Do alignments improve the gaming experience?

[D'karr]

So, if you don't use alignment, what if the player does something else controversial? Suppose something really illegal in the setting locale or insulting to some power? Do you tell them they're likely going to encounter difficulties then? And what if they disagree? That's not any different, ultimately, other than in the specifics. PC acts, GM imposes consequences.

Let's put is this way. I have never in 30+ years of games, and with at least 9 paladin characters in my games, had one of them not play the paladin as an honorable, just and compassionate warrior dedicated to their cause in some way. What I have never had to do is spend "mental overhead" calculating/tracking every one of their moves, and evaluating it against some esoterical cosmic force. To "force" them to comply to "my" vision of right or wrong, good or evil, black or white. They do a pretty good job of evaluating that themselves during play and with no coaxing from me. "Throat ripping, baby eating paladins" are mostly strawmen used to attempt to justify the need for some rather poorly designed "rules".

Have they insulted some "power"? Well the current dragonborn paladin is being hunted, along with the rest of the group, for defying the fomorian king. Some slavelords would also like to get payback on them for thwarting their plans. Those are all consequences for their actions within the game world. What they are not are "evaluative judgements", made solely by me, to determine whether the paladin destroying a support column that brought down a cave on top of some villains, as well as quite a bit of slaves was an "evil" act worthy of "punishment" by the "god figure". The player made a decision for his character and acted on it. The player also brought to the forefront the "guilt his paladin feels" at the loss of innocent life. He made it a point to recover as many bodies from the wreckage as he could - to give them a proper burial and "allow their safe and peaceful passage to the shadowlands". His words not mine. He even tried to make restitution to some of the families of the victims he encountered. That action would have been impeded in my campaign by the use of 'mechanical alignment'.

With mechanical alignment as stipulated in n'raac's options, if I had deemed the act knowingly evil, then either the player would have needed to (a) change course and not done the act, (b) discussed it with me to reach a satisfactory resolution to me, (c) done the evil act and not be a paladin any longer, or (d) not played "my concept" of a paladin at all.

This is clearly why 'mechanical alignment' is not palatable to me, and others.

For my campaign, dragonborn, along with minotaurs and tieflings are accepted into society "around the edges". But they are mostly distrusted as they were the main "villains" in the past. Does that make them automatically "evil"? Some might argue that it does. I don't care, as I don't use mechanical alignment. The player made a conscious decision to play a "distrusted race", and to play an "exemplar" of justice specifically to play against type and explore those complications. How do I know? Because the player has said so on multiple occasions. So does this character have an incentive to go and do something illegal, or controversial? No. I have an obligation to keep the "fire under him" and put those "temptations" in his path. To allow the possibility of what the player wanted to explore. The player has on more than one occasion put the character into situations where the PC could have done something that would have been expedient. He didn't do so "because it was not honorable". Did he have a "godhammer" poised over his head signalling don't do that, that way leads evil? No, because I don't use mechanical alignment. The character made the "honorable" decision because the player wants to explore those things from the perspective of an honorable character. No alignment involvement required. The player has said he wants to explore "the plight of the dragonborn". Interestingly enough when he is presented with situations that "explore" that aspect, he acts in the way he has said he wanted to act - against the "villainous" dragonborn stereotype. Those situations were more interesting because there was not a prescripted solution handed by me, as DM, from "up above". They were specifically more interesting because the conflict was entirely internal to the PC, as played out by the player - with no "godhammer" involvement from the DM.

These types of threads, not your post in particular billd91, seem to always revolve around "what ifs", and strawman examples. And they presume at some level that 'mechanical alignment' is needed, or else players will "misbehave". Since that has not been my experience even when not using 'mechanical alignment', I can't agree.

 

[Manbearcat]

1) You were not very clear. As this

<snip>

is not the same as this.

<snip>

What I wanted the takeaway from the first to be was to capture the extreme margin of error inherent to such an undertaking (versus, say, framing a more mundane conflict around a perilous mountain climb and its potential physical fallout). Just as when you put a variable of unknown quantity and lack of calibrated, predicted effect into a model, the results will diverge dramatically from model run to model run due to the proliferation of that chaos (even with other phenomenon heavily constrained). In this case, due to that margin of error, peoples' takes (in this case the GM and PCs, or table to table) are likely to diverge wildly and perhaps not even remain consistent from conflict to conflict. We've seen that in this thread, we've seen that in the other concurrent Paladin thread, and we see it in every other one.

So again, while I can be as confident as the day is long (and assertive in the same proportion), it doesn't matter when my peers possess the same confidence, the same acumen (and the same assertiveness) and dispute my hypothesis. Its the deeply unconstrained variable, and our mutual inability to constrain it, affecting the greater system (even if all else is tightly constrained) that is the problem.

Thanks for the druid example. How do you think alignment would have affected your DMing of it?

You're welcome.

That is easy. If alignment would have forced me (with nebulous, hand-wavey values statements - that are often internally in conflict) to take account of the conflict fallout and enforce my position on the value questions of Civilized Overseer vs Untamed Natural Order, it would have made for an objectively worse game for all parties. And a more predictable one. The standard bearer is that the Druid should be a champion of the Untamed Natural Order. If my takeaway from each conflict was that she was a poor steward and thus the primal spirits should turn on her (and then I made that happen), she wouldn't have been happy (to be sure), and the game would have just produced the same, nuance-neutral, druid tropes of beating back civilization with a stick (pun intended).

