Do alignments improve the gaming experience?

[Hussar]

The alignment rules aren't designed to say whether any particular person's social vision is worthy of support. All they are designed to do is say whether the person promulgating the vision is motivated by a desire to help/harm people or free/order them -- that's it. Multiple people with the same alignment can have conflicting visions of how to achieve their objectives, some of which may have unanticipated side-effects that cause the vision to inadvertently achieve the opposite of its intended effect. Having these differences emerge without an "answer" from the alignment system is a feature rather than a bug, so the game will not devolve into the DM decreeing at every decision point which action the PCs must take if they are to do the right thing.

If you do not accept this premise of the system because you want the alignment writeup to help you discern whether Lenin or Trotsky or anyone else laid out a moral "vision" worthy of "support", then you need something no alignment system could provide and you are best served by dropping it from your game. This is not to say your goals aren't legitimate or interesting, because they are -- only that the alignment system can't help you resolve them.

But therein lies the problem. If I decide that my character thinks that X is good, and the DM disagrees, then I'm SOL. There can be no conflicting vision because the DM has to make a determination. If I cast Know Alignment on Trotsky, the DM can't tell me he's one or another alignment without deciding that Trotsky actually IS that alignment or not.

There really can't be different visions. Or, rather, I don't see how there could be. There are just too many ways in D&D to actually verify one vision or the other. And if I am playing a class which is dependent on alignment mechanics, which, in 3e, is virtually every single class, then the DM has to decree every decision point. Otherwise, if he doesn't, it's an aha gotcha moment because the player is acting in a way that the DM decides is not in keeping with a given alignment.

Which, IME, leads to players never really straying from a very comfortable path once they've gotten to know a given DM. If they know that the DM thinks Trotsky is evil, then they aren't going to play a Socialist Paladin. Clerics of Heironeous will not take a "To each as needed" point of view. They know that the DM has decided X, and will play to that, instead of playing to try to expand or explore a concept. I really do find it very liberating to play in systems which do not have alignment mechanics.

 

[jsaving]

I agree that there cannot be two correct answers in the same campaign for whether Trotsky is Good or Evil. Just as is true with every finding of fact in the campaign, the DM is ultimately responsible for making that determination, and players have to live with what he says (or else find another campaign).

But I'm not so sure this logic applies to you and your DM disagreeing about whether action X is Good or Evil. The reason is that action X cannot itself be inherently Good or Evil -- only the motivations of the participants can be. So if you favor the death penalty for a captive to protect future innocents from his wrath, and another party member agrees with you because it will let him indulge his sadism on the prisoner, then administering the penalty cements you as Good and him as Evil, even though you are both doing the same thing.

If your DM were to nevertheless assign an alignment to this action, you're right that this would place party members in a pickle. Just for the sake of the example, let's say the DM is "progressive" in his thinking and "knows" no truly benevolent person could favor execution, so he says in advance of the execution that any party member who follows through with it will become Evil. Suddenly, even though your desire to execute the captive is based solely on altruism and is therefore Good in a D&D context, you are forced to do what the DM says or else lose whatever in-game benefits are based on you remaining Good.

Faced with situations like this, it's no wonder that some people come away with a negative view of the alignment rules. I know I wouldn't be able to tolerate remaining in a campaign where the DM is going to decree my level of compassion/altruism and enact in-game punishments based on his verdict! But there are two things to keep in mind here. One is that the example represents an abuse of the alignment system rather than its proper implementation -- the DM had no business setting aside his mantle as objective-arbiter and indulging his personal ideology, and even less business browbeating players into acting out that ideology on pain of "falling". The other is that even this abusive example would lose much of its sting if alignment were divorced from mechanics and used solely for flavor, as many of us on both sides of the debate think it should be.

 

[Hussar]

I disagree that this is abusive though. &Imaro and N'raac have both clearly stated that executing the prisoner is evil. Are they abusing the system?

And, in an objective alignment system, motive is irrelavent. Believing that X is good doesn't make it so.

 

[pemerton]

There are no 9-point alignments in real life. Real world morals and ethics are much too complex for that.

Well quite.

To me, that shows they won't improve my gaming experience. If my game can't produce episodes that is at least somewhat comparable in complexity to real life - which even mediocre novels and films can sometimes achieve- then it's not in a position to deliver the experience I'm looking for.

That's one reason why I don't use alignment.

The alignment rules aren't designed to say whether any particular person's social vision is worthy of support. All they are designed to do is say whether the person promulgating the vision is motivated by a desire to help/harm people or free/order them -- that's it.

I'll leave to one side that the free/order contrast doesn't tell me how to label anyone who thinks that freedom depends upon certain patterns of order (which is practically all modern liberal thinkers ranging from the American founders to Hayek to Rawls).

Turning to help/harm, the d20srd says that "Good characters and creatures protect innocent life. Evil characters and creatures debase or destroy innocent life, whether for fun or profit." That doesn't seem consistent with your claim, because it links goodness and evil to innocence, which does not figure in your definition (you refer only to help/harm). Furthermore, that definition makes it clear that good people are worthy of support, and evil people are not - it is self-evident that "debasing and/or destroying innocent life for fun and/or profit" is not worthy of support.

cannot[/I] itself be inherently Good or Evil -- only the motivations of the participants can be.

I don't believe this claim has any textual support in the D&D rules. For instance, Gygax on p 24 of his DMG says "It is of importance to keep track of player character behaviour with respect to their professed alignment. Actions do speak far more eloquently than professions, and each activity of a player character should reflect his or her alignment."

