Do alignments improve the gaming experience?

[pemerton]

So if someone thwarts their deity by accident, said Deity should not become dissatisfied and consequences cannot be adjudicated.

There is no such thing as "acciental thwarting". A player who is playing his/her PC as consonant with his/her deity's values is not in danger of "accidentally" contradicint his/her deity's values.

That's a result of not engaging in evaluative judgements in relation to my players' choices.

Through the eyes of the deity he did the wrong thing.

<snip>

Unless you are an abusive DM, or Veca an abusive deity - punishment is usually a consequence of a wrong choice been made.

He did not "do the wrong thing through the eyes of the deity". He thwarted the deity. (As to whether Vecna is an abusive deity - isn't that a quesetion that answers itself?)

Judging that he angered the deity is not judgint whether or not he did the right thing.

I also don't understand how this notion of "wrong in the eyes of X" relates to alignment adjudication at all. Every edition of D&D presents alignments as absolute values, not values relative to the perspective of some god or other.

But going back to how players have supreme power over the view of their deities (always one and the same), a character (and interchangeably player) can never make a mistake which could thwart their Deity and therefore the Deity can never become dissatisfied and therefore no consequences to be adjudicated. IMO this is called a consequence-free environment.

Please read this actual play post. You'll note that it is not "consequence free", even though only the players engage in adjudication as to what their PCs' various commitments require. The consequences flow from upholding those commitments, not from inadvertantly violating them.

I can say this for my group, they do not believe their PCs are infallible.

<snip>

PCs are not all knowing, players are not all knowing.

But GMs are all knowing?

In any event, the PCs in my game are not infallible. Some of my players judge their own characters quite harshly.

[pemerton thinks that] the motivation behind the removal of those resources differentiates the matter. Here, I think I better see his point in that he does not perceive alignment-based judgment the same as an NPC making a judgment. It's OK for Vecna to judge the character, but only if the player feels such a judgment is appropriate (ie the player does not feel that the character has done nothing for which the deity would reasonably make a negative judgment against him).

That is roughly correct. If a player sets out to thwart Vecna, and does so, having Vecna inflict punishment is not questioning the player's judgement, nor underminging the player's conception of his character. In fact it affirms both.

Whereas telling a player who believes that s/he is playing his/her PC honourably, or in accordance with relevant commitments and requirements, is doing the opposite. It is the GM telling the player that s/he, the GM, knows better than the player what the player's conception of his/her PC demands.

So classifying the character as a"backsliding sometimes-devotee" does not judge his actions?

First, it's using a description of the PC that is not uncommon at the table, and that is not inaccurate. (His devotion to the Raven Queen is certainly less than unswerving.)

Also, it is not an evaluative judgement, no. It doesn't judge whether or not loyalty to the Raven Queen is desirable.

If the player regarded his PC as unswervingly loyal to the Raven Queen, matters might be different. But he doesn't.

You oppose removal of a character resource from the character sheet.

No I don't . For instance, I don't oppose inflicting damage.

Did an actual roll within the game cause damage to the familiar? I do not believe it did.

A roll is not required to inflict damage in any version of D&D. If a PC jumps over a cliff, for instance, or sticks his/her hand in a fire, damage can be applied without a to hit roll being required.

If a fireball spell is cast in any version of D&D, no roll is required to determine that damage is taken by its targets.

In other words, since when did an attack roll become a necessary prerequisite to inflicting damage?

If a poster states they have a problem with a DM being able to deny part of a character's impact on the fiction through taking away his build resources (as a part of his larger issue with mechanical alignment)... but then posts an example where they arbitrarily do exactly this, though on a smaller scale (and at this point it has been repeatedly asked is this just an issue of scale with no definitive answer)

pemerton has indicated that, at least to him, it is not simply a matter of scale. He perceives some bright line

I have given a definitive answer: namely, that you and N'raac are the only two D&D players I have ever encountered who regard damage infliction (as opposed to, say, level drain, permanent ability drain, etc) as just a lesser version of stripping PC build elements or rewriting a PC's class.

Also, consequences flowing from a skill challenge are not arbitrary.

