Do alignments improve the gaming experience?

[Imaro]

Once again that all makes sense to me.


My understanding of the examle was that the PC arrives on the scene ready to rescue the innocents from whatever is threatening, sees that they're threatened by a giant snake, and (due to the compel) runs away.

I don't see the difficult choice there - the player, to me, doesn't seem to have had a choice.

I don't really see the complication, either, unless you treat failure as a limiting case of complication.

How is having to run from a giant snake when you came to rescue people from it not a complication. the fact that you don't like the complication is evident, because you are arguing against the situation in general... but you not liking it doesn't make it any less of a complication.

While I'm not that familiar with Fate, I am fairly familiar with Marvel Heroic RP. In that system, the mechanical analogue of the "compel" would be the imposition of a "Trembling with fear" or "Running away" complication on the PC; but the action resolution mechanics in MHRP are such that a complication of that sort won't end the scene unless it reaches a certain degree of mechanical severity. Which seems, to me at least, an important difference from the scene-ending compel.

It is different in that a compel doesn't need to be resolved mechanically since usually (Unless you are going nova with FP's or have had a run of bad luck) you can just say no thanks and not deal with it. But the fact that you don't have a FP left is what allows for a scene ending compel. In fact the GM may be doing you a favor by having you flee, when you have no FP's left and are trying to face off against something that could probably beat you.

My feeling is that @Ratskinner was thinking along similar lines to me when he suggested that the consequence of the snake acting against the player would be some sort of negative aspect imposed by the snake: that adversely affects that players' prospects of action resolution within the scene, but isn't in and of itself scene-ending.

That wouldn't be a compel though, that would be having your "Why'd it have to be snakes" aspect invoked by the snake during the conflict which the GM could also have done (though the player wouldn't get his FP until the end of the scene).

 

[N'raac]

I haven't seen this very much. I see most major games using an xp mechanic (not necessarily levels, which are strongly identified with D&D) but an xp reward system. In D&D, i have encountered folks who simplify leveling or alter it, but only rarely do I see this. I think for most players, XP is a pretty core part of the D&D experience and and important aspect of play (the desire for xp in many ways drives the game forward). I am not saying it is inst out there, but i dont think remval of xp is seriiously being debated, and I do not think it is as subject to debate as say alignment. Same with initiative. There have been different methods, and by 2E you have lots of optional approaches, but initiative is a standard feature of most rpgs. XP is also a pretty standard rog mechanic. Alignment isn't. Its part of D&D, but lots if other big rpgs dont use anything like it. So while i dont think the issues with alignment are as inevitable as people say, and i think removing it from D&D for next would be a huge mistake, i do at least see it has its detractors. Not really encountering much opposition to XP or initiative though.

I don't see xp as a controversial inclusion. The most common complaint I see is the "grind" where numerous encounters of dubious relevancy occur to provide needed xp, but the "story award" tens to be used to smooth that out. I think the biggest difference between these other areas and alignment is that no one argues that some means of character advancement, initiative, etc. would not be needed, only whether the current choice is the best choice. By contrast, replacements or revisions to alignment tend not to be suggested.

The suggested replacements (Aspects on this thread) seem no less susceptible to disagreements and/or bad GMing. Someone noted a while back that many games that lack such "personality/morality systems" typically assume PC's will be on one side (Superhero games; monster hunting games) and aren't written for characters following the "other side" at all.

This seems a lot like "no system in play but I will vet the characters up front for consistency with the game world and group consensus", not to remove all likely character disagreements but certainly to limit them to permit the game to go on with the characters in question. Many of those opposed to alignment on this thread have indicated a preference for a group character creation model which ensures the characters have common goals and objectives to tie them together, much like many GM's using alignments restrict the choices to attain a compatible group of characters.

 

[pemerton]

pretty much every major rpg out there uses experience of some kind, whereas alignment is not nearly so universal

By "experience" do you mean "PC advancement"? In which case Traveller may be one of the few exception among major RPGs.

If by "experience" you mean "experience points as a way of measuring advancement" then plenty of games use other techniques (Runequest "advancement via use" being probably the best known).

i dont think remval of xp is seriiously being debated, and I do not think it is as subject to debate as say alignment.

In 4e the core purpose of experience points is for encounter budgeting.