As it played out, we actually had a lot of interesting questions answered, in play, about just how malignant an alleged neutral entity (and its industry) can be when it goes unchecked. The philosophy she began with was very much akin to "any oversight or stewardship by civilzation is likely deleterious to nature's expansion and destructive to the natural order" and evolved to something more akin to what (since Batman is envogue) Raz'al'gul said to Bruce Wayne; "the purging wildfire is inevitable and natural but mostly serves to destroy more than it creates...but the controlled burn, managed by responsible stewards, assures that the natural order doesn't consume itself nor the people who border/inhabit it." If I felt that nuance was rubbish and a Druid can only take extreme views that encapsulate "only the strong survive" and "the purging wildfire restores natural order", ideas that only value untamed nature, the game would have been worse for it (and our time). And the problem is, is that view is completely legitimate (and held by all manner of people...and plenty of natural scientists).

 

[Nagol]

<snip>

That is easy. If alignment would have forced me (with nebulous, hand-wavey values statements - that are often internally in conflict) to take account of the conflict fallout and enforce my position on the value questions of Civilized Overseer vs Untamed Natural Order, it would have made for an objectively worse game for all parties. And a more predictable one. The standard bearer is that the Druid should be a champion of the Untamed Natural Order. If my takeaway from each conflict was that she was a poor steward and thus the primal spirits should turn on her (and then I made that happen), she wouldn't have been happy (to be sure), and the game would have just produced the same, nuance-neutral, druid tropes of beating back civilization with a stick (pun intended).

As it played out, we actually had a lot of interesting questions answered, in play, about just how malignant an alleged neutral entity (and its industry) can be when it goes unchecked. The philosophy she began with was very much akin to "any oversight or stewardship by civilzation is likely deleterious to nature's expansion and destructive to the natural order" and evolved to something more akin to what (since Batman is envogue) Raz'al'gul said to Bruce Wayne; "the purging wildfire is inevitable and natural but mostly serves to destroy more than it creates...but the controlled burn, managed by responsible stewards, assures that the natural order doesn't consume itself nor the people who border/inhabit it." If I felt that nuance was rubbish and a Druid can only take extreme views that encapsulate "only the strong survive" and "the purging wildfire restores natural order", ideas that only value untamed nature, the game would have been worse for it (and our time). And the problem is, is that view is completely legitimate (and held by all manner of people...and plenty of natural scientists).

I disagree mechanical alignment must need constrain in the way you envision. One area of my D&D campaign has two sets of druids effectively at war over whether to rehabilitate The Sea of Dust (I use the maps from Greyhawk).

The "green" druids believe it is an abomination caused by the folly of Man and should be nurtured back to fertile land. Rehabilitation is necessary to atone for the desecration.
The "gray" druids see it as a unique and fragile eco-system with as much right to exist and evolve as any other. The original folly would only be compounded by attempting to deliberately alter it. Further, wholesale rehabilitation would erase the testament and warning the Sea provides all those who behold it.

Both groups are composed of druids with all (legal) druidical alignments.

 

[N'raac]

Because (putting to one side dirty hands situations, which this isn't) no rational person chooses evil? Which you seem to recognise when you say "maintaining an alignment would be a source of theme and conflict for the character." If it makes no difference whether good or evil is chosen, where would the theme and conflict come from?

So all villains in your game are either irrational or misunderstood? Which one do Demon Lords and Acrh Devils fall into? You have previously noted, I believe, that the Duergar pay homage to Devils, and that they are Evil. Does that mean the object of their worship is irrational? Does that not also judge their worship as irrational?

Then again, you've both nicely illustrated why you can't have any shades of grey. After all, according to you now the DM is supposed to up front tell you that you are wrong.

The GM bears a responsibility to see those shades of grey. Once we accept there are, in fact, shades of grey, then we recognize that many acts are neither Good nor Evil. From the SRD:

"Good" implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others.

So, is leaving Ra’s al Ghul to die (yes, btw, that is the correct spelling…) a Good act? I would say that it is not, in and of itself, a Good act. It reflects none of the above implications.

"Evil" implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master.

Well, is it an Evil act, then? I would say no. There was no infliction of harm. In defending innocent people earlier in the film, Bats did far more hurting of others than he did here, and I can’t imagine classifying defending the innocent as an evil act. So why would I judge this an evil act?
What is left is neutral. And, where there are indeed shades of grey, that is the ruling I would expect from a reasonable GM following the alignment rules.
So what does that say about Batman?

Good characters and creatures protect innocent life. Evil characters and creatures debase or destroy innocent life, whether for fun or profit.

Seems like Bats falls squarely into that Good description. One single act does not determine alignment. Mind you, Ra’s was not motivated by fun or profit in his actions, was he? Perhaps he should not be judged Evil, but his willingness to sacrifice innocent life to achieve his ends clearly prevents Good. Seems like Neutral – like that Druid who believes that Nature should overcome Civilization.

This is the type of "rules lawyering" that I would normally expect from someone that is not familiar with the basic structures of the game. I could see a new DM, unfamiliar with "guidelines not rules", might make a ruling like that. A player that feels slighted or is afraid of the consequences might argue a "rule" like that. Since the player seems satisfied with how the outcome of the encounter went, I don't think @pemerton has anything to worry about. If this is really about the game mechanics of the situation I can't find anything in the examples given to lend any weight to the argument.

