nifft]

If someone tries to protect the orphans, it's Good. If someone tries to impress the onlookers (using the orphans as a tool), it's Evil. If someone wants to rescue their own orphan, it's Neutral.

WTF is someone's own orphan?
"Should I call you mummy?"

- - -

I'd also argue that rescuing orphans in order to look good is Neutral at worst, unless you endangered them deliberately for the purpose of looking good rescuing them -- and even then, it's the endangering that's evil, not the looking good. Good can look it. Positive publicity isn't evil, IMHO.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Corvus69]

good/evil is in the eye of beholder.

that's another reason why game rules that specify what is and what is not good are automatically flawed and lead to endless arguments. and if if happens inside the game ("you are lawful good! why did you killed that man?") its even worse.

 

[Alnag]

good/evil is in the eye of beholder.

Is it? Because lot of real-world churches believe in one God, who will judge the sinners. Although for us, imperfect beings, the good and evil might seem like relative matter once you accept the faith, the good and evil became absolute. Because the God is absolute omnipotent and omniscient being. The only problem is, the us imperfect beings are unable to decipher God's will very well.

D&D doesn't have one good per se, but it has its own absolute measure of good and evil, and that's the planes organization. One might argue, that it is not realistic enough. But who the hell cares. It is fantasy for heaven's sake. And as we can see, we have the same problem with absolute measure of good and evil in our own world as well.

 

[tricky_bob]

I think most alignment issues are the DM's fault more than the player's.

For example, I was playing a Chaotic Neutral PC in a game where my PC killed a guy the group had captured because before capture he had done some bad things to my character's best friend.
My DM noted that my act was "evil" and said that continuing to act that way would change my alignment to Evil.

Now I agree with what he was trying to do. Our actions in-game should mould our alignments BUT he hadn't given my PC "good" points when we helped out some dudes at the road side or when we killed off some evil Lizardfolk that had been attacking the good folk in the town. The point is, if you are Neutral on the good-evil axis you can sway either way and the DM MUST keep a record of the good and evil that you do. It's too easy to pick out the evil bits and too easy to overlook the good bits.

 

[Ry]

If you get tired of sitting around waiting for your players to argue over whether their characters' actions are justified, then try our new product.

Alignment: Moral clarity, with a dash of mud!

(at least, that's my experience - most of the rest of the rules implicitly encourage everyone in the party to work together. Alignment can be a big spoiler for that attitude.)

 

[Corvus69]

Alnag: I wouldn't go into religious stuff. first because I am pretty atheistic and second it's quite sensitive thing for a lot of people.

 

[Herobizkit]

For those of you that have taken out alignment from your D&D game, how do you handle the spells (detect, protection from, hallow, etc), class abilities (smites, etc), and magic item qualities (good, evil, etc) that rely on teh subsystem to work properly?

Simple answer: They don't exist.

Complex answer:
IMC, Good and Evil are more like a template qualifier than an actual alignment. Demons, Devils, and Really Bad People radiate the capital E-Evil that could be detected by such spells; Archons, holy churches, and Paladins radiate Good. Normal people do not, unless they are so pious or so utterly corrupt that there is no turning back. As such, the Detect [Whatever] spells become mostly moot, but Holy/Unholy weapons still get their kick against such beings with the [Good] and [Evil] templates. Same for all those other alignment-related spells.

Class abilities:
Smite Good/Evil becomes "Smite". It's generally assumed that a Paladin will use it on teh Evil, and since the highest percentage of potential foes fought are gonna be either Evil or Neutral, it becomes moot and the Paladin can Smite away. Same for the bad guys.

Magic Item Qualities:
Same as above; I don't generally like the axiomatic/whatever weapons to begin with, so I dropped them but may still use them as a one-time "uber-weapon" modifier. Bane and Holy/Unholy then become much more significant and meaningful (to me, at least).

All this aside, I strongly recommend using the Palladium alignment system over the D&D one any day. The concepts are similar, but the Palladium system is much more clearly fleshed out, giving examples of what someone of said alignment may or may not do in given situations.