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Alignment - is it any good?
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<blockquote data-quote="Arkhandus" data-source="post: 3526140" data-attributes="member: 13966"><p>Not exactly. Historical crusaders weren't clerics or paladins in the D&D sense; they didn't hurl around flame strikes and stuff, and didn't spontaneously heal themselves mid-battle, frex. They were civilians, mercenaries, soldiers, knights, even criminals in some cases (IIRC) who the Church convinced to go fight in the Middle East for God and country, and primarily for personal glory/salvation/release from prison/monetary reward.</p><p></p><p>Ergo, they were Fighters, Rogues, Warriors, Experts, Aristocrats, and Commoners in D&D terms, who marched off to war for the Church but were not, generally, priests or holy warriors of the Church. Thus there is no problem using the same kind of conflict in D&D, generally; it would be a bunch of human Fighters and such facing other human Fighters and such. Since they're not gifted with divine powers (and it's a lot easier to find/amass/recruit a whole lotta laymen from around the country to fight for you in return for payment/redemption/whatever, than it is to acquire an entire army of holy men that have each earned their god's blessings or whatever), they aren't generally going to suffer any backlash or anything in the short term for fighting other Goodly people. And maybe someday they'll earn actual redemption from their deity and <em>not</em> wind up in the Abyss after they die, wondering how they got there after fighting in that so-called holy war they had thought was just. It's not like they can't drift back towards decent behavior after the war and regain Good alignment eventually.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Well, that would be because not every D&D group (or player) actually wants to play a heroic character; they just want to play a bad-@$$. <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/nervous.png" class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":heh:" title="Nervous Laugh :heh:" data-shortname=":heh:" /> But D&D is a game designed around the expectation that most PCs will, usually, be Good-aligned or at least working toward a Good cause (save the world, etc.), even if they struggle with it. I don't really fault the system for supporting what it's primarily intended for. And besides, most campaigns aren't based around moral ambiguity and hard choices involving Good fighting Good; that's not the default or expected norm in D&D.</p><p></p><p></p><p>What I meant by this was that, in the real world, we don't have a universal moral compass we can consult and just say "this is right and that is wrong, and the Universe itself says so, so you can't really debate the ethics of it".</p><p></p><p>Real ethics is all a matter of philosophy and religion and individual interpretations, even though many things are generally considered 'good' or 'bad' by most folks, generally as part of human nature, but there's still a lot of gray that different ethical philosophies provide opposing answers to. The general public, through systems of law, determines what will be accepted by their peers as 'right' or 'wrong' behavior, at least for determining what can and cannot be punished or condoned. Etc.</p><p></p><p>In D&D however, there are cosmic forces of alignment that any priestly acolyte can check, and get the same result as a priest of any other faith will get when doing the same check; that so-and-so is Evil, and this other guy is Good, and that guy is Lawful, etc. The Multiverse in D&D determines morality, so D&D characters can take pretty accurate guidance from the Multiverse's forces of alignment and get a solid answer (Phylacteries of Faithfulness, if I recall the name correctly, also help clerics and such). And of course there's stuff like Commune. Hope I clarified what I meant in the first place.....though I think I've started rambling now on a tangent. <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/nervous.png" class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":heh:" title="Nervous Laugh :heh:" data-shortname=":heh:" /> </p><p></p><p></p><p>And it is the DM's most basic job anyway to adjudicate rules disputes and clarifications. The DM's judgment on D&D alignment issues becomes the standard for the group's campaign, as long as they're playing under that DM.</p><p></p><p>And if the DM is even just a little bit mature, he shouldn't be screwing over the players' characters with a lame ruling that doesn't include letting them change their choice of action (I hate peurile DMs who say "Too bad! You lose! Ha-HAH! Your paladin is <em>so</em> screwed now that he's lost his powers!" or similar things. That's just bad DMing, and people shouldn't keep playing with jerks like that who have a stick up their butts). Of course, any cooperative DM (rather than adversarial DM) will work with the players to determine these alignment interpretations, and won't make it use up too much time in the middle of a game. But it is the DM's game, and someone else could always take up DMing if they don't like it (or better yet, find a more reasonable DM, if possible). <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>And besides, if the DM wants to mess up the PCs/players, he will do it anyway, regardless of what the rules say (even if he wants to maintain an illusion of 'by the RAW' rulings, he can easily find another rule to exploit and screw over the PCs anyway).