Yet alignment cannot, it seems, be viewed as a guideline. The GM must, so some on this thread suggest, classify each act as Good or Evil, and can never permit a Paladin who commits an evil act to regain his status, for this would violate the rules. Why are those rules so hard and fast if we are to apply alignment, but in all other cases they are merely guidelines?
In any case, I will reiterate, no one is saying that @pemerton’s GMing was bad. We (those arguing against his interpretation) are stating we find it inconsistent with his prior statements regarding sanctity of player control over PC resources, and that it was not an application of mechanics but a GM fiat. Not an invalid, inappropriate, badwrongfun or bad GMing fiat, but a fiat nonetheless, despite his insistence it falls squarely within the mechanical rules.

I don't see what class feature has been removed indefinitely or permanently. Familiars that are damaged usually "go offline". Under normal circumstances they come "back online" after a rest.

The manner in which the familiar was damaged remains, in my view, outside the rules which @pemerton has cited to defend the action. The player did not volunteer to sacrifice the familiar in the course of the skill challenge. Neither did he activate it, making it susceptible to damage in the course of the skill challenge. It acted entirely on its own initiative. Are there, in fact, rules for the PC’s familiar to act entirely on its own initiative, even to oppose the will of the PC (who, I believe, was required to oppose the familiar’s efforts to direct souls to Vecna?
Did prior play, including the artifact, support this happening? Absolutely. It still happened by GM fiat, and removed a resource of the character. @pemerton noted some time back that he doesn’t believe he will apply the usual rule that a damaged familiar recovers after a short rest. I believe he has indicated he has not decided how long it will take to recover. That seems to fall squarely within the term “indefinite”.
In any case, @permerton has indicated he dislikes mechanical alignment because it results in player resources being stripped away as a consequence of GM fiat/judgment. As such, I would expect him to dislike any rule which permits similar results, not to apply them to achieve such results, much less depart from the mechanical rules to fiat such a result.

In ratio/degree losing a familiar (minor feature) for a very finite time, or even forever, does not begin to compare to losing your paladinhood (main feature).

Agreed 100%. I have stated numerous times that the issue I have is that the play example indicates, to me, that the issue is not one of absolutes – that it is a poor rule which allows a player resource to be stripped away based on moral decisions, by GM fiat – but one of degree – including the extent of abilities removed and the duration of their unavailability. Thank you for stating my case in that regard so eloquently.

I'm the player. I have come up with my character concept, which I'm keen on playing. I'm a paladin of justice, I punish wrong doers. I have dedicated my life to honing my senses to the pursuit of justice. I will call my character Murcielago.

Step Zero. The onus was on the GM, at the outset, to make it clear that, in his game, Mercy is always considered to rank in priority to Justice in the eyes of the powers of Good. If this is the case, a Paladin of Justice would always be at risk of falling as he metes out Justice, so a Paladin of Justice would not fit in the GM’s setting. Just as @pemerton indicated my hypothetical character who honours the Raven Queen by seeing that people meet their fated end at the appointed time (despite him appearing to be a random homocidal maniac to the real world) would be a poor fit for his game. It’s no different than telling the proposed Priestess of Beauty that self-mutilation does not fit the deity’s concept of “beauty”.
If the GM does not consider Mercy to always override Justice, then I find it difficult to see how the character’s action would be an Evil Act. And if it is not an Evil Act, the entire issue goes away.

Finally, you are playing your character. You are not, however, playing his deity, nor the Cosmic Wheel which Judges Good or Evil. You have the choice of taking whatever actions you wish. You do not have the choice of classifying them as “good” or “evil”.
The very fact that we assert it would be inappropriate for the character to lose his Paladinhood over the act in question indicates that we do not consider the act itself to be Evil.

a mechanical equivalence of "familiar out until next short rest (which is basically immediately post Skill Challenge)" and "Paladin has lost all of his divine powers (the stuff that renders him an actual Paladin) until an atonement quest is fulfilled."

Both remove a character build resource for some period of time, reducing the player’s ability to impact the fiction. Both occur outside the regular action resolution mechanics (although @pemerton continues to assert otherwise). And I note that he has specifically said the familiar will not be back after the next short rest. This, to me, was a major complaint made against the alignment rules.

That one is much more severe than the other indicates that the question is not whether such rules are all bad, but that whether they are bad depends on the degree of impact on the player’s ability to impact the fiction, and not whether that impact is reduced at all.

Further, with respect to the passive/active state of Familiars, my sense has always been that "passive" and "active" are merely keywords for rules adjudication in combat. It allows for players to move the Familiars (PC build components) from background color ("look at my cool floating sword!") to an actual moving part in the theater of tactical combat ("my floating sword hammers against their defenses, allowing me to move to a more advantageous position after my attack - Shift 1") while putting it at risk.

At no point in the example provided did the player invoke the familiar in any way as a part within the theater of tactical combat. Nevertheless, it was held to be at risk, and was in fact removed from play for an indefinite period, by the GM alone. And, again, @pemerton has been quite clear that the usual rule that the familiar is OK after a short rest will not be the case in this instance. Not that there is no time for a short rest, but that a short rest will not recover the familiar.

Thank you, by the way, for an excellent summary of how the discussion has fragmented, and an opportunity to clarify.

For myself I would not view this action as evil. Given the series of events that led up to this - Batman continually asks Raz to consider his actions, to change his view and Raz on every single occasion rejects Batman's pleas.

This, I think, is what makes the example problematic. The real question is not “does this make alignment rules bad” so much as “is this a reasonable application of the alignment rules”. @Hussar, are you suggesting YOU would rule the act was evil? If so, can you set out your reasoning in light of the descriptions of “Evil” provided by whichever rule set you consider it to come from?