The game's default assumption is that XP will also be used to measure PC advancement, but the DMG expressly canavasses a "level when it seems right - typically after N encounters" option. I think it would be crazy for Next not to at least emulate 4e in this respect - why would the ostensibly "modular" edition be less modular than the edition it is replacing, which was the ostensibly "you can only play thrash metal with this guitar" edition?

 

[Bedrockgames]

By "experience" do you mean "PC advancement"? In which case Traveller may be one of the few exception among major RPGs.

If by "experience" you mean "experience points as a way of measuring advancement" then plenty of games use other techniques (Runequest "advancement via use" being probably the best known).

i meant some kind of points for experience. Obviously there are exceptions, i never claimed otherwise. But most of the big rpgs on the market use them. I am not saying to use another method is bad, just that it is quite a common approach and not controversial. I happen to like BRP quite a bit actually. You see something like XP in GURPS, Savage Worlds, D&D, pathfinder, WoD, etc. Either way though, the main I was responding to was the suggestion you made that XP is a much debated feature of D&D, which i just dont see a lot of evidence for.

In 4e the core purpose of experience points is for encounter budgeting.

The game's default assumption is that XP will also be used to measure PC advancement, but the DMG expressly canavasses a "level when it seems right - typically after N encounters" option. I think it would be crazy for Next not to at least emulate 4e in this respect - why would the ostensibly "modular" edition be less modular than the edition it is replacing, which was the ostensibly "you can only play thrash metal with this guitar" edition?

i dont know a whole lot about the 4E XP system, but that still sounds like an xp system if sorts to me. I wouldn't object at all to offering other options in next for advancement, but i would object to removing it entirely (which is what my quoted post was saying). So not arguing it should be the "thrash guitar only" edition.

 

[pemerton]

you are still holding my murderous servant of the Raven Queen is an inappropriate character

Allow me to repeat: from my point of view there is no such character. You haven't read the relevant books. You're not interested in talking about backstory - indeed, when I talked about backstory (as I do with my players when PCs are created and introduced into the game) you complained about "hidden" backstory, using some strange equivalence I don't understand between "overt" and "covert". You haven't said anything about why it's important to you that your hypothetical character serve the Raven Queen rather than, say, Demogorgon or Orcus.

In other words, you're trying to score points on an internet discussion. That's fine, but don't think you can draw any inferences about how my game is run from your point-scoring attempts. If you want to know how my game is run, read my actual play posts (I've linked to plenty of them, and I'm sure Google will bring up more).

you are still deciding whether that near-omnipotent, near-omniscient entity agrees or disagrees with the values of my character.

Even to the extent that this is so - and a view as to the opinions of a shared backstory element, reached by consensus either at character creation or in the course of play, is not a view that I, the GM, have unilaterally imposed upon you - you're not being told whether or not that entity is good or evil, and hence whether or not you (and your PC) are right or wrong to depart from its views.

I suspect my character having an epiphany a few weeks into the game where he realizes proper devotion to the Raven Queen requires sending as many living people as possible to her Realm of the Dead would not be well received

That suspicion is without foundation. You don't know how it would be received - heck, I don't know how it would be received - because those few weeks of play have not happened. The mooted epiphany has no context, and without the context of actual play is meaningless.

In the games I've run without alignment mechanics, here are just some of the things that I remember when I reflect back on 25+ years of campaigns:

* a samurai PC, travelling to an ogre stronghold in the mountains, has treated with them, and played civilised games of dice, in order to ensure that they do not join forces with the enemies of his clan;

* one PC has sacrificed another to a dark god as part of a total betrayal of team A (for whom the PCs were working) in favour of team B (for whom the PCs then commenced working);

* a PC has sold out his hometown to invaders in order to raise the money to repurchase his home which he had lost because he couldn't finance his drug addiction; then, having found love, has got clean of drugs; then, having lost his love to violence, has suffered a brief relapse, before rededicating himself to higher causes and persuading his world-wide order of wizards, against the views of its highest leaders, to oppose policies of racial supremacy and enslavement;

* the PCs have rebelled against the heavens to save the mortal world from the consequences of a foolish pact the gods had entered into at the beginning of the world;

* a PC, by means of impassioned argument, has persuaded an angel who was a "living gate" to the demiplane entrapping an exiled god that the only way to save the world and redeem the heavens was to permit the PC to strike her down, so that the PCs could then journey through the gate that would open about her dead body in order to learn the exiled god's secrets;