</p><p></p><p>I don't know what to say regarding DM Fiat. If you didn't need a DM to adjudicate things occasionally, wouldn't you just be playing a board game, where absolutely everything is handled by a strict rule, and roleplaying is entirely 'coincidental' rather than an integrated part of the game? Or something. I just don't see a problem with needing a little bit of DM adjudication. And besides, you could always just choose to play characters of reasonably clear moral standing; unless you play a cleric or something, you don't have to worry about whether or not the DM chooses to insist that your character's recent actions shifted his/her alignment; as long as you keep playing the character, his usual behavior should return his alignment to its previous setting, unless the DM is a jerkwad that only ever counts negatives.</p><p></p><p></p><p>That's more a problem with an immature DM than anything else. Even without alignment, trying to play a paladin-esque character could get your powers revoked at some point just ENTIRELY due to baseless GM fiat, rather than having some rules to back you up and refute his/her decision.</p><p></p><p>If your GM is a super-strict and opinionated person who doesn't show signs of caring about the players' participation/enjoyment of the game, then you should've already figured beforehand that it might be unwise to try playing a morally-restricted character in his/her campaign, when you weren't sure yet if he would cooperate and not screw your character up at random without giving you any kind of warning or 'are you sure you want to do that?' response first. Otherwise, you should be able to work it out like reasonable gentlemen in a reasonably short discussion.</p><p></p><p>The D&D alignments really just give players a reason to think "maybe I should avoid messing with the town guard/stealing that cool item/slaughter those goblin children" because the DM may consider that grounds for an alignment change, which may or may not matter to the player. And really, all the player has to do usually is ask the DM "do you think my character is drifting towards evil alignment?" or whatever. Heck, if there's a mid/high-level Cleric in the party, it's easy; ask him to Commune with one of the questions being "is so-and-so close to falling out of your favor (or so-and-so's patron deity's favor)?" or ask if they're turning towards evil, and he can probably get a straight answer.</p><p></p><p>If alignment wasn't in the game, PCs would generally be able to do the most horrendous things whenever they feel like it and not suffer any consequences unless they do such things while observed in public or whatever. That doesn't mean they would, but it does mean that a paladin or cleric or whatever probably couldn't be trusted any moreso than an average Joe Mercenary, because they're not really beholden to follow a particular code of behavior to remain within Pelor's/Heirroneus'/St. Cuthbert's good graces and retain their special powers. Or something, I dunno. I just generally find alignment to provide a bit of incentive and rationale for heroic PC behavior and such.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Arkhandus, post: 3526140, member: 13966"] Not exactly. Historical crusaders weren't clerics or paladins in the D&D sense; they didn't hurl around flame strikes and stuff, and didn't spontaneously heal themselves mid-battle, frex. They were civilians, mercenaries, soldiers, knights, even criminals in some cases (IIRC) who the Church convinced to go fight in the Middle East for God and country, and primarily for personal glory/salvation/release from prison/monetary reward. Ergo, they were Fighters, Rogues, Warriors, Experts, Aristocrats, and Commoners in D&D terms, who marched off to war for the Church but were not, generally, priests or holy warriors of the Church. Thus there is no problem using the same kind of conflict in D&D, generally; it would be a bunch of human Fighters and such facing other human Fighters and such. Since they're not gifted with divine powers (and it's a lot easier to find/amass/recruit a whole lotta laymen from around the country to fight for you in return for payment/redemption/whatever, than it is to acquire an entire army of holy men that have each earned their god's blessings or whatever), they aren't generally going to suffer any backlash or anything in the short term for fighting other Goodly people. And maybe someday they'll earn actual redemption from their deity and [I]not[/I] wind up in the Abyss after they die, wondering how they got there after fighting in that so-called holy war they had thought was just. It's not like they can't drift back towards decent behavior after the war and regain Good alignment eventually. Well, that would be because not every D&D group (or player) actually wants to play a heroic character; they just want to play a bad-@$$. :heh: But D&D is a game designed around the expectation that most PCs will, usually, be Good-aligned or at least working toward a Good cause (save the world, etc.), even if they struggle with it. I don't really fault the system for supporting what it's primarily intended for. And besides, most campaigns aren't based around moral ambiguity and hard choices involving Good fighting Good; that's not the default or expected norm in D&D. What I meant by this was that, in the real world, we don't have a universal moral compass we can consult and just say "this is right and that is wrong, and the Universe itself says so, so you can't really debate the