Do alignments improve the gaming experience?

[Bedrockgames]

My objection to pemerton's approach to alignment is rooted in a desire for a believable and consistent world. But like I said, I have lots of things I want and expect in play. This is just one thing that matters to me. the label 'simulation suay as it's defined in GNS (and the big model) does not capture why I am at the table.

 

[pemerton]

My objection to pemerton's approach to alignment is rooted in a desire for a believable and consistent world.

How is the gameworld that results from my playstyle unbelievable or inconsistent?

There are plenty of actual play examples linked upthread to provide material for an answer to that question.

 

[pemerton]

Without checks on behaviour, someone engaging in power play can ignore behavioural restrictions that are meant to provide both play balance and genre expectation when they interfere with in-game success.

<snip>

Without checks on behaviour, someone engaging in tactical play can ignore behavioural restrictions that are meant to provide both play balance and genre expectation when they contradict an obvious logical way forward.

<snip>

Without checks on behaviour, someone engaging in butt-kicker play can ignore behavioural restrictions that are meant to provide both play balance and genre expectation when they interfere with immediate action.

<snip>

Without checks on behaviour someone engaging in casual play can ignore behavioural restrictions pretty much at any time.

Is this empirical prediction? Something for which you have seen evidence in actual play? Speculation?

In Gygaxian D&D, using poison is a shortcut to in-game success. A behavioural prohibition on using poison is therefore a disadvantage. How does the notion of "behavioural restrictions that provide play balance" generalise beyond Gygaxian play, though? For instance, how does a 4e paladin get a game advantage by departing from genre expectations?

I have played with serious power gamers and tactical players (eg multiple Australiasian M:tG champions). I haven't noticed that an absence of GM-enforced mechanical alignment gives rise to the problems you describe. I believe this is because my game doesn't particularly mechanically reward departure from professed character concept (which was [MENTION=79401]Grydan[/MENTION]'s point a couple of dozen or so posts upthread).

Without checks on behaviour someone trying to build a compelling narrative can ignore behavioural restrictions when those restrictions interfere with what is perceived a better twist/narrative turn.

How is "better" interacting here with "ignoring behavioural restrictions"? I can parse the sentence but I don't know what you have in mind as an example.

Without checks on behaviour, someone engaging in method play can ignore behavioural restrictions that are meant to play balance and genre expectation when they conflict with how a particular personality would react or if the player view and the DM's view of the genre are out of sync.

And how is GM enforcement of alignment going to solve this issue with this sort of player? As opposed to just preventing them from method-acting and forcing them to play some other style.

Bottom line: how is the game better if we force power, tactical, butt-kicker, method, storyteller etc players to play fighters and wizards (for whom alignment is irrelevant) but don't let them play paladins and clerics? How is that improving my play experience?

Why should we not let the player make other important decisions, any of which may lead to interesting play, like:

- whether the torture succeeds or the subject resists?
- whether the subject had useful info at all?
- the timing , including whether the info is extracted in time for the Paladin to stop the bomber?
- whether having found the bomber, the Paladin succeeds in stopping him, or fails?

And why can't the second Paladin decide that he prays and receives a flash of insight, so he hurries off to find the bomber while the first is still busily torturing his prisoner?

<snip>

It seems like a lot of this "sanctity of character concept" discussion limits what aspects are actually in the player's control, on a basis I find pretty arbitrary.

I have addressed this multiple times upthread and you have not responded.

The conflict of interest in the player deciding whether or not his/her PC's action is successful is obvious. It removes the dynamic of challenge from the game. Likewise the player authoring backstory around big reveals removes suspense.

Where is the conflict of interest in the player deciding whether or not his/her PC's behaviour answers to that PC's professed ideals?

 

[howandwhy99]

My objection to pemerton's approach to alignment is rooted in a desire for a believable and consistent world. But like I said, I have lots of things I want and expect in play. This is just one thing that matters to me. the label 'simulation suay as it's defined in GNS (and the big model) does not capture why I am at the table.

You might be having problems with The Big Model because it isn't actually a game theory at all, but a narrative theory. That's why it uses dozens of narrative theory terms and no (virtually none?) game theory terms. It is utterly irrelevant to designing quality games.

Game play is deciphering the code that is a game in order to achieve one or more objectives within that code. Story making is about expressing one's self when existing within a culture of narrative. They are radically different acts. Stories often are created as codes so they might be comprehended by others, at least more or less. That's reading or interpreting the expressions of others, deciphering the pattern behind the coded expressions. Neither should be done in an absolutist manner. We can't be completely certain we are the ones expressing just as we can't be completely certain what other people are expressing.