In a D&D milieu, the Paladin will be expected to fight and kill foes regularly. Within that milieu, I find it very difficult to consider a refusal to take action to save an endangered foe to be an evil act. If, on the other hand, his creed was honour, and honour said that a foe should be slain only in combat, and a defeated foe was entitled to protection, that would seem a much greater dilemma. Yet you have indicated you have no difficulty evaluating a concept such as honour.

Actually it is within the rules. I did quote it a while back, so yeah its not like we remember everything. 2e DMG page 28

Unconscious change
If the DM suspects that the player believes his character is acting within his alignment, the DM should warn the player that his character alignment is coming into question. An unconscious alignment change SHOULD NOT surprise the player - not completely anyway.

So, basically, another “the alignment rules are bad” argument turns out to actually be “the alignment rules were not actually followed”.

This is a red herring in that the outcome of the discussion will still boil down to (a) that's evil, (b) that's not evil - because I said so. If this thread, and countless others, is an example of how that discussion ends it is not a good example of concise/precise rules. Alignment is arguably one, if not the most, contentious set of "rules" in the game. I find no desire to spend time arguing morality questions at the table, so I don't use mechanical alignment. In this case the "rules" are still an impediment. The "fact" that I can argue against them is not even relevant. BTW, this use of a "discussion" is even not part of some versions of the game. In 1e, for example, the DM tracked alignment secretly for each player. So there was not even the possibility of a discussion.

I think you dismiss reasonable discussion entirely too readily. A reasonable case by the player as to why he does not view the proposed action as “Evil” ought not to be lightly dismissed. The player’s viewpoint is also relevant.

And if the disagreement remains, how is that markedly different from us having different views as to how a given spell, feat, class feature or skill should apply in the game. Ultimately, a ruling will be made, and it will bind my character, as well as the rest of the game world.

The character has free will. He does not get to dictate whether his actions are good or evil, he only has the free will to choose between them. That seems very consistent, in my view, to the real world vision of free will held by many religions.

I was hoping n'raac was being facetious when he put this one in that list of options. This is the only one that I would put in the category of bad DMing. Still not a bonus to my desires for a game.

Yes and no. Would you allow my Paladin of the God of Fate and Death, who expresses his devotion by cutting the Thread of Life of those he encounters at the appropriate and fated time? Is he Good? Does he get to cut down, say, the barmaid because “My Lady, the Raven Queen, spake unto me in a vision, and bade me ensure that yonder lady’s time ended as was Fated. All Praise the Raven Queen – let us pray.” and I get to dictate that he’s right? Or is the player’s vision for their character not 100% sacred?

Leavings aside the 4e trappings for a moment, if the God of Death is neutral or evil in a game where Paladins must be Good, can a player still dictate that he will play a Paladin of the God of Death (say, Hades, or Hela), or does the setting preclude such a character? May I play a Warforged in a game where the race does not exist?

I think there are constraints on what characters are allowed.

Let's put is this way. I have never in 30+ years of games, and with at least 9 paladin characters in my games, had one of them not play the paladin as an honorable, just and compassionate warrior dedicated to their cause in some way.

Given you have never had a Paladin commit an evil act, nor have you had one stray from his chosen alignment, why do you find a penalty for one which does to be so appalling? It seems like it’s just a hypothetical in your games anyway.

 

[N'raac]

What I wanted the takeaway from the first to be was to capture the extreme margin of error inherent to such an undertaking (versus, say, framing a more mundane conflict around a perilous mountain climb and its potential physical fallout).

Do you not have to exercise judgment in setting the DCs required to succeed in the climb? GM’s do seem to differ markedly as to the DC of various tasks, often with the view that it should be “a challenge” to the skilled character conflicting with the view that the character is so skilled as to be difficult or impossible to challenge in his field of expertise.

To the druid example, this seems less a matter of alignment and more one of allegiances or faith. I doubt the Nature Deity found favour in her actions, and a Druid worshipping the God of Civilization seems a bit off to me, but I don’t see an alignment issue in that regard.

It seems an excellent example of deities of identical alignment having completely different viewpoints, showing that alignment is not a straightjacket.

 

[pemerton]

This is the type of "rules lawyering" that I would normally expect from someone that is not familiar with the basic structures of the game.

<snip>

I don't see what class feature has been removed indefinitely or permanently. Familiars that are damaged usually "go offline". Under normal circumstances they come "back online" after a rest. Taking damage during a skill challenge is a pretty normal thing. Not being able to regain healing surges is a pretty normal thing mechanically. Changing the pacing of the game by many varied methods is a pretty normal thing to do for experienced DMs. So mechanically I don't see anything weird in all of this.

A player raising the stakes by implanting the Eye of Vecna on their character's familiar, which was granted by Levistus to "balance the equation" - awesome roleplay. Taking out their own eye, in a weird sort of ocular solidarity - beautiful. Knowingly setting the stakes even higher by "thwarting" Vecna - even more awesome. Vecna angered by the character's action and taking action through his own Eye - priceless.

<snip>

Losing a familiar for a few minutes, hours, days was the outcome of the "risk taken" based on the player knowingly deciding to set himself up against Vecna's goals (the stake). The outcome could have been favorable or negative that is what playing a stake does, and it emerges from play. The other outcome is that Vecna did not get what he wanted. I might call that a positive in many circumstances.

