Do alignments improve the gaming experience?

[Cadence]

So, in other words Imaro, one of the purposes of mechanical alignment is to enforce player behaviour. Is that a reasonable reading of your response?

Not Imaro (obviously), but for my past play, maybe something a bit more nuanced? "If needed, to ensure that characters whose class has behavior restrictions lives up to them or faces the game world consequences."

I think that helps avoid some of the craziness of 1e hammering everyone at the whims of the DM.

 

[Hussar]

But how is stripping class benefits a game world consequence? Kicked out of his church? Fair enough. Deemed a criminal? Cool. Can't detect evil anymore? Huh?

 

[N'raac]

The 4e paladin has various powers intended to support the paladin in soloing in various ways, so that not flanking is not necessarily a mechanical disadvantage.

My preference is that a character be honourable because the character is honourable, not because he is bribed to be honourable by having mechanics that result in his best interests being inevitably served by being honourable. That's not a choice to role play - it's a choice to select whatever approach is most mechanically advantageous.

I also hope I've made it clear that the player in the example I posted didn't think that his PC was doing the right thing by Vecna's lights. He knew he was opposing Vecna, and Vecna's interests, and Vecna's desires. I forced him to choose between the Raven Queen and Vecna - a choice I do not believe he was that surprised to have forced upon him - and he chose. He wasn't surprised that Vecna then punished him by shutting down his imp.

And it has been stated numerous times upthread that a Paladin's player should not be surprised, but should have ample warning that the actions the character is taking carry the risk of losing Paladin status, so there is no difference here between your adjudication and the adjudication of the Paladin's compliance with his alignment restrictions.

The player could, of course, have chosen Vecna. The Raven Queen would then not have had any immediate means of punishing the PC; and at least in the immediate term, the other PCs probably wouldn't have noticed. The player deliberately took the risk of suffering punishment, to which he knew he was exposed - he had deliberately implanted the Eye in the imp to bring Vecna into play as a counterbalancing force against Levistus - because in the play of his PC he had an evaluative response. There are some resemblances here to player wanting his/her paladin to fall.

And the Paladin's player could choose the path of Good and Righteousness, or the path of Expediency. The latter takes the risk of consequences from the Divine Forces which empower him. He deliberately chose to play a character whose abilities depend on a Cosmological Force which has an evaluative response.

They were not taken outside the action resolution mechanics. They were taken as part of the resolution of a skill challenge. Furthermore, it is inherent in a 4e familiar that it may be shut down. And it is inherent in a 4e artefact like the Eye of Vecna that it is somewhat overpowered but also potentially temperamental.

Much as the loss of a Paladin's abilities outside 4e is inherently capable of occurring based on the rules for that class.

You have consistently opposed removal or reduction of the mechanics which enable the Paladin to impact the fiction, but you are OK with removal or reduction of the mechanics which enable the Invoker to impact the fiction. That the removal of the Invoker's ability to impact the fiction seems irrelevant to me - you have been arguing against mechanics which allow the removal or reduction of a character's ability to meaningfully impact the fiction, but you now present for our approval a play example where you apply mechanics which remove or reduce a character's ability to meaningfully impact the fiction.

The key issue for me is that the player's evaluative judgement is not invalidated, nor even called into question, in the episode of play I described.

So it is only the player who says "My character did the right thing" who cannot have his character resources reduced poor removed? That seems very different from your previous arguments. Why does the fact a character doesn't care about doing the right thing make it OK to reduce that character's ability to impact the fiction?

The 4e PHB pp 89-90 characterises paladins thusly:

Paladins are indomitable warriors who’ve pledged their prowess to something greater than themselves. Paladins smite enemies with divine authority, bolster the courage of nearby companions, and radiate as if a beacon of inextinguishable hope. Paladins are transfigured on the field of battle, exemplars of divine ethos in action.

To you is given the responsibility to unflinchingly stand before an enemy’s charge, smiting them with your sword while protecting your allies with your sacrifice. Where others waver and wonder, your motivation is pure and simple, and your devotion is your strength. Where others scheme and steal, you take the high road, refusing to allow the illusions of temptation to dissuade you from your obligations.

Take up your blessed sword and sanctified shield, brave warrior, and charge forward to hallowed glory! . . .