What I do to support role playing in my game is use a separate game system to define each role provided within it. Fighter characters (PC and NPC) improve by discovering how the system works by navigating and learning it. For PCs activity must be done by a player. For an NPC this is collected in what the NPC knows due to their experiences.

I'm guessing you're closer to me in that you want a game with achievable objectives (story making cannot be a game objective, it's impossible). D&D can be that as long as you have a game that is a pattern. The expression of a code as defined by the rules. A comprehensible and discoverable reality in the referees mind related to the players as they play. That this code can use and be similar to fantastic or realistic elements is secondary, but like frosting on the cake. It's not absolutely necessary, but it can add to the enjoyment. To say it's about story telling is like saying Chess is really about medieval politics and not its mathematical design at all - IOW not about gaming at all. Gaming and game play are fundamentally separate from storytelling.

 

[pemerton]

Just pointing out there were several types of knight historically:

• Holy orders like the Hospitalier, Templar, and Teutonic
• Landed knights -- promoted by nobility and controlling a fief
• Household knights -- promoted by nobility and given a position inside someone else's fief
• Knights Errant -- promoted by nobility, but not granted a fiefdom nor position in a household

It would be... odd if the latter three categories were considered divinely inspired.

By "odd" do you mean "true to what people at the time believed"?

Is the goal of fantasy RPGing to emulate Tolkien - ie to present a world that expresses the pre-modern conceits of "fairy stories", Arthurian romance and the like? Or to emulate REH, and present an essentially modern outlook located within the tropes of historical and fantastic fiction?

If the latter, then no doubt notions that the feudal hierarchy is divinely established and sanctioned will be scoffed at. But as I have suggested multiple times upthread, a paladin has no place in such a gameworld. It's not a coincidence that REH's Conan contains no paladins or saints. (The closest I can think of is in The Phoenix on the Sword.)

If the former, then of course the knights that don't belong to holy orders are nevertheless participants in a divinely ordained hierarchy, and draw such divine inspiration as is suitable to their tasks. Mediaeval kings were annointed, after all - like bishops - although they did not themselves take holy orders. Paladins, and other knights called to divine service, are the highest exemplar to which other knights aspire.

The Paladin class in OSRIC superfi cially resembles such legendary warriors as Sir Galahad or Sir Gawaine of the Arthurian cycle, but is more closely similar to characters described in the works of Poul Anderson. His “Three Hearts and Three Lions” is particularly highly recommended.

I do not see where, from the quote, you cited, it is any more plausible that the choice of examples was pure alliteration rather than specific Knights chosen for their specific characteristics.

Please tell me one feature of Galahad or Gawaine that makes them more paladin-like than Arthur or Lancelot?

Especially as you are relying on Deities and Demigods (with its instances of Hiawatha and Theseus) to contest my characterisation of paladins as ideal knights: in D&DG both Lancelot and Arthur are presented as paladins (as, unsurprisingly, is Galahad), while Gawaine is presented as a fighter.

Even if "The Knights of the Round Table" were cited, they were specifically called out as having a "superficial resemblance".

Yes. Because they are from the Arthurian Cycle - "the Matter of England" - rather than "the Matter of France". The OSRIC book then goes on immediately to point out the novel, by Poul Anderson, from which paladins were directly drawn by original D&D players. This is a book about Carolingian knights (ie "the Matter of France"). Are you ignoring that point? Do you have a different interpretation of Three Hearts and Three Lions from the one I have put forward, namely, that it presents the paladin as a knight? (I assume you realise that the Random House Dictionary gives, as the first two meaings of the word "paladin", "any one of the 12 legendary peers or knightly champions in attendance on Charlemagne" and "any knightly or heroic champion.")

while the medieval Europe setting of D&D envisioned all Paladins as Knights (although again, Deities & Demigods, provided other examples), not all Knights were Paladins. Not even close.

Who are you addressing this point too? Who has denied it? I have not asserted that all knights are paladins. I have asserted that paladins are ideal knights - paragons of knighthood.

A black knight is a villain

he is both a villain and a Knight. There was no anti-paladin in the original game (outside the occasional magazine article), and clerics of both good and evil deities existed.

In the original game, clerics of evil were called anti-clerics.