* a drow servant of chaos has worked with fellow Corellon-worshippers to oppose Lolth, because she (like the rest of the Abyss) taints the purity of chaos - change and transformation - with lies and pointless destruction;

* a servant of the gods has implanted the Eye of Vecna in his imp familiar as part of his attempts to balance various loyalties and liabilities to Vecna, to Levistus and to the other entities with whom he has a complex web of relationships (the same PC has also been forbidden by his allies from wielding the Crystal of Ebon Flame, which houses the essence of Miska the Wolf-Spider and perhaps Tharizdun too; but he has stored it in a Leomund's Secret Chest so that he can recover it at speed if necessary);

* the PCs, in play, have found the Asmodeus-worshipping duergar of the Underdark to be some of their most dependable allies;

* a paladin of the Raven Queen has discussed theology with the Whips and Lashes in the Shrine of the Kuo-toa, and has thereby been able to save the rest of the party from being caught and sacrificed to Blibdoolpoolp;

* the PCs have redeemed a fallen paladin of Pelor from his enslavement to a devil and his subsequent leadership of that devil's cult, so that he could return home a hero;

* in one particular campaign, both times the party encountered a hostile bear, at the behest of one particular player (and his PC) the bear was able to be tamed without being seriously hurt, leading to a situation (as that player said) in which "I feel good about not having killed that bear".​

I can't speak for other posters, but when I talk about a "player driven game" or a game which is not shaped by the GM's preconceptions, these are the sorts of events that I have in mind: events that came about in actual play because the players made choices for their PCs that weren't just about "side quests", nor about which door in the dungeon to travel through or which room to loot first, but were about fundamental matters like who is right and who is wrong, who should be supported and who opposed, what goals are worth pursuing and what are not. This is what I play the game for. And I utterly deny (and by way of posted actual play examples, refute) the contention that you, or me, or anyone else can know how these things are going to play out in advance.

I think the biggest difference between these other areas and alignment is that no one argues that some means of character advancement, initiative, etc. would not be needed, only whether the current choice is the best choice. By contrast, replacements or revisions to alignment tend not to be suggested.

The suggested replacements (Aspects on this thread) seem no less susceptible to disagreements and/or bad GMing.

My concern with alignment is not about "bad GMing". It is about the fact that it involves the GM, at all, in having to adjudicate on evaluative questions that arise as a result of the players' decisions for their PCs. Whether the GM is doing his/her job well or poorly, if that job includes making alignment adjudications then the GM is doing something that I don't want him/her (or me, when I GM) to have to do.

Because adjudicating Fate aspects or Burning Wheel beliefs or Marvel Heroic distinctions and milestones doesn't actually have that element - the player is the one who takes the lead in playing his/her PC in accordance with his/her own conception, and from time to time, if the GM doesn't notice, reminds the GM to hand out the requisite tokens - they do not for me raise the same issues at all.

I don't see huge problems caused by its removal (the challenges of removal of alignment-based spells and alignment-based abilities can be resolved). But I see no reason to remove it when the flaws and issues are, in my experience, vastly overstated.

I'm sure that you find alignment excellent for your purposes. But our whole exchange on this thread was triggered by me answering the question, Have I ever found alignment to be an impediment in play, that detracts from the play experience? And my answer hasn't changed. Above are just some of the play experiences that I have had which would have been impeded by alignment - because were I using mechanical alignment then on each of those occasions the players, instead of just playing their PCs, would also have been wondering how I as GM are judging those decisions and making notes on the alignment graph, and would have been waiting to learn whether they were still good or evil or lawful or chaotic or whatever else.

And what would the point of that be?

Unlike [MENTION=6688277]Sadras[/MENTION] and [MENTION=85555]Bedrockgames[/MENTION], you haven't actually answered that question. Sadras has answered the question, by quoting from the 2nd ed AD&D rulebooks: the point of alignment is that it is a roleplaying challenge to stick within the alignment parameters, and the GM adjudicates whether or not the challenge has been met. Bedrockgames has answered the question, by saying that, when playing, he likes to explore the GM's cosmological and moral conception of the gameworld, and for this reason is of course happy to defer to the GM's judgement as to those matters.