It's very similar in that one group is displeased, resulting in a penalty (the slaves dislike you/Vecna toasts your familiar) and another group is pleased (the slavers/Raven Queen) and the character gets a benefit from them (a bonus to rolls with the slavers/oh, wait, maybe they aren't so identical after all...).

OK.

So we've established that the GM may play the PC's familiar with a light touch. I did so, in accordance with undestandings established over 20 years between me and the player in question.

We've estblished that a skill challenge can have consequences including lingering penalties/debuffs, including on a successful check.

And so now your argument that I broke the rules is that the lingering consequence did not bring with it a reward from the Raven Queen? Please show where in the rules it is stated that a PC is entitled to a reward from the Raven Queen every time s/he does the Raven Queen's bidding.

So Vecna can activate the PC's familiar, but the Paladin's deity cannot cause him to recall the lessons of his training?

I don't understand this question. I don't think I've said anything about what a paladin's deity can or cannot do. The rulebooks state the deity's can send dreams and visitations, though, so I guess a paladin could be visited by his/her god. How is that relevant?

pemerton claimed he took over and temporarily suspended the mechanical build resources of one of his players who displeased a deity with mechanics that were purely by the book

I did not "temporarily suspend build resources" - unless you mean I inflicted damage, which means that every GM in every game of D&D ever "temporarily suspended build resources" by having monsters/NPCs inflict damage on the PCs.

Anyway, [MENTION=336]D'karr[/MENTION] has a perfectly good understanding of what is going on in this thread, and has made some excellent contributins to it.

 

[Imaro]

I did not "temporarily suspend build resources" - unless you mean I inflicted damage, which means that every GM in every game of D&D ever "temporarily suspended build resources" by having monsters/NPCs inflict damage on the PCs.

Sure you did, when you decided the actions of the familiar as opposed to letting the player decide them, which in turn led to the familiar being in a position to take damage (which you then decided to deal to it in some way) and then in turn led to it's return time being arbitrarily decided by you as well.... or is that just like taking damage too??

Anyway, @D'karr has a perfectly good understanding of what is going on in this thread, and has made some excellent contributins to it.

I guess you have your opinion and I, as well as [MENTION=6688277]Sadras[/MENTION] have ours as to [MENTION=336]D'karr[/MENTION] 's responses to what he perceives to be the issues being discussed..

 

[D'karr]

...but I'm not going to keep summarizing the arguments or issues being discussed for you... especially when both I and [MENTION=6688277]Sadras[/MENTION] have told you that you don't seem to have a grasp on what is being discussed.

Just because you keep on repeating it doesn't really make it so. If you want to shut down conversation all you have to do is not respond to posts. And if you don't like seeing what I've posted you can always ignore. I won't feel slighted.

In a default game these are the things that exist... if you claim you are following the rules expect the rules to be brought up if some feel you aren't actually doing that. Again this shows that you don't seem to understand the argument that is taking place or why certain things are being brought up for discussion.

In a "default game" where a DM is already ignoring mechanical alignment these things don't by necessity exist. In any case, when a DM decides to "create the world", whether that is of out whole cloth, or by using a published setting it is pretty well understood that the DM still retains the prerogative to change things to fit what he wants to convey for that world. If I decide to use FR as a published setting for my game but decide to change the Open Lord of Waterdeep from Lord Neverember to Lord Jenkinsfell I'm pretty sure that I'm allowed to do that. These "world thematics" are some of the most basic things a DM might change for his game, and nobody ever really bats an eye.

That's funny because [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] claimed he took over and temporarily suspended the mechanical build resources of one of his players who displeased a deity with mechanics that were purely by the book... but you're claiming 4e doesn''t provide this whatsoever... interesting.

Way to misdirect, quite amusing really.

Let's see - a familiar has one hit point. A DM does damage to that familiar using the regular mechanics. The familiar goes offline. Looks to me like the base mechanics have worked exactly as expected.

What [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] did not do was go through some sort of "mental process" or "rules checking process" to make an evaluation of whether what the PC was doing was "right or wrong", "good or evil", "black or white". Then go and note which one of those it was. Then "give the option to the player to change his mind", as n'raac suggested was possibly necessary. And then remove a major class feature (their class) from the PC when he did not comply with pemerton's "conclusion/evaluation".