As fervent crusaders in their chosen cause . . .​

What strikes me in that is "pledg[ing] . . . to something greater than themselves", the "exampl[e] of divine ethos in action", the "pure and simple" movitvation, the "obligations", and the "fervent crusad[ing]". None of that screams "mercenary" to me. There is no mention of a pact, no mention of a payment, no mention of a readiness to be bought away. And that text, particularly those bits I've called out, expressly contradicts your claim that the 4e paladin is not beholden to anything outside him-/herself.

What strikes me is how poorly those words translate to following an unaligned deity.

Behold, to you is given the responsibility to unflinchingly stand before an enemy of indifference's charge, smiting them with your sword while protecting your allies with your sacrifice. Where others waver and wonder, your motivation is pure and simple, and your devotion to the path of unaligned indifference is your strength. Where others scheme and steal, and fight for the values they hold dear you take the high road, refusing to allow the illusions of right or wrong to dissuade you from your obligations to nothing whatsoever.

Take up your indifferent sword and unaligned shield, brave warrior, and charge forward to hallowed glory! . . .

As fervent crusaders in the chosen lack of a cause . . .

Seriously? A fervent crusader for the cause of unalignedness? Nope, not seeing it!

"If needed, to ensure that characters whose class has behavior restrictions lives up to them or faces the game world consequences."

I'm reminded of the Ravenloft mechanics of fear and horror checks, which were presented as assisting in setting the tone that the PC's are not mindless automatons , beings wholly without fear or dismay. They were presented as saving throws, with the caveat that one need only really invoke these if the players are not role playing fear and horror through their characters.

In similar fashion, if the players are role playing their professed alignments, mechanical alignment simply fades into the background, to be applied only where there is a problem that, really, should not exist. Now, that may well mean it does not add to play where all around the table are skilled role players, but all players are not equal in that skill, and even the best of us can certainly have our off days. For myself, if I'm unsure whether my character would truly be afraid, or horrified, I might well volunteer to let that be adjudicated by the game mechanic and roll the check.

And I might well play my Paladin who truly, fervently believes he is doing the right thing, despite it being against everything he has been taught to believe. And he might well face in-game consequences for those actions, as adjudicated by the person at the table who has assumed the responsibility for assessing the reaction of those Divine Forces who grant my character his powers. And I, as a player, might very well say "I can see the Powers of Good understanding his reasons, and I can see them being unable to overlook his transgression. You, GM, are adjudicating those Powers so it is your call."

Frankly, I don't need the GM's affirmation of my play of my character, or my assessment of whether his actions were consistent with the expectations of some higher power of Good. I played my character's reaction to whatever has caused him to be judged, and I can play his reaction to whatever judgment occurs in game. And if the result is the GM/players congratulating me on engaging role play while adjudicating that the actions of the character result in sanction from his deity, his church, his lord, the Powers of Good or whatever other entity is relevant in game - then it was a great game tonight, and I look forward to playing out the consequences of his actions when we play next.

I don't play to decide how the universe reacts to my character's actions. I can GM if and when I want to decide the reactions of the bit players (like barmaids, townsfolk, kings, high priests, deities and cosmological forces). I play to decide the actions of my character, not the reactions of the world around him.

 

[Cadence]

But how is stripping class benefits a game world consequence? Kicked out of his church? Fair enough. Deemed a criminal? Cool. Can't detect evil anymore? Huh?

In a 1e, 2e, or 3/3.5/PF game world, the Paladin and Cleric gets the divine magical power to detect evil from their god(s) or maybe some universal power they're attuned to. Stop being liked by the god(s) or get out of tune with the power source and the powers go away. It would seem odd to me for a god to keep forking over power to someone who pissed them off, or for someone to draw power from a universal source that they pulled away from through repeated actions that contradicted it.


Edit: I really like the bottom section of @N'raac 's post just above this one. It addresses the same slightly earlier post (#741) that @Hussar 's quote here is in response to.

 

[Hussar]

And I might well play my Paladin who truly, fervently believes he is doing the right thing, despite it being against everything he has been taught to believe. And he might well face in-game consequences for those actions, as adjudicated by the person at the table who has assumed the responsibility for assessing the reaction of those Divine Forces who grant my character his powers. And I, as a player, might very well say "I can see the Powers of Good understanding his reasons, and I can see them being unable to overlook his transgression. You, GM, are adjudicating those Powers so it is your call.

Now what if your actions are consistent with everything he has been taught to believe but the DM thinks differently. Are you still so sanguine? You honestly believe you have done nothing wrong but "adjudicated" anyway.

Still perfectly acceptable?

Oh and could you answer the question? Would you play your paladin differently in a game with no mechanical alignment?