<snip>

In ratio/degree losing a familiar (minor feature) for a very finite time, or even forever, does not begin to compare to losing your paladinhood (main feature). But at the core level, which is really the point, what pemerton has said is that in one instance (his game) the player gets to see the outcome of what the player is interested in seeing (stake => reward/loss). And more importantly to do this the DM doesn't have to make evaluative judgements of whether the beliefs of that character are right or wrong, good or evil, black or white.

It's reassuring to know that I'm not some crazy guy whose view of his experiences is completely delusional!

The above is 100% what I've been trying to convey for the past many posts.

As far as I know pemerton is the only one that has provided actual game play examples from his table.

[MENTION=6701124]Cadence[/MENTION] also gave some actual play examples. I think he is the only one who has done that on the "pro-alignment" side.

With mechanical alignment as stipulated in n'raac's options, if I had deemed the act knowingly evil, then either the player would have needed to (a) change course and not done the act, (b) discussed it with me to reach a satisfactory resolution to me, (c) done the evil act and not be a paladin any longer, or (d) not played "my concept" of a paladin at all.

This is clearly why 'mechanical alignment' is not palatable to me, and others.

Agreed.

N'raac <snip> mentions that alignment doesn't detract from roleplay. That is his stance, whereas the non-alignment side said it does impede their play. So the onus is on the non-alignment crowd to prove otherwise

This is nonsense. I am not trying to prove that mechanical alignment hurts your game. I am explaining how it hurts mine. Hence, [MENTION=6681948]N'raac[/MENTION]'s view that it is not a problem for him is of no relevance, because N'raac is not me. Furthermore, it's obvious from this and other threads that the sort of game N'raac runs and enjoys bears little resemblance to the sort of game I run and enjoy. So why would what he enjoys be of any relevance to what I enjoy?

for characters in the campaign to be their sole arbiters on their morality removes a certain immersion from play at least for me and my group.

No one has argued for this. No one has said that the character is the sole arbiter. They have said that the player gets to judge what it means to live up to the PC's professed values.

As a DM I say go ahead, but your character's vision should not infringe on the vision of the Deity you choose to serve within the setting.

<snip>

The definition of justice will be your character's own, why do you need to explore it? Don't you already know it?

And here is where we can see, crystal clear, your statement of an approach to RPGing that is very different from mine, and I think [MENTION=336]D'karr[/MENTION]'s (to whom you were replying).

If a player chooses to serve a god who is the exemplar of a value, then in my game there is no "vision of that deity" separate from the player's conception of the value in question. And what is the player's conception? That will be explored in play. Part of good GMing, for me at least (and I believe als D'karr) is framing situations that put the player's conception to the test.

As to the "don't you already know it?" - not at all!

Here is an illustration, from p 15 of the Burning Wheel Adventure Burner (authored by Luke Crane):

Let's say you have a Belief that states "I will liberate Dro from his burden". You're going to steal Dro's stuff because yo think he's a *******, and you need to eat and pay rent. So you . . . get close to him. Later, you meet him and realise he's got troubles, too. You sympathize. You . . . tease his problems out of him. . . [Y[ou discover that he's a terrible person. One of his burdens is, in fact, that he was the one who had your family killed. . . o you play yor Belief to its final iteration: You will remove his ultimate burden - his cold, dead soul.​

My view is that, if the players already know at the start of play what their PCs' belies require, and how they will utimately answer the demands to which they are called, then what is the point of play?

The DM informs the player that perhaps during his scripture readings, or his time at the temple/monastery he learned the tenets on his faith and one of the examples was such an example (do you leave the bad guy to die), maybe it was a question asked by a student there, perhaps as the paladin is about to leave he gets a mental pang, does he ignore it? It can be roleplayed, it can be given as backstory or knowledge or it can be as flat as you have described it above.

This is basically the opposite of how I want to play the game. If the GM is informing the player what is required to live up to his/her desired archetype, what is the player doing? It seems like the player is basically dancing to the GM's script - or else has to abandon his/her desired archetype. For me, that makes for a bad game, and the fact that you and N'raac enjoy it doesn't change that fact about me.

Pemerton whether he follows the rules or not <snip> was using DM fiat to judge the PC's actions.

I did not judge the PC's actions. I did not judge the PC to have done the right thing or the wrong thing. What I did do is force the player to choose between the Raven Queen and Vecna. That is an example of "putting the player's conception of values, and of his/her PC, to the test."

pemerton used DM fiat to roleplay his deity's actions, and the alignment crowd uses DM fiat to roleplay deity actions when dissatisfied with their servants.

I didn't just decide that Vecna was dissatisfied with his "servant". The player deliberately set out to thwart Vecna, and I adjudicated the consequence of Vecna's wrath.

That bears no resemblance to a player declaring an action believing it to be compliant with his/her PC's code and obligations, and the GM advising him/her otherwise. Which is what you and [MENTION=6681948]N'raac[/MENTION] are saying makes for good play.

they are merely pointing out what we consider to be evaluative judgments on his part

Where is the evaluative judgement? Where have I told the player that he did or did not make the right choice?

I've told him he angered Vecna. But that has no bearing on whether or not he did the right thing, because he never believed that he was serving Vecna or Vecna's values in making the choice that he did.

Why is it irrational to choose evil? I think elementary game theory dispenses with that assumption pretty quickly.

No.

Game theory is, in one sense, amoral. Or, alternatively, one could say that it posits that the only good for an agent is satisfaction of that agent's preferences. The way that you use game theoretic analysis to model moral choice is to posit that an agent's preferences including upholding moral requirements. Once you include morality in the game theoretic model in that way, an agent who knows that an action is evil will not prefer it and hence won't choose it.