The fact that a black knight is a villain doesn't show that paladins aren't ideal knights. Indeed, the villainy of a black knight is particularly evident because of the degree to which they fall short of that ideal.

Who do you think [the crusaders] were?

Yet none of this makes them /B] Paladins.

No. It shows that the Crusaders were knights - an identity that you denied upthread. I have now established that the crusaders were knights - French (including Norman), German and English knights, to be exact, whose military advantage consisted in their use of the mounted charge. It is the PF rules that says that paladins are knights and crusaders. Hence PF seems to agree with me that the connection between paladins and knights is a genuine one. (As does the 2nd ed PHB, with its reference to chivalric ideals. As does the 4e PHB. As does OSRIC. I haven't reviewed the AD&D PHB or the 3E PHB, but I believe that they likewise draw the connection.)

The whole point of the story of Joan of Arc is that she is a knight, is truer to the ideals and aspirations of knighthood than those who call themselves knights

Then we are departing from the dictionary definitions of Knight. It's very difficult to converse rationally when we must first intuit the Pemerese meaning of familiar-sounding words.

Well, another way of putting it would be this: it is hard to talk about ideals, and what counts as exemplifying or falling short of them, with someone who declines to admit the usage of words (like "good", "knight", "beauty", "love" etc) to refer to those ideals, and who appears to be unfamiliar with the relevant source material (or perhaps incapable or of engaging in, or unwilling to engage in, any but the most literal-minded reading of it).

In any event, here is the relevant dictionary definition (entry 4 in the Collins World English Dictionary, according to dictionary.reference.com): "a heroic champion of a lady or of a cause or principle". Part of the point of the legend of Joan of Arc is that she exemplifies this definition better than those who are knights purely in the formal sense (of having been knighted).

There is a notion, perhaps unfamiliar to modern Canadians but intimately familiar to mediaeval persons, that externally bestowed office is intended to correspond to innate or divinely ordained capacities, such that a person who is knighted but is false or inadequate will, in the end, have that corruption show through; and conversely, someone who is by external measure ignoble or humble, but is in the eyes of the divinity noble or worthy, will eventually have that worth manifest itself in material form. (This is the logic of such stories as Cinderella, the Princess and the Pea, the Bronze Ring etc. It is also expressed by Tolkien's poem about Strider, put into Bilbo's pen and mouth - "All that is gold does not glitter" - but of course, in the end, Aragorn does glitter as inner nature and external trappings are reconciled. Likewise for Saruman, in a converse fashion.)

if your vision of the ideals of Paladinhood (and LG behind it) come from the tropes of literature and legend, how does that reconcile with 4e's radical shift to allow Paladins of Good, Neutral and Evil deities?

Have I mentioned that I don't use mechanical alignment?

I've discussed extensively upthread the logic behind a paladin of a god of beauty (Corellon), fate (the Raven Queen), love (Sehanine), prowess (Kord), truth (Ioun), civilisation (Erathis) and nature (Melora). That covers all the gods labelled in 4e as unaligned.

A paladin of Bane (war) or Asmodeus (tyranny) strikes me personally as fallen or self-deluded; even moreso a paladin of Tiamat (greed), Zehir (night), Vecna (secrets) or Torog (imprisonment). If a player wants to show me I'm wrong, go to town! Gruumsh is a god of barbarism - I don't think he is served by knights in shining armour. The Chained God is in a special category again. He doesn't even have angels serving him (see The Plane Above, p 34).

I ran a module (P2) in which a knight of Lolth had realigned himself with Orcus, and confronted the knight of the Raven Queen (first in a dream vision, then in the flesh). It was an interesting encounter. Of course, a knight of Lolth, or of Orcus for that matter, doesn't regard him-/herself as self-deluded. The fact that s/he uses necrotic rather than radiant powers offers a bit of a clue, though! (From the 4e DMG, p 163: "Evil and chaotic evil deities have clerics and paladins just as other gods do. However, the powers of those classes . . . are strongly slanted toward good and lawful good characters. . . You can alter the nature of powers without changing their basic effects, making them feel more appropriate for the servants of evil gods: changing the damage type of a prayer, for instance, so that evil clerics and paladins deal necrotic damage instead of radiant damage.")

I can be a Paladin of the God of Murder and Carnage under 4e rules

You would probably be an anti-paladin, dealing necrotic damage. (And as per p 90 of the PHB, the rules are authored on the assumption that players won't be playing such PCs - obviously if they do so, they have also taken on the need to do whatever adjustments or corrections are needed to make it all hang together.)

