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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6189770" data-attributes="member: 2067">Dealing With Alignment Issues[sblock]So, your noble group of world-saving, evil-destroying heroes just burned down an orphanage, punched an old lady, and kicked a sack of puppies. No, the puppies weren't evil. They've done something clearly outside the bounds of "Heroic" fantasy, and are toying with a greyer morality than the alignment system implies. What's a DM to do?The first thing to understand is that one-offs don't necessarily mean an alignment change. Kicking one sack of puppies isn't going to turn your noble Lawful Good paladin Chaotic Evil. Alignment describes a pattern of behavior, so before you even contemplate an alignment change, make sure that this kind of thing happens over multiple sessions. You may want to tell a player explicitly when you think they're doing something that might violate their alignment, but make it clear that it also requires a pattern: "Make a habit of kicking puppies, and that might mean re-evaluating your alignment." The next thing is that this might just be a miscommunication or misunderstanding. Maybe the player WANTED to play Lawful Good, but found themselves instead playing closer to Chaotic Neutral. In most cases, this won't be a problem: simply change their alignment to match their current behavior, and call it a day. It might also be the case that the player has a different interpretation of "Lawful Good" than you do. While the meanings of the alignments are pretty clear, there's a lot of nuance that -- intentionally -- isn't captured. If the player has a different understanding than you do as the DM, talk it over with them. If you agree, great, they keep their alignment. If you disagree, that's fine, their alignment changes. You're the DM, so you do have the final say over what the alignments mean at your table, but it's often constructive to have a dialogue rather than just laying down the law, so consider if you can say "yes." If you can, it's usually better to do that. <img src="http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs45/i/2009/056/d/d/Ready_Mozica__KICK_THE_PUPPY_by_Silent_Mime.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /> "My paladin order believes that cats rule and dogs drool, so this is actually not an evil act for us."An alignment change by itself isn't a punishment or a restriction. Alignment is just a tool to describe the kind of character you're playing, so if you're finding that a different alignment is a better fit for a given character, it's usually not a big deal just to cross out one pair of words, and write in another. No muss, no fuss. If the disagreement threatens to de-rail the game, don't be too afraid to pull the "I'm the DM" card to get things back on track. When the disagreeing player is the DM, they can define alignments however they want, but for now, they're signing up to your definition. In some games, or with certain classes or spells or abilities, it can matter a bit more. If you're playing a game where Paladins Must Be Lawful Good, and you and your player disagree about what makes a Lawful Good character, you want to be very clear about the kind of character the player is intending on playing. In these cases, the responsibility is yours as a DM to make sure that the players are at least aware of the consequences of their actions. If your Chaotic Neutral priest of Freedom risks offending their god because they paid their local taxes (or whatever), you should make it very clear to the player that this is a consequence for their action, before the action happens. It's not fun to come to a game where you suddenly have a useless character just because you and the DM disagreed on whether or not you could tell a lie. And remember the first point, above: a one-off doesn't mean you change alignments. So you should have plenty of time to let a player know the consequences of their actions well in advance of them actually triggering any mechanical effect. Conflicted knights and divine retribution can make really interesting stories, but if that's not what the player is interested in playing, you don't need to force them down that path. Ultimately, it may be worth considering if alignment is adding much of anything to your games, if you find yourself getting caught up in issues of definition. Alignment is intended to enable heroic fantasy by pointing out who the Good Guys and who the Bad Guys (and who the Blue Guys and who the Orange Guys) are in bright lights, as a way to enforce those mythic conflicts between good and evil and law and chaos. It's not required for that, though, and many games benefit greatly from a system with more shades of gray and less strict "teams." There's scads of alternate alignment systems out there, and you can drop it without affecting mechanical balance or control at all. If you use rules that hinge off of alignment, it's easy to remove that joint and just allow the rule to any character that can access it. If your table has a Priest of Freedom who pays their taxes, maybe they have a reason, or maybe they hide their sin or maybe they're conflicted between supporting their local schools and fighting against the pointless government that builds them or maybe they see cosmic freedom as served better with local laws. Or whatever. Without alignment, it really doesn't matter: you can let the player make up their own version of what is right or wrong with their character. This might make the "teams" less clear, so if your game is about cosmic conflict and Heroes vs. Villains, it's worth considering how else to get at those teams, but if your game is more about one group of mercenaries or just personal, character-driven missions for the PC's, alignment might distract more than it enhances.[/sblock]In the end, the call is yours. Just remember that alignment is a pattern, it is open to some interpretation (and it is your interpretation as DM that matters ultimately), and when a change in alignment has some effect other than the words on the sheet, it's a good idea to make sure that the change is voluntary. The player should never be surprised by a change in alignment that suddenly renders their character significantly less useful (even if the character may be). Hope that helps!</blockquote>

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