But I also don't think game theory is a very useful model for understanding the paladin class. Game theoretic analysis might make more sense for understanding modernist fantasy, like REH's Conan, but as I've already posted upthread, it is not a coincidence that REH has no paladins and no clerics, only sorcerers, warlocks and the like.

So, if you don't use alignment, what if the player does something else controversial? Suppose something really illegal in the setting locale or insulting to some power? Do you tell them they're likely going to encounter difficulties then? And what if they disagree? That's not any different, ultimately, other than in the specifics. PC acts, GM imposes consequences.

If a PC does a thing that various NPCs disagree with, then consequences might ensue. The difference from mechanical aligment is that this doesn't invovle the GM telling the player that s/he was wrong in the value s/he imputed to his/her choice.

A corollary of this is that, if the player of a paladin or cleric makes a choice that s/he believes serves the value to which the divinity is devoted, I as GM will not second guess that.

And to relate that to the Vecna example: on that occassion the player did not believe that his PC was serving Vecna and the value of secrecy. He had decided to have his PC thwart Vecna!

Clarity. Same reason you'd tell the player about the consequences of other decisions they're making like trying to jump a 30 foot gap without a running start when the GM knows that's certain failure. To avoid misunderstandings.

But this begs the question. The only reason I would have to tell a player I disapprove of one of their choices was if I was going to punish them for it. Once I take away the punishment, there is no need to inform them.

I think it is a premise of a table-top RPG that physical actions will have physical consequences - which is your jump example. But it is not inherent to table-top RPGing that the moral character of actions have GM-mandated consequences, and as I have said at some length I am not interested in that. One reason, though not the main reason, is that it seems somewhat condescending to purport to give my peers authoritative advice on the moral character of their choices.

In other words, this:

In alignment I'm telling the player that he is playing his character wrong and I know better.

I agree. To be fair, [MENTION=85555]Bedrockgames[/MENTION] has outlined an alternative approach, where I am not telling the player that s/he is wrong but rather advising her on what good and evil mean within this particular fiction. I don't think that is condescending, it's just pushing the game in a direction I'm personally not interested in: of exploring the GM's ideas about possible relationships between various values, rather than actually exploring those values.

 

[pemerton]

So all villains in your game are either irrational or misunderstood?

My game doesn't have "villains". It has characters, including deities, whom the playes choose to have their PCs oppose. Are some of those character's irrational? Probably - I think that is true for Torog. Lolth, also, is probably to some extent a victim of weakness of will, who has then indulged in further self-justifying rationalisations.

But as a general rule these beings do not believe that they are choosing the wrong thing. They believe they are choosing the right thing. That is, they are not knowingly choosing to do evil.

You have previously noted, I believe, that the Duergar pay homage to Devils, and that they are Evil.

No. I have not noted that devils are evil. In case you've forgotten - I don't use mechanical alignment in my game. The duergar worship deviles, but this is (obviously) because they regard Asmodeus as worthy of veneration, because he helped their ancestors in a time of need.

if the God of Death is neutral or evil in a game where Paladins must be Good, can a player still dictate that he will play a Paladin of the God of Death (say, Hades, or Hela), or does the setting preclude such a character?

This question makes no sense for a table that doesn't use mechanical alignment.

The GM bears a responsibility to see those shades of grey. Once we accept there are, in fact, shades of grey, then we recognize that many acts are neither Good nor Evil.

The point of not using mecanical alignment is to extend the approach to play that you adopt within those "shades of grey" to the whole game. I have already made this point upthread, but I do not remember you commenting on it.

The character has free will. He does not get to dictate whether his actions are good or evil, he only has the free will to choose between them. That seems very consistent, in my view, to the real world vision of free will held by many religions.

Who is disupting this? The question is one of whether the player, or the GM, gets to decide what counts as honouring the PC's aspirations.

*********************

So, basically, another “the alignment rules are bad” argument turns out to actually be “the alignment rules were not actually followed”.

Actually, the 2nd ed alignment rules are contradictory. (Which [MENTION=6701124]Cadence[/MENTION] noted upthread, I think).

The PHB says "Only the GM knows for sure." The DMG says "If the DM suspects that the player believes his character is acting within his alignment, the DM should warn the player that his character alignment is coming into question. An unconscious alignment change SHOULD NOT surprise the player". How can these both be true? The closest to a resolution is in the coy phrase at the end of the DMG instructionL: " - not completely, anyway." What exactly does that mean? It certainly seems to leave open that the actual moment of enforced alignment change, and hence (for a paladin) class loss, might well come as a surprise to the player.

Yet alignment cannot, it seems, be viewed as a guideline. The GM must, so some on this thread suggest, classify each act as Good or Evil . . .

Actually, the key point that I and others have made is that the GM must ask of each act whether it is good, or evil, or neither. The fact that "neither" is a possible, perhaps typical, answer doesn't change the fact that the question must be asked and answered.

. . . and can never permit a Paladin who commits an evil act to retain his status, for this would violate the rules. Why are those rules so hard and fast if we are to apply alignment, but in all other cases they are merely guidelines?

If the paladin doesn't lose his/her status for committing an evil act, then in what way is the game even using mechanical alignment? At this point, what role is alignment actually playing in the game?

*********************

permerton has indicated he dislikes mechanical alignment because it results in player resources being stripped away as a consequence of GM fiat/judgment.