 

[UnholyD]

Apparently a lot of you people don't play with "Smite" or even "Outsiders" because, beside alignments being a guiding force on what a character will or will not do, Smite Evil does additional damage against "Evil" aligned entities. Also, if the Paladin (who we all know very well is LAWFUL GOOD) does anything that isn't true and just, he loses his powers. Alignment usage in D&D is important for hundreds of reasons, not just so the DM can say, "A Neutral Good Fighter would never steal candy from a baby."

Why am I even posting this? Obviously these words will fall on the deaf ears of people who never even bothered to read the "Alignment Rules". That's like saying, "Do Deities even matter?" Of course they friggen do moron. How else do Clerics get spells? Pixie Farts? (although there are a rare few cases that this actually happens, still not the point)

 

[UnholyD]

Now what if your actions are consistent with everything he has been taught to believe but the DM thinks differently. Are you still so sanguine? You honestly believe you have done nothing wrong but "adjudicated" anyway.

Still perfectly acceptable?

Oh and could you answer the question? Would you play your paladin differently in a game with no mechanical alignment?

I have a buddy who plays in a regular game where the DM has let a non-mechanical alignment system be used. Care to guess how the Paladin the party acts? He lies, cheats, and steals more than the Rogue in party does and the Rogue is a catburglar. Why you might be asking? Because he won't be punished for acting out of alignment as the non-mechanical alignment system dictates he can't.
There are asshats out there who will take advantage of every situation a DM allows them and without an alignment system (even a relatively fast and loose one), they'll play a Paladin who does bad things, a Druid who burns down forests, or a Barbarian who won't cross the street unless there is a clearly defined crosswalk.
Alignments work and are necessary to a point. Don't for a second believe otherwise.

 

[The Human Target]

Why does it matter if a Paladin lies?

 

[pemerton]

So did they loose the skill challenge or win? In other words what mechanical resolution of the SC (failure or success) allowed you to take away his character build resources? Again this was one of the main focuses of discussion when you first presented this example and you never stated it was taken as part of the SC until much later in the conversation.

They won the skill challenge.

To win a skill challenge requires making skill checks.

Making skill checks requires locating the PC within the fictional position - the situation - framed by the GM.

In this particular case, I stated that - the last bit of machinery having been destroyed - the Soul Abattoir started to collapse. One of the players - of the paladin, I think, who had (as a Questing Knight) just completed his quest of the last 10 or so levels - said "Cool!" The players as a group started to consider how they might escape etc. I asked whether they were running, whether anyone was trying to hold back the flow of soul energy, etc. The player of the invoker decided that his PC would make a Religion check to try and do this; the player of the fighter decided to have his PC stay back and try and shield him. The others ran/flew out.

I then invited the player of the invoker to make an Insight check. He succeeded. He therefore noticed that Vecna, acting through the invoker's imp and its/Vecna's Eye, was diverting the soul energy away from the Raven Queen. I asked him whether, with his Religion success, he wanted to let Vecna have the soul energy or send it to the Raven Queen. He chose the Raven Queen. The consequence was that Vecna punished him as best he could, by shutting down his imp.

I did not explicitly state the stakes in advance of the player making his choice - we don't always play so formally, when the stakes are fairly obvious as in this case. But the player was not at all surprised that Vecna should strike down the traitor imp. What else is going to happen when Vecna is using your imp as a vector for his power, and you thwart him?

Really??? I'm not about to go back through the thread to pick out specific examples, but you've constantly harped on this point concerning both N'raac and myself.

It's hard not to when you choose to use words like punish as oppose to a more neutral term like judge or even arbitrate

I have used those words - especially "judge" and "judgement". I haven't talked much about punishment. The only reason I hypothesised that [MENTION=6681948]N'raac[/MENTION] used alignment mechanics to deal with baby-throat-tearing paladins was he kept brining up the example, so I assumed it must have some relevance to his play experience. (It has no relevance to mine. If it has no relevance to his either, then why keep brining it up?)

Wait a minute are you claiming that the cleric throughout numerous editions has not been more warrior than priest?

Well, one of the level titles for fighters in both Moldvay Basic and AD&D is "warrior". And one of those for cleric is "priest". Maybe those words were being used in some non-standard fashion?