 

[pemerton]

To me, the alignment system takes the position that the ends do not justify the means.

What do you mean by "the ends do not justify the means"? As Bertrand Russell famously asked, What else would?

Nothing but the ends can justify any means: action taken without reference to the ends at which it aims is the quintessence of irrationality (or, perhaps, non-rationality).

Do you mean that people are under duties not to do certain things, even if they believe that doing such things might realise other values?

In that case, how can the "alignment system" take such a position, given that one of the alignments that it defines is Chaotic Evil, which recognises no notion of duty at all, and indeed no motivating principle but unconstrained self-regarding passion? Or Neutral Evil, which recognises no notion of duty at all, and no motivating principle but rational self-regard?

Do you mean that, as defined with the alignment system, Goodness brings with it a notion of duty not to perform certain actions, even if it seems that doing so might realise values for which Good people have a high regard? That seems plausible, though there is the conflicting evidence that Gygax defines Lawful Good by reference to a moral conception - Benthamite "greatest happiness of the greatest number" - that is famous mostly because it denies the existence of any such duties.

In real life, of course, utilitarians who deny the existence of such duties as barriers to the pursuit of the realisation of valuable things don't concede that they are departing from the dictates of Goodness. Rather, they argue that their conception of what goodness is, and of what duties exist (namely, the duty to maximise utility) are superior to other competing conceptions of value, goodness and duty. It is only in the somewhat Bizarro- world of D&D's mechanical alignment that a utilitarian is robbed of the vocabulary to state his/her case.

Many heroic tales include Our Hero admonishing another, often a youthful sidekick, that, if we stoop to their methods, then we have already lost.

Yes. What does this show us about mechanical alignment, other than remind us of the point that I already made, namely, that it robs us of the vocabulary to actually argue these points. (For example, if "Good" is defined as "complying with duties X, Y, Z" then it becomes tautologous for the mentor to caution the youth against adopting evil ways - whereas the actual point of these stories is that the advice is non-tautologous. The mentor hero has intuited an important but non-obvious truth about the connection between duty, action, value and perhaps also providence.)

I am positing that those cosmological forces have a conception of the underlying rationale for adhering to the rule, and neither they nor their True Believers consider them to be arbitrary.

In that case, why would an adherent of those forces dispute their dictates - for instance, if their is a rationale to not torturing, why would the paladin want to torture, and argue that torturing is right because it will, in the overall balance, better respect life?

I do not read the rulebook first, decide to play a Paladin because I like the name, or some mechanic, then chafe because the Paladin class mechanically does not fit my character conceptually. I select mechanics second, based on concept first.

<snip>

I thought you were developing your character outside the rulebook first. Why do you find the need to define your character primarily in rulebook jargon?

The paladin is not "rulebook jargon". It is a bundle of tropes packaged in mechanical terms.

No doubt you will regard this as arrogant, but I take the view that my handle on what a paladin is, and what it means to play one, is at least the equal of that of Gary Gygax, Poul Anderson and Tracy Hickman. I don't look to their rather half-baked and in places incoherent notion of "lawful good" in order to work out what it means to play a paladin. I take my lead from more fundamental sources. And when I am GMing a paladin, I don't look to the alignment mechanics to pose challenges and push the player. I look to my knowledge of (i) the source material, (ii) the ingame situation, (iii) the character as portrayed by the player, and (iv) the player. The alignment mechanics do not offer anything useful to me in either role, as far as I can see.

Didn't you tell us all that, in the discussion of Hussar's scenario where two characters disagreed on the appropriateness of torture to the LG alignment, to judge the other was completely inappropriate, as it demonstrates the sin of pride?

No. Perhaps you've forgotten, or perhaps you didn't read very carefully.

I said that to second-guess the torturing paladin's retention of divine abilities would be a sin of pride. The sin of pride consists in judging the divine - and it's decision to leave the torturing paladin vested with divine power - not in applying the determinations of the divine to the mortal.

Yet here, we see that the rule book directly contradicts you.

There is nothing there that entails, implies or even hints that the paladin is expected to judge the divinity.

That again suggests that one assess the alignment based on what the rules say.

I'm not sure how I'm meant to interpret this sentence. Also, where does the rules text talk about which ends justify which means, such that - simply from reading the rules text - you extracted the claim I have quoted at the top of this post?