Pemerton doesn't use mechanical alignment in his game. So removing a major class feature from a character for alignment "infractions" is not something I'd expect to see in his game. But I guess my reading comprehension of what he has clearly stated, on multiple occasions, must not be clear... LOL

So I pretty much stand by what I said before, 4e does not bother itself with providing "written in stone" punishments to remove major class features from characters.

Perhaps... but then neither of us has seen the final form of the latest edition of the game, so pronouncing the days of detect evil "gone" might be just a tad premature.

Let's misdirect some more. Way to grasp at straws.

I could care less what the new edition does or doesn't do. Once again irrelevant to the conversation. The specific example I was using had nothing to do with the new edition. Detect Evil, Detect Alignment don't exist in the version of the game used for the succubus example, specifically 4e.

But as you expressed above, if you play where the DM isn't beholden to rules or thematics or anything else in the game... why couldn't the DM have just changed this particular succubus's alignment to neutral, in a game with mechanical alignment, and played out the same scenario with even more paranoia since then the players would be wondering why she didn't register as evil?? Or is there some reason everything else can be house ruled to fit except alignment mechanics?

So you are saying that if mechanical alignment gets in the way it should be house-ruled out of the way. Great, I guess we agree in at least one thing. I guess then that we can agree that mechanical alignment is an impediment to my game. And right here you are telling me that I should "house-rule" it in some way.

If I go to all the trouble of changing mechanical alignment whenever it is not convenient. I'm doing it because either I want to preserve some sense of mystery, because I want the players to actually engage with the roleplaying instead of using spells to divine the cosmological bent of the creatures/NPCs, or any of countless other reasons. Then why would I be using "mechanical alignment" at all? In other words, mechanical alignment is an impediment to my game so I've made sure it is not an impediment - by not using mechanical alignment. And you seem to agree that is what I should do. Wow!!!! Isn't that what we, on the not using mechanical alignment for our games discussion, have said since the beginning?

Thankfully the version of the game I use doesn't really "force" mechanical alignment so I don't have any/much work to do.

If you feel you have a clear picture of what is being discussed... well who am I too argue against that, just don't expect me to engage with any more of your posts if you're not actually discussing what everyone else is. Because I can assure you the discussion isn't about alignment mechanics and the rules for it... in a game that has no mechanical alignment... and yes if this is what we were discussing I agree it would be silly.

Yep, the more you write the clearer the picture. Pemerton has provided very concrete example(s) of what in his game would have been impeded by alignment "rules". At times he's even gone over how the rules of the game work for those that don't seem to have a clue. He's used quite a bit of patience to clarify, I might add. I provided an example of what in my games would have been impeded by alignment rules. You even said, "then why not house-rule it?" Isn't that what we have said all along... Let me make it clear - In our games we don't use mechanical alignment because it is an impediment to the type of game we want to play/run. Is that clear now? Isn't that the question posed in the OP?

What I know pemerton, others, and I have said is that mechanical alignment is an impediment to our games. Some of us have even put forth some examples of why it is an impediment. So it seems like we are discussing mechanical alignment rules and why they are an impediment to our games. Are you discussing something else? Because what I have seen some here do is "rules lawyer" to death the examples to attempt to make it look like either we don't know what we are talking about for our games, or that somehow you (generic you) know better our preferences and our groups. And since we obviously don't know what we are talking about then mechanical alignment is not an impediment to gameplay. Clearly I'm not convinced by your argument. Mechanical alignment continues to be an impediment to my games so I don't use mechanical alignment.

And you agreed with me again. Wow! Two in a row. I'm pretty sure the cold snap we have on the East Coast must be because Asmodeus is right at this moment making some snowmen. LOL

 

[D'karr]

More to the point, is the Succubus actually Evil if she never takes any Evil actions?

Isn't that exactly my point? From the POV of the players the succubus was not evil. They never saw her do something that they would consider such. So they had to make up their own minds as to what to do with her because of her actions. Instead of casting Detect Evil, Detect Alignment, etc., and then dealing with the "certainty" of her evilness. Behind the scenes we are pretty sure the DM was using the succubus against us, but we never discovered it so the game play went on. The NPC was judged by the "content of her character" rather than the "content of the alignment box on her character sheet". The play was infinitely more enjoyable.