Anyway, I have posted numerous times that the classic D&D cleric and the AD&D paladin are basically the same archetype - a heavily armoured holy warrior called to the divine. And in 4e both the STR cleric (and the Essentials WIS cleric) and the paladin are this same archetype. All are modelled after mediaeval warrior-saints like the crusading orders, Arthur, Lancelot, Aragorn etc. Taken at that level of generality, there is nothing to choose between them. But in that case there is no more need to place an alignment restriction on the paladin than on the cleric.

But to the extent that the archetypes have different mechanical instantiations, the paladin has always been more of a warrior: better THACO (prior to 4e, at least), better hp, fewer miracles per day. So once you factor in the mechanical details, then I prefer to play a paladin. Over time, the cleric has also accreted a degree of priestliness - even AD&D clerics gain followers as if they were preachers leading a congregation - that has little appeal to me personally. Again, this is a reason for me to favour the paladin.

In other word - taken at the level of archetype, the (trad/STR) cleric and paladin are the same, and there is no greater need for one than the other to have special alignment rules. And taken at the level of mechanical implementation, the paladin is more warrior-ish than the cleric, and less of a miracle worker, which is what I prefer. And I am not interested in playing a cleric rather than a paladin - and so moving my emphasis slightly from warrior to miracle worker - just to avoid irritating alignment rules. If the cleric version of the archetype can work without alignment - which it can - then so can the paladin version.

What mechanical effect represents that pledge in the game?

Other than a whole suite of powers, none. It is part of the fiction. Hence part of the paladin's fictional positioning. In some games that matters; perhaps in others it doesn't. I don't have advice for the latter; I play a version of the former, and I haven't found the absence of mechanical alignment makes it hard for the players of the paladins in my game (one literally a paladin, the other a fighter/cleric) to play their PCs as pledged to higher powers.

A 4e paladin is not under any mechanical reasons for behaving like a paladin.

<snip>

People who play paladins in 4e do so because they want to play paladins. Not because playing a paladin is any sort of advantage. Why choose the archetype and then not play it? There's no advantage. Min max gamist play doesn't enter into it.

<snip>

IOW you don't need mechanical alignment in order to play moralistic characters.

This all fits with my experience 100%.

I don't think you can vouch for why everyone who has ever chosen a paladin plays one.

I think Hussar is probably talking about the people he actually plays with. I know that I am.

I like mechanics that actually reinforce the fiction of being beholden to something <snippage> using them to reinforce said fictional positioning in my game.

your last bit about being beholden is why I characterize your views of mechanical alignment as using alignment to punish errant players.

I agree with Hussar, to the extent that I don't see how the mechanics can reinforce the fiction of being beholden unless the player is subject to the possibility of the GM judging an action declared for his/her PC to be evil, and inflicting punishment as a consequence.

I just don't get that experience with the do whatever you want, it's ok, paladin.

Who's game do you think this describes? Mine? Hussar's? I have expressly denied that this describes my game. I think Hussar has at least by implication made the same denial.

There's some weird assumption here, that unless the players are told what they may or may not do by the GM, they will be incapable of exercising any discipline or self-control, and will just play their PCs like some wild id.

not everyone plays like you. For some the point is the mechanics, whether that is for hybriding, multi-classing or being in the class just to reach a particular paragon path or epic destiny (since people can start above level 1) that is rated highly and they could care less about thematic underpinnings as opposed to optimizing

So is part of the reason that you like alignment because it stops players from doing this?

 

[S'mon]

People who play paladins in 4e do so because they want to play paladins. Not because playing a paladin is any sort of advantage. Why choose the archetype and then not play it? There's no advantage. Min max gamist play doesn't enter into it.

It would be like playing a wizard but choosing to wear armor and use a sword. Sure you can do it but why bother? Why not play a fighter?

IOW you don't need mechanical alignment in order to play moralistic characters.

That's been my experience with 4e Paladins, yes - the players have always chosen to play LG Paladins, and they have played them very well, with no GM intervention or oversight needed. They
resemble literary paladins more closely than the paladins I've seen in other editions.
One factor might be that loot is less important in 4e, especially when using Inherent
bonuses. But I do see mercenary, loot-oriented PCs and players, eg the Slayer PC in my
group. They just don't play Paladins.

edit: IOW, treat people as adults and they'll behave as adults.

I also like it that a 4e player can play a lying cheating scumbag Paladin if they want, and the GM is ok with such characters in the game. They could be a Paladin of Cyric in FR, say, or maybe one of the Evil gods in core 4e (Bane, Vecna, Asmodeus are all possibilities). It wouldn't do any violence to the setting.