I think I've made it pretty clear that I am not interested in either of those as goals of play, either as a player or as a GM. Both give the judgements of the GM a prominence in the game that I do not like, and both to me suggest a degree of prescripting - of character, of answers to difficult questions - that I don't like either. (Also note: neither of these two goals of play is supported by the use of aspects in Fate, or beliefs in Burning Wheel, or distinctions in Marvel Heroic, because none of those mechanics supports the idea that playing your PC correctly is a challenge, nor that the goal of playing your PC is to explore the GM's world).

Because of my preferences, I do not think I am at all exaggerating the disutility to me of mechanical alignment.

But enough about me: what do you, [MENTION=6681948]N'raac[/MENTION], find valuable about mechanical alignment in your play?

 

[pemerton]

I don't use alignment at all and it has done nothing but make the game better. Removing the Damocles Sword of alignment from over the heads of the players is an excellent way to allow those players to see that you trust their ability to portray their character. And that leads to better, more engaged players who no longer need to play "Read the DM's mind" games in portraying their own characters.

100% this.

If you want there to be a "challenge" for players in RPing their PCs - can they remain consistent with some predefined parameters - than alignment may be helpful. (This is how the 2nd ed AD&D PHB presents things, as quoted a little bit upthread.)

If you want players play of their PCs to be some sort of exploration of parameters pregiven by the GM as part of authoring the campaign backstory, then again alignment may be helpful.

But if you want the players to play their own PCs according to their own conceptions of them, and see what happens in the game as a result, then alignment is nothing but an obstacle to that.

 

[pemerton]

How is having to run from a giant snake when you came to rescue people from it not a complication.

<snip>

the fact that you don't have a FP left is what allows for a scene ending compel.

I don't have enough of a handle on standard Fate procedures, nor on what [MENTION=6681948]N'raac[/MENTION] intended by his example, to fully respond to this. Here are some thoughts:

If the player's goal is to rescue the innocents; and if, as a result of the compel to flee, the innocents get eaten; then that is not a complication. It is a failure, and furthermore a failure which is resolved, at the final moment, without the player actually engaging the action resolution mechanics. If I knew nothing more of an episode of play than my preceding two sentences, my default assumption would be that it was somewhat unsatisfactory.

If the player's goal is to please NPC X, and the rescuing of the innocents is simply a means to pleasing NPC X (let's suppose they are X's wife and daughter), then the scene-ending compel is a complication, because while a setback to the PC's goal - the wife and daughter get eaten, which presumably won't please X - the PC can always find another way to please X. (This would be fail forward at work).

If the player's goal is to rescue the innocents; and the scene-ending compel is used; but the snake doesn't eat the mother and daughter - some other twist is introduced - then that would be another example of fail forward which would make the compel count as a complication by my lights, rather than an anti-climactic failure.​

These thoughts are influenced (probably obviously) by familiarity with default procedures and expectations for HeroQuest revised, Marvel Heroic RP and Burning Wheel. I don't know precisely how they translate to Fate, but I'd be surprised if it was wildly different. They all seem to be games which are pretty similar in their goals as far as the basic purposes and structure of play are concerned.

EDIT to respond to something from an earlier post that I had overlooked:

if the player is out of fate points doesn't that tend to suggest that we're getting towards the climax?Why would a player being out of Fate points necessarily signal that to you? Since there is no constraints on expenditure of Fate points that coincides with where you are in the story I think your drawing of a connection between the two is mistaken.

I was looking at in the reverse way: not that "where you are in the story" constrains expenditure of fate points, but rather that expenditure of fate points tells you where you are in the story. If the fate points are flying thick and fast, and the player ends up out of them, that seems a marker of (i) a high degree of player investment in the outcome of whatever just happened, and (ii) that the PC succeeded by the skin of his/her teeth, or perhaps failed despite giving it his/her very best shot (hence no fate points left). These both seem like signs of a climax to me.

 

[Libertad]

Alignment has always been an afterthought in my games, coming up prominently only when we had a Paladin or Cleric in our party. I made house rules removing alignment restrictions on all the other classes such as the Barbarian, so it wasn't really something which added to our games.

 

[Bluenose]

Alignment has always been an afterthought in my games, coming up prominently only when we had a Paladin or Cleric in our party. I made house rules removing alignment restrictions on all the other classes such as the Barbarian, so it wasn't really something which added to our games.

It rather suggests that alignment isn't particularly useful to you. Religious beliefs and adherence to them matter, but you don't need alignment for that. Lawful Good should not - observably in published D&D settings does not - mean the same thing to the different deities who are shallowly described as having that alignment.

