Alignment System

[GoodKingJayIII]

Ah, okay. When you said "shoe-horn," I assumed you were seeing alignment as some sort of behavioral restriction, which is really ain't no mo'. My apologies.

Nah, no apology necessary, I wasn't very clear either. Shoe-horn was probably not the best phrase to use, but when I used I was thinking of players shoe-horning their own characters rather than DMs shoe-horning their players.

Edit: As you mentioned earlier, the removal of alignment is one of the defining rules decisions of AU/AE. It's certainly one of the reasons I favor it so much. Without alignment characers are just characters and their actions have consequences rather than their alignments. Which is the way it should be played in 3.5 by RAW, though I wonder how often that's put into practice.

 

[sckeener]

The point I was trying to make is that the Roman who went out pillaging and raping isn't Good, even if he's otherwise perfectly courteous and nice at home in Rome.

Correct....which is what I said. He'd have to be LN. I also said I dislike that. I think the alignment system becomes a tally sheet....do X many actions and your are evil, but it is a gray area so we are going to let the DM make a judgment call each time to see if X is enough...

I think the worst group I DMed with respects to alignment was a group that had the paladin do detect evil on anyone they were doing business with and the cleric would do detect good. They'd only do business with people of good alignment, watch the neutrals/evils, and dispose of the evils if they could get away with it....

Of course I could have been mean and had the goods have higher prices or not offer the services needed forcing the players to deal with the neutrals/evils....but if that is how they want to play (no moral ambiguities) then I shouldn't force them...we are there to have fun. Usually though that means I do not get to have fun because I enjoy crafting anti-heroes.

 

[Sejs]

No, a PC absolutely cannot. If the PC has never done Evil, the PC is not Evil alignment. Alignment is a descriptor of a PC's habitual actions. They may not be guilty of the crime you're trying to solve, but they're guilty of something. Murder, most likely, as Evil means the PC "debase or destroy innocent life."

Again, this is exactly what KM and I were talking about. You're not describing any kind of alignment defined by the actual text.

An amoral merchant or moneylender that preys on people in desperate circumstances by giving them seemingly easy-term loans based on good will, then when they have difficulty repaying, turns around and harshly enforces strict penalty, using it as pretense for seizing everything they own or forcing them into indentured servitude, selling off family members into slavery, prostitution, etc.

Abhorrant. Selfish. Debases or destroys innocent life. Doesn't murder anybody.

Easy viewable as Lawful Evil.

 

[buzz]

Abhorrant. Selfish. Debases or destroys innocent life. Doesn't murder anybody.

Easy viewable as Lawful Evil.

Sure, but that isn't what you posted originally, as I understood it. You've gone from "self-centered dick" to someone who actively ruins other people's lives; unless that's what you'd originally meant by the phrase. Since you said, "doesn't mean you've necessarily done anything," I felt compelled to comment, since the definition of each alignment is that you have, indeed, done something that places you in its category. My point was reiterating that the PC's attitude is irrelevant.

 

[The Human Target]

It just means you need to get creative.

Eh, thats pretty much the same as saying "everyone who doesn't like alignment doesn't understand it."


Which is to say, a weak argument.

 

[Aaron L]

Correct....which is what I said. He'd have to be LN. I also said I dislike that. I think the alignment system becomes a tally sheet....do X many actions and your are evil, but it is a gray area so we are going to let the DM make a judgment call each time to see if X is enough...

I think the worst group I DMed with respects to alignment was a group that had the paladin do detect evil on anyone they were doing business with and the cleric would do detect good. They'd only do business with people of good alignment, watch the neutrals/evils, and dispose of the evils if they could get away with it....

Of course I could have been mean and had the goods have higher prices or not offer the services needed forcing the players to deal with the neutrals/evils....but if that is how they want to play (no moral ambiguities) then I shouldn't force them...we are there to have fun. Usually though that means I do not get to have fun because I enjoy crafting anti-heroes.

You should have had everyone be Neutral, and explain to them that the vast majority of people in the world are that alignment.

 

[Jolly Giant]

I think it's ok the way it is now, where it only has any real impact on servants of deities (clerics, paladins, blackguards, etc.) and on creatures with the good or evil subtype. For most D&D campaigns, I think this is the way to go.

For Vikings campaigns, on the other hand, alignment is of course 99.9% irrelevant!

 

[buzz]

Eh, thats pretty much the same as saying "everyone who doesn't like alignment doesn't understand it."

No, it's saying that discern lies and detect evil are known parts of the game, so it's probably best not to hinge an entire scenario on anything covered by those spells. PCs are well within the scope of the rules to make use of them. On top of this, discern lies has nothing to do with alignment and, ergo, could prove problematic in a mystery-solving scenario even if alignment didn't exist.

And, really, your issue is more that mysteries are difficult to run in RPGs in general, regardless of system. Either you've got a bunch of players simply poking around until the GM tells them the "real" plot, or else you've got PCs with superpowers/magic that should rightfully make the mystery moot in the first few minutes.

Ergo, it's probably better to make the scenario not about finding the information, but about what they do with the information, i.e., pushing them to make hard choices and test conclusions.

 

[The Human Target]

No, it's saying that discern lies and detect evil are known parts of the game, so it's probably best not to hinge an entire scenario on anything covered by those spells. PCs are well within the scope of the rules to make use of them. On top of this, discern lies has nothing to do with alignment and, ergo, could prove problematic in a mystery-solving scenario even if alignment didn't exist.

And, really, your issue is more that mysteries are difficult to run in RPGs in general, regardless of system. Either you've got a bunch of players simply poking around until the GM tells them the "real" plot, or else you've got PCs with superpowers/magic that should rightfully make the mystery moot in the first few minutes.

Ergo, it's probably better to make the scenario not about finding the information, but about what they do with the information, i.e., pushing them to make hard choices and test conclusions.

You said "ergo" too many times to take you seriously.

I like mysteries, sue me. The rules don't support it, so I changed em. Problem solved.

 

[Sejs]

You said "ergo" too many times to take you seriously.

Twice?