 

[Cadence]

Stumbled across an example of a player/DM alignment dispute over at Paizo's boards: http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2qqzl?Is-Killing-always-evil . Several posters in the thread seem like the type I wouldn't want anything to do with DMing, so it might not be worth reading unless you want to feel a lot better about your own gaming group.

But I'm kind of curious how the other pro-mechanical-alignment folks would view the act that thread discusses: An officer of the law (an assumed to be paladin with drawn weapon) attempts to arrest you (and the accused-of-being-criminal folks you are traveling with) and orders you to put down your weapons. What responses would be acceptable for each of the nine alignments? In particular, which could view the drawing of the weapon as provocation enough to attack and kill the officers?

Thought it was also interesting that someone provided a relevant Conan excerpt from "Queen of the Black Coast" (particularly relevant because the character above was a Barbarian and was appealing to stereotype as well as alignment interpretation; http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0600961h.html#queen1 search for "Why do the"). In the story, the killing happens after more provocation than was given in the original post.

 

[N'raac]

I also don't understand how this notion of "wrong in the eyes of X" relates to alignment adjudication at all. Every edition of D&D presents alignments as absolute values, not values relative to the perspective of some god or other.

They are, however, some tangible cosmic force which empowers and disempowers, however. The 3e discussion of alignment made that pretty clear. Thus, I am not being judged by "what I believe to be Good", "what the GM believes to be good" or even "what is truly Good", but "what the cosmological force of Good in the GM's universe perceives as being good".

Whereas telling a player who believes that s/he is playing his/her PC honourably, or in accordance with relevant commitments and requirements, is doing the opposite. It is the GM telling the player that s/he, the GM, knows better than the player what the player's conception of his/her PC demands.

Whereas, to me, it is telling the player that the PC's vision of his relevant commitments and requirements is not shared by some deity (Cleric) or cosmic force (Paladin). My PC believes he did right. It does not matter what the Big Fuzzy Good Thing in the Sky thinks is right and appropriate in the situation. If Good says otherwise, then Good is wrong.

If the player regarded his PC as unswervingly loyal to the Raven Queen, matters might be different. But he doesn't.

Why? Does that mean you are judging whether such loyalty is, or is not, desirable? It seems that, if the PC is not played as unswervingly loyal to the RQ, then either that PC considers that a failing on his part, or he does not consider unswerving loyalty to the Raven Queen to be desirable. The Raven Queen is goddess of Fate. If the character's child/sibling/lover/best friend dies, as was fated, could he not decide that his loyalty was misplaced? Perhaps his vision of the desirability of serving the Raven Queen is proven (to his satisfaction - no one else's matters) wrong.

No I don't . For instance, I don't oppose inflicting damage.

The "Vecna did damage to the familiar" argument only came up when you were called on the inconsistency with the rules. Initially, you indicated that taking a point of damage would have had the same effect (yet it would not, we now know, as that would have meant the familiar was back after a short rest). Then, somehow, the argument morphed into the familiar having taken that point of damage (despite not sharing in group damage from prior results of the skill challenge - assuming there were any, but I cant recall that being definitively stated, only that it was a possibility on your notes for the challenge). Then it became one that skill challenges can have consequences of success including indefinite loss of a character ability which normally gets removed by taking damage, and returns after a short rest. It seems like 4e is based largely on GM fiat.

A roll is not required to inflict damage in any version of D&D. If a PC jumps over a cliff, for instance, or sticks his/her hand in a fire, damage can be applied without a to hit roll being required.

None of which occurred in the scene in question.

I have given a definitive answer: namely, that you and N'raac are the only two D&D players I have ever encountered who regard damage infliction (as opposed to, say, level drain, permanent ability drain, etc) as just a lesser version of stripping PC build elements or rewriting a PC's class.

Leaving aside the question of whether the familiar actually took a point of damage, it still is not recovering in its usual recovery time, is it? And it was still activated by you, to oppose the PC. Typically, a PC's own build elements do not actively oppose him.

[Also, consequences flowing from a skill challenge are not arbitrary.

They sure seem arbitrary from my vantage point. "You succeeded, so you lose a character ability for an indefinite period. You figure out how to get it back." Maybe he can get an Atonement spell to get back in Vecna's good books?