 

[N'raac]

Allow me to repeat: from my point of view there is no such character. You haven't read the relevant books. You're not interested in talking about backstory - indeed, when I talked about backstory (as I do with my players when PCs are created and introduced into the game) you complained about "hidden" backstory, using some strange equivalence I don't understand between "overt" and "covert". You haven't said anything about why it's important to you that your hypothetical character serve the Raven Queen rather than, say, Demogorgon or Orcus.

You and I clearly differ in when we think the character comes into existence. At the initial pitch, the character exists in the player’s mind. The character may not be fully formed, but it can’t be fully formed (or at least fully formed and immune to any change) if there is to be the potential for character realization during play. To me, then, you are judging the character’s adherence to an ethos or value system prior to allowing the character to see play, rather than during play. I don’t find this a huge difference.

In other words, your statement that the player’s vision of the character is the only one that matters in your games is not, in my view, accurate. Imposing your vision on the player during the character creation process changes the timing, not the reality.

Why does it matter to you whether my character serves the Raven Queen rather than, say, Demogorgon or Orcus? I am assuming that, unlike the RQ, Orcus and Demogorgon are aligned, with evil. That is certainly what “Demon Prince” suggests to me. As such, you are pre-judging my character’s morality as Evil, in contrast to your statement that the character’s morality should be judged only by the player of the character.

In other words, you're trying to score points on an internet discussion.

I can just as easily assert that your unwillingness to address the issue is your effort to avoid “points scored against you” in an internet discussion rather than truly examine the underlying issue.

That's fine, but don't think you can draw any inferences about how my game is run from your point-scoring attempts. If you want to know how my game is run, read my actual play posts (I've linked to plenty of them, and I'm sure Google will bring up more).

Due to the nature of the discussion, I’ve been forced to move back from discussing your actual play to discussing the pre-play aspects which determine which characters even get permitted to be played in your game. Again, I suggest that a similar examination of the player vision of alignment and the GM’s would similarly result in characters played in accordance with the GM’s vision of alignment. Players with a different vision than yours either agree to conform with your visions (“OK, he will serve a Demon Prince in accordance with your vision that this is the best fit for his views” or “OK, he will temper his views based on your vision of the Raven Queen’s morality” or “OK, I will design a different character since we have irreconcilable differences on this one’s morality in game”). You are still assessing the consistency of the character’s code with the being he claims to serve.

Even to the extent that this is so - and a view as to the opinions of a shared backstory element, reached by consensus either at character creation

Whose consensus? I didn’t see the poll to assess whether my character was appropriate. And what happened to the player’s vision of the character ruling? Now it has to pass a vote by the group? Does this simply move adjudication of consistency with a stated moral code (being “this alignment” or “service to that deity”) from GM to the table as a whole? This is, to me, a much different change from “the player’s vision is the only vision that matters”.

or in the course of play, is not a view that I, the GM, have unilaterally imposed upon you - you're not being told whether or not that entity is good or evil, and hence whether or not you (and your PC) are right or wrong to depart from its views.

So there is no preconception whether a Demon Prince (which you are suggesting is my character’s appropriate patron) is good or evil? That seems quite unusual to me.

That suspicion is without foundation.

I find it difficult to believe a character that is unacceptable pre-play suddenly becomes acceptable when he appears after a session or two. Let us assume I agreed to tone down my initial character pitch, then shifted back to the original pitch over the first few weeks so by 2nd level, I am firmly back to the belief that dedicated service to the Raven Queen involves sending as many souls to her as possible (and/or that animating the dead to serve her goals is perfectly acceptable).

In the games I've run without alignment mechanics, here are just some of the things that I remember when I reflect back on 25+ years of campaigns:

Most of these strike me as quite “so what?” in the scheme of alignment. I do not believe having an alignment equates to “must seek the immediate death of any being of an opposing alignment”. Your reference to “total betrayal” and “sacrifice to a Dark God” seems like a character whose allegiances have changed, whether or not marked by an alignment code. Or maybe it only shows his true colours coming to the fore – loyal to no one but his own interests. A “servant of chaos but not evil” battling agfa8inst a servant of Chaos and evil sounds not too different from a Paladin fighting Devils.