Can you please stop attributing o me views that I have not expressed! How many times do I have to ask?

we find it inconsistent with his prior statements regarding sanctity of player control over PC resources

<snip>

removed a resource of the character

<snip>

Both remove a character build resource for some period of time

Did you infer from those statements that I never have the PCs suffer damage? Or have their pockets picked?

The player has not had his/her feat taken away - which would be the relevant build resource. S/he has lost the use of an encounter power, which is a normal mechanical state of affairs in 4e.

You keep saying that it is "a matter of degree". If you think having a PC take damage from being hit is much the same as permanently rewriting the PC's class, or removing a feat from a PC, and differs only in degree, then I think you have a very different conception from me and most other D&D playes as to what it at stake in each of those cases.

The manner in which the familiar was damaged remains, in my view, outside the rules which pemerton has cited to defend the action. The player did not volunteer to sacrifice the familiar in the course of the skill challenge. Neither did he activate it, making it susceptible to damage in the course of the skill challenge. It acted entirely on its own initiative. Are there, in fact, rules for the PC’s familiar to act entirely on its own initiative, even to oppose the will of the PC (who, I believe, was required to oppose the familiar’s efforts to direct souls to Vecna?

I have mentioined the relevant rules: they refer to the GM exercising a "light touch". The passage quoted makes clear that this is a matter for negotiation between GM and player. I told you what was the case between me and my player, including that in an earlier recent session the familiar had activiated itself, turned invisible and stolen a ring for the PC from an NPC.

Why do you think you have better knowledge than me of what the two of us understand to be the scope of "light touch" here?

I also pointed out that the taking of damage, and the manipulation of recovery rates, is a standard part of the 4e mechanical appratus which a skill challenge can bring into play (you, quite wrongly and with no textual authority, are insisting that all such consequences must be chosen by the players). I even posted an example of a skill challenge which illustrated this (including illustrating that such consequences need not be chosen).

I also pointed to the Eye of Vecna mechanics, which canvass such things as ripping itself from the eyesocket at an inopportune time, or totally destroying its host.

These are the relevant mechanics. Which one(s) do you think I'm disregarding or not applying?

the usual rule that the familiar is OK after a short rest will not be the case in this instance.

The usual rule does not apply here. Much like in the skill challenge from a published module that I posted upthread, in which the usual rule for recovering an encounter power does not apply. Which is much like a disease, which can change the rate at which healing surges are recovered. Which is much like a wight, which can cause a healing surge to be lost even though the player has not chosen to expend it.

These sorts of drainings of recoverable resources and/or manipulations of recovery times are part and parcel of 4e play. In saying that they are "house rules" or "GM fiat" or outside the mechanics, you are simply displaying your unfamiliariaty with the basic features of 4e.

 

[Hussar]

Going back to the example of the god of beauty and the shader-kai character, in my game it would work like this;

Player: I want to play a shader-kai cleric of the god of beauty. I express that beauty by ritual scarification and piercing.

Me (DM): Hrm, that's a bit out there. But, I can see how someone can view this as an expression of beauty. Ok, show me what you got and lets run with it.

Which, to me, is far, far more interesting than;

Me (DM): Sorry, the PHB defines Beauty (the stand in for Good) as X. That's different from what you want. Try again and make your character conform to my definition of beauty please.

Yeah, no thanks.

And, to be honest, this is generally the problem I've run into with mechanical alignment on both sides of the screen.

Say you want to play a paladin. Well, if you stick to "What would Superman do?" then you're not likely going to have any problems at anyone's table. Pretty much everyone is going to agree with that version of a paladin. But, I remember reading an interesting Dragon Magazine article years ago titled, "Good doesn't mean boring". In the article they talked about playing different paladins and different archetypes. Instead of "What would Superman do?" maybe you use "What would Batman do?" as your guide. Now you have a paladin that is this terrifying figure that has pretty much nothing to do with the standard "Knight in shining armour" archetype but is a paladin nonetheless.

Someone mentioned Sparhawk from David Edding's novels as an archetype for a paladin and I 100% agree. But, in the very first scene we meet Sparhawk, he's looking for a stiff piece of wire he can use as a garrotte so he can quietly murder an enemy of the church without alerting anyone. Hardly something that's going to pass by mechanical alignment.

To me, and just so no one accuses me of speaking too broadly, I am only talking about myself, no one else and not meaning a judgement on anyone else's games (I hope that's clearly stated enough), mechanical alignment forces cookie cutter characters and shallow play where player creativity is squashed under the heel of DM's wanting to preserve their particular views of how the game should be.

 

[pemerton]

Given you have never had a Paladin commit an evil act, nor have you had one stray from his chosen alignment

[MENTION=336]D'karr[/MENTION] doesn't use mechanical alignment, so I doubt that either of those things is true of his (?) game.

This, I think, is what makes the example problematic. The real question is not “does this make alignment rules bad” so much as “is this a reasonable application of the alignment rules”.

To the druid example, this seems less a matter of alignment and more one of allegiances or faith.

What interesting questions of value are matters of alignment?

Also, what is the difference between alignment and "allegiance or faith", if the content of alignment judgements is exhausted by the opinions of deities adhering to those alignments?

Do you not have to exercise judgment in setting the DCs required to succeed in the climb?

You don't have to judge whether or not your players are doing the right thing, no.

 

[Cadence]

Finally had the time to flash back to #847...