So we've established that the GM may play the PC's familiar with a light touch. I did so, in accordance with undestandings established over 20 years between me and the player in question.

"We" have? You have claimed this. I remain of the view that activating the player's resource to oppose him, then removing it indefinitely when he stops it acting against his wishes, does not fall within the category of "a light touch".

And so now your argument that I broke the rules is that the lingering consequence did not bring with it a reward from the Raven Queen? Please show where in the rules it is stated that a PC is entitled to a reward from the Raven Queen every time s/he does the Raven Queen's bidding.

No, my argument is that the "exactly identical" example you provided was not exactly identical. It provided a bonus and a penalty which fit nicely within the game fiction. It did not remove a character ability, it provided a situational bonus to skills used against certain NPC's and a situational penalty to others. That, to me, is quite different.

I did not "temporarily suspend build resources" - unless you mean I inflicted damage, which means that every GM in every game of D&D ever "temporarily suspended build resources" by having monsters/NPCs inflict damage on the PCs.

You indefinitely removed the familiar, which is not the typical result of the familiar taking damage, even if we accept the loss was caused by damage to the familiar. Had the player instead smacked his familiar upside the head for 1 point of damage, it would presumably have been unable to continue channeling souls to Vecna and be recovered after a short rest, by the usual rules. And it would still have been co-opted by the GM, repurposed from a character resource to an adversary.

And, for the record, it still would have been a good game, so whatever rules were broken would be fine with me, as a GM or a player. But they do not represent a "by the rules" occurrence, and they do represent removal of a character resource. They do not, however, represent a removal of a character resource based on what you define as an evaluative judgment. That bolded statement is my initial confusion, which you have dispelled.

Sure you did, when you decided the actions of the familiar as opposed to letting the player decide them, which in turn led to the familiar being in a position to take damage (which you then decided to deal to it in some way) and then in turn led to it's return time being arbitrarily decided by you as well.... or is that just like taking damage too??

Yup.

Isn't that exactly my point? From the POV of the players the succubus was not evil. They never saw her do something that they would consider such. So they had to make up their own minds as to what to do with her because of her actions. Instead of casting Detect Evil, Detect Alignment, etc., and then dealing with the "certainty" of her evilness. Behind the scenes we are pretty sure the DM was using the succubus against us, but we never discovered it so the game play went on. The NPC was judged by the "content of her character" rather than the "content of the alignment box on her character sheet". The play was infinitely more enjoyable.

So is the problem the existence of alignment, or of divination spells? It seems like a thought reading spell, or a "detect lies" spell, or any number of non-alignment driven divinations, could just as easily have removed the deception, or clarified there was no deception, much more readily than detecting alignment and getting "she is not evil" or "she is evil". And maybe even "she is evil" (but you don't detect that she is sincerely attempting to assist you, and is trying to mend her evil ways - she just hasn't made it over the line to Neutral yet).

 

[pemerton]

is the Succubus actually Evil if she never takes any Evil actions?

why couldn't the DM have just changed this particular succubus's alignment to neutral, in a game with mechanical alignment, and played out the same scenario with even more paranoia since then the players would be wondering why she didn't register as evil??

I have the same response to these remarks as [MENTION=336]D'karr[/MENTION] - what is the point of using mechanical alignment if these are the sorts of steps a GM has to take to stop it spoiling play?

So far in this thread I have seen two clear articulations of the contribution mechanical alignment can make to play.

One has been from me: in Gygaxian play, where moral scruples are an obstacle to success in killing and looting, mechanical alignment is a device for establishing trade offs between suffering the disadvanages of being scrupulous while getting the benefits of being a good guy (more friendly NPCs, more divine favour etc). This is the context in which the paladin was initially introduced. As far as I know none of the posters who has been active in this thread plays in this style, and so there is no one in this thread who is enjoying this particular form of contribution to play that mechanical alignment has to offer.