All of these examples seem, to me, only to suggest that you view alignment as a straightjacket, assuming your objective is to show “great gaming that could never have happened if we used alignment”. In fact, I have had a similar experience with a hostile bear in my own game, with characters of consistent alignment having inconsistent views on the value of its life. A common alignment does not mean moving in lockstep on every issue (ask the CG clerics of Thor and Aphrodite!).

I utterly deny (and by way of posted actual play examples, refute) the contention that you, or me, or anyone else can know how these things are going to play out in advance.

I utterly deny that alignment in any way requires, or causes, us to know how these things are going to play out. I can make educated guesses based on character and player personality, whether or not alignment factors into the latter. I suspect you can as well. My confidence in those guesses varies widely depending on the nature of the situation (again, I suspect yours does as well), and like you, I have certainly been surprised in some instances.

Because adjudicating Fate aspects or Burning Wheel beliefs or Marvel Heroic distinctions and milestones doesn't actually have that element - the player is the one who takes the lead in playing his/her PC in accordance with his/her own conception, and from time to time, if the GM doesn't notice, reminds the GM to hand out the requisite tokens - they do not for me raise the same issues at all.

It seems like the GM invoking compels, which the other Fate players seem to indicate is fairly common, goes well beyond the GM handing out the requisite tokens, whether or not with a player reminder. Even if it did not, it appears the GM’s role includes making the determination of when a Fate point is, or is not, appropriately handed out. You are engaged in a number of debates on the proper use of Fate points on this thread now.

Sadras and Bedrockgames have done a fine job discussing the positive role alignment can play. I have little to add to their points. I have found the analysis of your own evaluative framework (which you seem unable to acknowledge you even have) quite fascinating, so I continue to pursue that. I am uncertain if the silence of Sadras and Bedrockgames (and others) on that matter indicates less interest in that aspect, or that they have nothing to add to either your or my comments.

I don't have enough of a handle on standard Fate procedures, nor on what @N'raac intended by his example, to fully respond to this. Here are some thoughts:

If the player's goal is to rescue the innocents; and if, as a result of the compel to flee, the innocents get eaten; then that is not a complication. It is a failure, and furthermore a failure which is resolved, at the final moment, without the player actually engaging the action resolution mechanics. If I knew nothing more of an episode of play than my preceding two sentences, my default assumption would be that it was somewhat unsatisfactory.​

So Fate can also be unsatisfactory to you. Well and good. Failure should, in my view, be a possibility. As you have noted previously, clearly the character ran out of Fate points engaging in other challenges along the way. I would suggest that a Compel, with its requirement the character either comply or spend a Fate point, is a core component of the Fate system’s action resolution mechanics, so your dissatisfaction is with those mechanics, not with their failure to be implemented. A mechanic need not include rolling the dice.

I have previously noted that I don’t believe “fail forward” must mean that no actual failure is ever possible. I retain that belief. Others may well prefer a more “story teller” style to their game, where the ultimate result of the players’ actions will always be success and the game is only about how we get to that success. My own preferences are probably somewhere between the two – I dislike “one die roll failed or one combat lost = ultimate failure”, and I like to have backup plans, but I also believe there can be failed objectives, not just setbacks, along the way, and that “failure” need not mean “campaign ends”.

I was looking at in the reverse way: not that "where you are in the story" constrains expenditure of fate points, but rather that expenditure of fate points tells you where you are in the story. If the fate points are flying thick and fast, and the player ends up out of them, that seems a marker of (i) a high degree of player investment in the outcome of whatever just happened, and (ii) that the PC succeeded by the skin of his/her teeth, or perhaps failed despite giving it his/her very best shot (hence no fate points left). These both seem like signs of a climax to me.

While the “snake eats the victims while you cower” end to a scene feels somewhat anticlimactic to me, that is a risk we take in invoking action resolution mechanics and allowing the dice to fall where they may. The player has arrived without the resources to succeed, and he failed. Did the character succeed in his objective of rescuing the helpless victims? We found out in play that he did not. How will this failure affect the character moving forward? We‘ll find out in play.

In a different context, perhaps the character has fallen from favour due to his actions. Will he seek an easier, or just different, path to power? Does this change his moral and ethical views? Has he discovered his own views and those of his cause differed? Will he seek atonement and redemption for his lapse in judgement, rededicating himself to the cause? Will he seek new allegiances more consistent with what he has discovered his true moral framework to be? We'll find out in play. That doesn't seem like the bad gaming corner you believe alignment paints the character into.​