ethics of it". Real ethics is all a matter of philosophy and religion and individual interpretations, even though many things are generally considered 'good' or 'bad' by most folks, generally as part of human nature, but there's still a lot of gray that different ethical philosophies provide opposing answers to. The general public, through systems of law, determines what will be accepted by their peers as 'right' or 'wrong' behavior, at least for determining what can and cannot be punished or condoned. Etc. In D&D however, there are cosmic forces of alignment that any priestly acolyte can check, and get the same result as a priest of any other faith will get when doing the same check; that so-and-so is Evil, and this other guy is Good, and that guy is Lawful, etc. The Multiverse in D&D determines morality, so D&D characters can take pretty accurate guidance from the Multiverse's forces of alignment and get a solid answer (Phylacteries of Faithfulness, if I recall the name correctly, also help clerics and such). And of course there's stuff like Commune. Hope I clarified what I meant in the first place.....though I think I've started rambling now on a tangent. :heh: And it is the DM's most basic job anyway to adjudicate rules disputes and clarifications. The DM's judgment on D&D alignment issues becomes the standard for the group's campaign, as long as they're playing under that DM. And if the DM is even just a little bit mature, he shouldn't be screwing over the players' characters with a lame ruling that doesn't include letting them change their choice of action (I hate peurile DMs who say "Too bad! You lose! Ha-HAH! Your paladin is [I]so[/I] screwed now that he's lost his powers!" or similar things. That's just bad DMing, and people shouldn't keep playing with jerks like that who have a stick up their butts). Of course, any cooperative DM (rather than adversarial DM) will work with the players to determine these alignment interpretations, and won't make it use up too much time in the middle of a game. But it is the DM's game, and someone else could always take up DMing if they don't like it (or better yet, find a more reasonable DM, if possible). :) And besides, if the DM wants to mess up the PCs/players, he will do it anyway, regardless of what the rules say (even if he wants to maintain an illusion of 'by the RAW' rulings, he can easily find another rule to exploit and screw over the PCs anyway). I don't know what to say regarding DM Fiat. If you didn't need a DM to adjudicate things occasionally, wouldn't you just be playing a board game, where absolutely everything is handled by a strict rule, and roleplaying is entirely 'coincidental' rather than an integrated part of the game? Or something. I just don't see a problem with needing a little bit of DM adjudication. And besides, you could always just choose to play characters of reasonably clear moral standing; unless you play a cleric or something, you don't have to worry about whether or not the DM chooses to insist that your character's recent actions shifted his/her alignment; as long as you keep playing the character, his usual behavior should return his alignment to its previous setting, unless the DM is a jerkwad that only ever counts negatives. That's more a problem with an immature DM than anything else. Even without alignment, trying to play a paladin-esque character could get your powers revoked at some point just ENTIRELY due to baseless GM fiat, rather than having some rules to back you up and refute his/her decision. If your GM is a super-strict and opinionated person who doesn't show signs of caring about the players' participation/enjoyment of the game, then you should've already figured beforehand that it might be unwise to try playing a morally-restricted character in his/her campaign, when you weren't sure yet if he would cooperate and not screw your character up at random without giving you any kind of warning or 'are you sure you want to do that?' response first. Otherwise, you should be able to work it out like reasonable gentlemen in a reasonably short discussion. The D&D alignments really just give players a reason to think "maybe I should avoid messing with the town guard/stealing that cool item/slaughter those goblin children" because the DM may consider that grounds for an alignment change, which may or may not matter to the player. And really, all the player has to do usually is ask the DM "do you think my character is drifting towards evil alignment?" or whatever. Heck, if there's a mid/high-level Cleric in the party, it's easy; ask him to Commune with one of the questions being "is so-and-so close to falling out of your favor (or so-and-so's patron deity's favor)?" or ask if they're turning towards evil, and he can probably get a straight answer. If alignment wasn't in the game, PCs would generally be able to do the most horrendous things whenever they feel like it and not suffer any consequences unless they do such things while observed in public or whatever. That doesn't mean they would, but it does mean that a paladin or cleric or whatever probably couldn't be trusted any moreso than an average Joe Mercenary, because they're not really beholden to follow a particular code of behavior to remain within Pelor's/Heirroneus'/St. Cuthbert's good graces and retain their special powers. Or something, I dunno. I just generally find alignment to provide a bit of incentive and rationale for heroic PC behavior and such. [/QUOTE]
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