A second, and quite different, contribution that mechanical alignment can make to play has been articulated by [MENTION=85555]Bedrockgames[/MENTION]: mechanical alignment is a tool that the GM can use to define a cosmologically-enforced value system, and then in play the players, via their PCs, explore this system. This is not a style of play that appeals to me personally, but I am pretty sure I understand what it is about - it's a form of world exploration - and I can see how mechanical alignment can be a part of it. I know that Bedrock games is not the biggest admirer of Ron Edwards, but Ron Edwards has a nice (and not at all pejorative) characterisation of this way of using mechanical alignment:

In [this style of] play, morality cannot be imposed by the player or, except as the representative of the imagined world, by the GM. Theme is already part of the cosmos; it's not produced by metagame decisions. Morality, when it's involved, is "how it is" in the game-world, and even its shifts occur along defined, engine-driven parameters. The GM and players buy into this framework in order to play at all.​

As far as I can tell, this captures exactly what Bedrockgames is talking about, right down to the point that the GM imposes morality not on his/her own account, but in his/her capacity as creator and arbiter of the imagined world.

There are other versions of morality and personality mechanics that can play a similar role to this use of alignment: Pendragon's personality mechanics can be used this way, I think, and I suspect that Ars Magica's can also (I've had an Ars Magic revised rulebook, from 1989, for some time, but am actually reading it closely for the first time at the moment).

There have been hints of a third way in which alignment might contribute to play that have been made from time to time, but they are hard to pin down. At first I thought [MENTION=6688277]Sadras[/MENTION] was articulating this approach, but subsequent posts have caused me to have doubts.

This third way treats alignment as a role-playing challenge: the player chooses an alignment for his/her PC, and is then expected to stick to it. The GM frames situations that might make that hard, eg because they tempt the player to depart from alignment, for reasons of expedience such as earning more XP or treasure. But a good player sticks to his/her alignment; while a bad one, who departs from or (in the extreme case) changes alignment is penalised for that. (This approach seems to me to be articulated in the 2nd ed rulebooks, and there are hints of it in Gygax's rulebooks too.)

This style of play also doesn't particularly appeal to me - I don't think of roleplaying as a challenge in the way that this approach presupposes - but I can see that others might enjoy it, and I've known players who are into this sort of thing.

What has surprised me a bit in this thread, though - especially over the last few hundred posts - is that those who I thought might be into this style of play (eg [MENTION=6688277]Sadras[/MENTION], perhaps [MENTION=6681948]N'raac[/MENTION]) seem to have repudiated one of its underpinnings, namely, the role of the GM in adjudicating player roleplaying. Which has left me somewhat puzzled as to how those posters are using alignment in their games.

I think there is a middle ground between two extremes.

I tend to put way too much work into building pantheons and cultures and stuff like that for the games I'm DMing - and I've always assumed (both as a player and as a DM) that the DM is the final arbiter

<snip>

I'll often propose deities or belief systems for my characters to DMs who are less interested in filling all that out in advance. And I expect the DM to have full editorial control over whatever idea I've suggested.

<snip>

In actual play, don't the clerics have to make decisions for their characters based on how they picture their characters deities policies? I've always assumed and played that the DM can over-ride that, but neither the player or DM has spent decades immersed in that faith. If the player inserts something into play that I hadn't thought about and I don't think is crazy on the face of it, then I'm not going to pause the game and mull over what the deity really thinks... I'm just going to run with it. It seems similar to things that might come up with a character's family, past exploits, and even things like what common foods are usually available in inns. On the other hand, if it is something I've already mulled over or seems insane, then I could nuke it and over-ride the characters attempted narration. I don't actually remember any in play incidences of that, so maybe my player's have never pushed anything I thought was crazy, or maybe it wasn't a big deal at the time.

This strikes me as a version of the playstyle I'm imputing to Bedrockgames. It's about world exploration, but with elements of shared backstory authority, just as happens in your other examples like PC families and common foods at inns.

I'm personally not interested in . . . exploring the GM's ideas about possible relationships between various values, rather than actually exploring those values.

You keep repeating this sentiment as if, it appears to me, they cannot simultaneously be done within a game.

Well, to put it crudely, they can't.

To explore values requires leaving open the answers to the questions like "What is the true nature of honour", "What does true honour demand", etc. Exploring the GM's conception of certain values presupposes that those questions have already been answered by the GM. Questions can't, at one and the same time, be both open and answered.