In a similar vein, the 3E paladin description follows earlier editions and uses the notion of "an evil act", with no indication that this means a wrongly motivated act. For instance, the fact that the rules text distinguishes evil acts in general from "wilful" evil acts shows that evil-ness, as a status, is not dependent upon will. The AD&D PHB (p 22) used similar language when it referred to a paladin "knowingly" committing a chaotic act or an evil act. This allows that evil acts can be committed inadvertently, and hence enjoy their status as evil independently of the paladin's mental states.

Faced with situations like this, it's no wonder that some people come away with a negative view of the alignment rules. I know I wouldn't be able to tolerate remaining in a campaign where the DM is going to decree my level of compassion/altruism and enact in-game punishments based on his verdict!

If you read Gygax's DMG, or the paladin rules in the 3E rulebooks, I think you'll find that that is exactly what the game intends. Hence, for instance, Roger E Moore's discussion in his Dragon article on paladins whether or not a paladin should lose paladinhood for punching a dryad (a Chaotic Good creature) in the nose. (He concluded that the paladin should not lose paladinhood for this.)

I don't see the alignment riles answering every decision point, as you seem to insist it must. That would remove any purpose of play.

I'm still waiting to be provided with a single instance where you think they do answer a decision point that has actually arisen in play. ( [MENTION=6668292]JamesonCourage[/MENTION] has given actual play examples of using alignment, but I don't think they involved alignment answering a decision point. Perhaps I'm wrong about that though.)

The player decides that it is the Paladin's divine right to take what he will in the service of his deity, slay those who oppose or offend him and let none gainsay his divine right on penalty of death. The player has spoken, so this is the definition of LG.

I don't understand this claim. I don't use alignment in my game, so you can't describe a process that might take place in my game, and then add on an alignment characterisation of it.

If the player decides that that is what his/her paladin's god demands or permits, then yes, the player is playing that character. I take it you think that I should tell the player to play another character?

I find the Cleric and Paladin are much less common in fantasy literature than the Wizard, Warrior and Rogue, actually.

The heavily-armoured, providentially-inspired and directed warrior, who exercise saintly powers (especially of healing with a touch), is pretty much a mainstay of the fictitious/legendary part of European history (eg St Edward the Confessor), of Arthurian and Carolignian romance and of fantasy literature that draws upon that tradition (eg Tolkien, Dragonlance).

Obviously such characters are absent from REH. As I've explained at some length, that is not a coincidence. The materialist, Neitzschean worldview of the Conan stories has no room for such characters.

Hence D&D has to make a choice. It includes such characters, and leaves it open whether they are right or wrong. Or it has mechanics - such as alignment mechanics that leave it open that evil might be right - which rule out such characters from the get go. It can't walk both sides of this street without losing coherence.

No part of "lawful", in any version of the game, precludes vigilantism. In 3E, for instance, lawful characters "respect authority . . . and judge those who fall short of their duties." When authorities fall short of their duties, for instance by acting unjustly (and LG characters "speak out against injustice"), then they may need to be judged. And even opposed. In such circumstances a LG character could be a vigilante, seeking to establish a just social order and restore a legitimate ruler.

You are here assuming a corrupt social order.

Yes. You asserted that vigilantism is not lawful. I provided a counterexample, namely, one in which the social order is corrupt. So I take it that you are agreeing with me that vigilantism sometimes can be consistent with lawfulness.

 

[Imaro]

I disagree that this is abusive though. &Imaro and N'raac have both clearly stated that executing the prisoner is evil. Are they abusing the system?

Please stop putting words in my mouth... I've clearly asked for more context concerning the situation you presented not declared it evil.

 

[Hussar]

Well N'raac pretty clearly stated that it was just a player who wanted to take the easy route and not bother role playing and I missed you disagreeing with him between consistently agreeing with everything he's said.

If context matters then all alignment is relative which is pretty counter to your position throughout this thread.

 

[JamesonCourage]

I'm still waiting to be provided with a single instance where you think they do answer a decision point that has actually arisen in play. ( @JamesonCourage has given actual play examples of using alignment, but I don't think they involved alignment answering a decision point. Perhaps I'm wrong about that though.)

From a "moral" perspective, all alignment did was say "this guy is Good" or "this guy is Evil", but the choice of what to do, and what was right or wrong, was still up to the players.

I have no idea what you guys are talking about as far as "decision points" go. I haven't been following your conversation, but whatever it is sounds like something that I'd label "not applicable." I kind of wonder how you got there, but in all honesty, I don't really care.

 

[Imaro]

Well N'raac pretty clearly stated that it was just a player who wanted to take the easy route and not bother role playing and I missed you disagreeing with him between consistently agreeing with everything he's said.

If context matters then all alignment is relative which is pretty counter to your position throughout this thread.

If you can show me where I defined it objectively as evil... then do it, otherwise, again, don't put words in my mouth.

OAN: Taking the easy route does not equate to evil...

 

[Ruin Explorer]

OAN: Taking the easy route does not equate to evil...

Technically, no, but traditionally there's a pretty strong association between taking the easy route and evil, throughout world religions and philosophies, probably for the fairly logical reason that if you just do whatever is easiest in the short term for you in situations involving humans, you can often end up hurting people.

 

[Imaro]

Technically, no, but traditionally there's a pretty strong association between taking the easy route and evil, throughout world religions and philosophies, probably for the fairly logical reason that if you just do whatever is easiest in the short term for you in situations involving humans, you can often end up hurting people.

And in D&D taking the easy route is just as likely to be neutral as it is evil...