(1) Players (and creatures and maybe societies) have "descriptive alignment" that's just a short hand summary of how they would generally act. No mechanical enforcement and should be updated whenever it changes. As @Pemerton noted, the creature/society part for the GM might be the most useful.
(2) Gods, outsiders, and divine concepts have a "cosmological alignment" that might be called Law, Good, Chaos, and Evil (or Order, Light, Entropy, and Darkness). These are pretty big tent and the gods in one of them don't all agree on anything except the extreme cases. They generally match up with the descriptive alignments. Characters getting powers from aligned gods (Paladins, Clerics, what not) have a "cosmological alignment" if their patron has one. The various alignment spells are based on cosmological alignment.
(3) Characters keep their cosmic alignment if their deity thinks they should. If they piss of their deity then they lose those powers until they atone. As the "anti-side" has noted, for any of the players any of us seem to have wanted to play with long-term, it sounds like the players are fully capable of deciding when that should happen (unless they want to turn that decision making over to the GM) . The alignment restrictions for the other classes are changed to involve cosmic alignments, with Druids being forbidden to have more than one, Barbarians forbidden from being Lawful, and Monks forbidden from being Chaotic

And so...

I've now reread your earlier post 652 and my reply 756. If you're confining "Detect X" to "Detect outsider or divine caster who serves Lord of ABC" that's less of an issue for me. I'm personally not sure that I want to play that game - it has the potential to be a little black hat/white hat for my taste, unless the various Lords are handled very deftly both in establishing the setting and in adjudicating it. The reason I say this is that, by framing your lords in that way, you are making it very easy for everyone's thinking to just slip back into stereotypes - whereas a framing that treats alignment as purely a metagame shorthand (ie part 1 of your 3 proposals in 652) doesn't constantly reinforce those stereotypes in the same sort of way.

Getting closer then - I'll take that. Good point about the stereotypes though.

Since I'm working on some PF things, I'm going to stick to the goal of trying address your concerns in the way that does the least violence to RAW PF. Hopefully if anything comes of it, it might have insights for other systems.

In PF every cleric has to choose whether they channel positive energy and spontaneously cast cure spells, or channel negative energy and spontaneously cast harm spells. By RAW, if at least one of you or your deity is good you get the positive/heal and if at least one of you or your deity is evil you get the negative/harm. If neither of those is true, you get to pick one or the other. The aura you get corresponds to your deity.

If I combine PF RAW with the idea of characters getting cosmological alignment from their deity, then it turns into having your deity being on zero, one, or two teams. The divine caster gets the corresponding team aura(s). It follows that you would need to have the correct cosmological alignment to take a Cleric alignment domain, you could cast aligned spells that weren't opposite your cosmological alignment, and would pick the channel type and heal/harm based on that cosmological alignment.

[Ugly aside: In PF this would conflict with RAW for a paladin that got their powers directly from some gods, since by some Paizo product a LN god can have paladins. By the above that should give the Paladin an L aura, but not a G one. A worshiper of an LG one should get the L and G, but should only have G by RAW. I guess the way around that would be to say that paladins get their powers from "goodness" in general, but may choose to serve within the earthly hierarchy of some god :::shrugs::: ].

So, having a cosmological alignment means you've signed up for that team. If the only clerics out there were all either on "Team Good" or "Team Evil", then it sure does seem like it would become a stark good vs. stark evil conflict unless the GM went out of their way to play up how the various gods on each side often disagreed. Is it made any better by there being other gods in the middle whose worshipers can channel positive (negative) energy and who can cast good (evil, lawful, or chaotic) spells even though they aren't on that team? I'm thinking that to most civilians, the outward signs of good/evil would be things like "can they use heal spells whenever they want" or "do they control undead" and not what aura they're running around with.

But what if a deity of greed and comfort despised pain and the undead, it seems like their clerics should only get to choose the channel positive energy/heal... Should that put that deity on "Team Good", even though they certainly aren't good in any usual sense? That is, what if the good-evil part of a deities cosmological alignment was determined by what kind of energy they let/required their followers to use?

If that's the case, maybe the cosmological alignments, associated domains, and spell types should be Positive, Negative, Order, and Entropy instead of Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos. Does that step it far enough away from white-hat/black-hat? (Are there better names than Positive and Negative?).

[H]ow do we handle a servant of the Lords of Chaos turning out to be a good guy? (Yet still not registering to Detect Good, but only to Detect Chaos?) That's not just a hypothetical for me, either - this issue is in the process of arising in my 4e game, as the drow chaos sorcerer/Demonskin Adept/Emergent Primordial continues to profess his loyalty to Corellon as well as to Chan, Elemental Queen of good air elementals, and his opposition to Lolth.

Does the drow get any divine casting powers from Corellon? If he does, then I guess by the above he'd have to publicly declare for team positive, instead of just being allied with them.

I'm wondering about the previous example you mentioned of the evil outsider turning good, or vice-versa. Was that in 4E? Do the various planes have environment rules? If so, what planes can a good succubus live on? That makes me want to start a thread asking what the gods and outsiders do all day... but I need to mull it over more. I also want to know what outsiders serve the neutral deities.

A question, too: if only a limited range of beings have cosmological alignment, how does your proposed reform handle Holy Word and its siblings/cousins? From the purely mechanical point of view, those spells seem to rely on everyone having a relevant label.

The three options that jump to mind for Holy Word would be: affect everyone who wasn't cosmologically good (everyone not on our team), affect everyone who's aligned but not good (everyone on a team, but not on ours), or have it only affect those who are cosmologically evil (only target those on the opposite team). I'm not sure which of those makes the most sense. Since I've been thinking of P6 in particular, I didn't have some of the higher level spells up in the front of my brain.