The impression I'm getting from some of the "alignment is not a straitjacket" posts is that the GM answers some of the big questions, but leaves the little questions open, and that is where the action of play takes place. This impression is reinforced by the number of recent posts saying "But whether or not to rescue the villain is not really an alignment question", or "Whether or not the druid should favour nature over civilisation is not really an alignment question" or "You solve the succubus problem by making her neutral and therefore, de facto, taking her outside the alignment mechanics." But if I am right about this - that the action is taking place in relation to questions that the GM's alignment rulings don't settle - then I'm not sure what useful purpose mechanical alignment is serving, except perhaps to take some questions off the table.

 

[pemerton]

The "Vecna did damage to the familiar" argument only came up when you were called on the inconsistency with the rules.

That is not how it looks to me. The way it looks to me is that I described an event that, in play, struck all relevant participants as obviously permissible within the rules. Some posters then stated that it was impermissible, and I referred in more detail to relevant rules elements to show that they were wrong.

Much as someone might, either in play or in post-play description, talk about their PC moving and then attacking; and only afterwards, in response to sceptical questioning, might have to unpack what happened in terms of move actions, standard actions etc.

Leaving aside the question of whether the familiar actually took a point of damage, it still is not recovering in its usual recovery time, is it?

<snip>

the "exactly identical" example you provided was not exactly identical. It provided a bonus and a penalty which fit nicely within the game fiction. It did not remove a character ability, it provided a situational bonus to skills used against certain NPC's and a situational penalty to others. That, to me, is quite different.

To me, this simply reinforces your unfamiliarity with 4e's mechanics.

In 4e, there is no fundamental difference between an enduring -5 penalty to a certain category of actions, and an enduring failure to regain an encounter power. And as far as mechanical impact is concerned, the -5 penalty is quite likely to be more severe. This is because one typical encounter power is one which permits a +5 to a certain category of skill check. Losing that power, for some extended period, is therefore tantamount to a -5 penalty to a check once per encounter. Whereas a lingering -5 penalty is (obviously) the equivalent of a -5 penalty to every relevant check while the penalty endures.

Hence, from the point of view both of basic mechanical structures, and practical effect, there is no difference between a -5 penalty and a suppressed encounter power. Both are "lingering consequences" of the sort that are referred to in the passages from the DMG2 that I quoted upthread.

They are, however, some tangible cosmic force which empowers and disempowers, however. The 3e discussion of alignment made that pretty clear. Thus, I am not being judged by "what I believe to be Good", "what the GM believes to be good" or even "what is truly Good", but "what the cosmological force of Good in the GM's universe perceives as being good".

<snip>

it is telling the player that the PC's vision of his relevant commitments and requirements is not shared by some deity (Cleric) or cosmic force (Paladin). My PC believes he did right. It does not matter what the Big Fuzzy Good Thing in the Sky thinks is right and appropriate in the situation. If Good says otherwise, then Good is wrong.

The notion of "what the cosmological force of Good perceives as being good" strikes me as incoherent. It is the force of Good - it doesn't have an opinion about what goodness is. It instantiates goodness!

There is no textual evidence in any version of D&D that supports this idea that the forces of Good, Evil, Law and Chaos are opinions about those values, as opposed to instantiations of those values.

Even in Planescape, it's not the case that (for instance) devils and demons regard the Upper Planes as having a flawed conception of goodness. Nor do they regard evil as their own good. They regard evil as evil, and embrace it.

This can also be cashed out with reference to the sort of game that [MENTION=85555]Bedrockgames[/MENTION] describes. In that sort of game, if the GM tells you that what your PC is doing is evil, there is no scope for the character, as an inhabitant of the gameworld, to question that judgement. The relevant conception of good and evil defines what it is, within that gameworld, to be good or bad.

 

[Manbearcat]

@Nagol and @Sadras , the website is entirely on the fritz so I'm not going to waste time trying to quote and format. Here is the relevant bit where I was trying to clarify my thoughts. The initial question posed just asked me if I could relay an anecdote about thematic conflict calibration between myself and a PC. I did so but without the intent of providing an anecdote that would serve as an example to investigate the impact of pre-4e mechanical alignment on this sort of play. Given that, I attempted to engage the conversation with an "in spirit" analogue to pre-4e alignment (* code/ethos QC by GM, homage to 4e's power sources - specifically with respect to how alignment constraints mandate being in accords with the ideals of those sources, lest the power source be turned off -, and generic Druid tropes). However, I think I can provide a (brief) breakdown of where troubles would have arisen for our play if the game was played under the auspices of 3.5. That is below the quoted text that provides *

Some more clarification here. When I was transcribing that anecdote of my table for the purposes of this thread, I wasn't applying strict alignment of D&D to the anecdote. I was relaying it on the terms of the rules framework of "alignment as prescriptive guide for GM adjudication of character action and resultant metaphysical fallout". In this case, the anecdote wasn't about neutrality or good or evil. Further, it wasn't about Erathis or Melora extending or retracting a divine boon to a PC. Druid's in 4e work off the Primal power source, not the Divine power source. They are not "nature clerics". They directly "draw on the spirits of nature that pervade the world."

As such, if an analogue to pre-4e alignment existed, it would require me to discern the character's actions with respect to these spirits of nature that pervade the world...and if they would continue extending their power, retract their power, or grow angry and attack the druid until she attones/relents from her position of Civilization (as steward or mediator over the destructive inclination of nature) over Raw, Savage Nature. If I (GM) thought her (player) position and subsequent (character) actions were "rubbish" (as I outlined a possible, certainly not anomalous) take above, then it would be either retraction of power (primal spirits revoking her connection to the natural world) or fierce backlash until she relents and chooses Raw, Savage Nature over Civilization (as steward or mediator). I think that would have been terrible for play.

Hopefully that is more clear.

Alright, so let us just pretend for a moment that 4e has all of the trappings of mechanical alignment and that Druids are a Divine character (rather than Primal) and could have their power font "turned off". With that in mind, throughout the entirety of play, the unaltered evolution of this particular Druid would have had the following troubles along both alignment and nature reverence.

1) I suspect the vast majority of GMs would have ruled that this Druid would have never passed muster as neutral good, lawful neutral, neutral, chaotic neutral, or neutral evil. Most evaluations of this character's body of work would have put them firmly in the lawful good camp. This prohibited alignment would have made them an ex-druid, banishing from them all spells and druid features. With respect to the ruleset's agenda that it sets out in the relevant texts, I don't see that as bad GMing. I see that as correct GMing.

2) This Druid did not revere nature. She has never been "tinged with awe" and she has not "venerated" nature in the sense of it being prioritized above other ideals. As was intended, this character had core principles that were at tension. She had a very holistic approach, one that would be extremely heretical in a canon, druidic faith, that was premised upon all things fitting into their respective places and playing their role in a greater whole. There was no divide between "unnatural" and "natural" to this character. This, again is prohibited. A druid ceasing to revere nature would suffer the same fate as 1 above. If "revere nature" is to mean anything, and be a legitimate tool for adjudication, the rubber would need to meet the road somewhere. If it wouldn't meet the road on this character, with her heretical homogenization of "unnatural" with "natural", then nothing would. Spells, supernatural powers gone. With respect to the ruleset's agenda that it sets out in the relevant texts, I don't see that as bad GMing. I see that as correct GMing.

3) Again, I'm the GM (as always). I don't want to be QCing ethos decisions (neither intent nor consequences with respect to cosmological fallout) for legitimate adherence to canonical principles or heretical viewpoints/behavioral regime that should "cast you out." I don't want to be "keeping tabs" on it and I don't want to "put it all in the hopper" and I don't want to "spit out a mandate" and I don't want to "have a conversation/deliberation with a PC to that end."

On all points 1-3, there is a problem for play in my game. This character's body of work wouldn't have panned out. Its evolution would have been tortured or rendered null. And all the while I would have had to spend mental overhead on the adjudicating the cosmological fallout. Those, singularly and certainly together, equal "harmful to my (and my players) preferred table aesthetic and play."

 

[pemerton]

With respect to the ruleset's agenda that it sets out in the relevant texts, I don't see that as bad GMing. I see that as correct GMing.

Agreed. This relates to my post two above yours (number 1027): I'm puzzled by the number of posts on this thread from the "pro-alignment" crowd which seem to evince an unwillingness to do the GMing work that the rules for mechanical alignment seem to clearly call for.