 

[Bedrockgames]

How is the gameworld that results from my playstyle unbelievable or inconsistent?

There are plenty of actual play examples linked upthread to provide material for an answer to that question.

I am not trying to knock your playstyle, or say it can't be consistent, but for me, if the players can do things that establish setting material (for example decide whether Yom God of Yams is angry or not at the pcs for taking a particular action) that both is likely to lead to inconsistency in the setting (one day Yom is happy the pkayers eat his sacred yams, the next day he is furious) and makes these things that are supposed to be external to my character feel less external because players are influencing how they behave. If players deciding the god is angry at them or not, doesn't disrupt your sense of an external and consistent settingm then that is fine, it isn't an issue for you. But i find stuff like that very disruptive to my sense of an external and consistent setting.

 

[Hussar]

You might be having problems with The Big Model because it isn't actually a game theory at all, but a narrative theory. That's why it uses dozens of narrative theory terms and no (virtually none?) game theory terms. It is utterly irrelevant to designing quality games.

Game play is deciphering the code that is a game in order to achieve one or more objectives within that code. Story making is about expressing one's self when existing within a culture of narrative. They are radically different acts. Stories often are created as codes so they might be comprehended by others, at least more or less. That's reading or interpreting the expressions of others, deciphering the pattern behind the coded expressions. Neither should be done in an absolutist manner. We can't be completely certain we are the ones expressing just as we can't be completely certain what other people are expressing.

What I do to support role playing in my game is use a separate game system to define each role provided within it. Fighter characters (PC and NPC) improve by discovering how the system works by navigating and learning it. For PCs activity must be done by a player. For an NPC this is collected in what the NPC knows due to their experiences.

I'm guessing you're closer to me in that you want a game with achievable objectives (story making cannot be a game objective, it's impossible). D&D can be that as long as you have a game that is a pattern. The expression of a code as defined by the rules. A comprehensible and discoverable reality in the referees mind related to the players as they play. That this code can use and be similar to fantastic or realistic elements is secondary, but like frosting on the cake. It's not absolutely necessary, but it can add to the enjoyment. To say it's about story telling is like saying Chess is really about medieval politics and not its mathematical design at all - IOW not about gaming at all. Gaming and game play are fundamentally separate from storytelling.

You do realise that this is hardly a widely accepted concept don't you? And that you are presenting your theory as fact rather than a possibility. I'd say that you are positing a theory of gaming that is very contentious and needs a very large bucket of proof before it can even remotely be accepted as fact.

You are essentially arguing that Microsoft Flight Simulator is a better role playing game than something like Fate and that an entire play style - i.e. those of us who believe that storytelling and gaming are perfectly compatible, are 100% wrong.

 

[Nagol]

Is this empirical prediction? Something for which you have seen evidence in actual play? Speculation?

A mixture of empirical observation, basic understanding of human behaviour, and application of the maxim "Hope for angels; plan for devils."

In Gygaxian D&D, using poison is a shortcut to in-game success. A behavioural prohibition on using poison is therefore a disadvantage. How does the notion of "behavioural restrictions that provide play balance" generalise beyond Gygaxian play, though? For instance, how does a 4e paladin get a game advantage by departing from genre expectations?

It's hard for me to comment on 4e specifically. From what I do know, there are fewer built-in checks on the 4e paladin (since they cannot fall) thus there are fewer genre expectations assigned to them. If effect, paladins are now a label assigned to a set of mechanics associated with "Divinely-powered Defenders".

I have played with serious power gamers and tactical players (eg multiple Australiasian M:tG champions). I haven't noticed that an absence of GM-enforced mechanical alignment gives rise to the problems you describe. I believe this is because my game doesn't particularly mechanically reward departure from professed character concept (which was [MENTION=79401]Grydan[/MENTION]'s point a couple of dozen or so posts upthread).

I specifically addressed this in my post.

How is "better" interacting here with "ignoring behavioural restrictions"? I can parse the sentence but I don't know what you have in mind as an example.

The torture example is as good a situation as any. The unspoken group understanding may be a paladin will always take the high road since that is baked into the class <-- alignment restrictions == behavioral restrictions. The paladin player may declare "Let the torture begin!" <-- ignoring behavioral restrictions because the player is a great fan of 24 and it always worked out for Jack so why shouldn't a LG exemplar of all that is good and light in the world torture a woman who's only link is being the sister of a suspect?

I know I and about half my current group would not consider that an improved narrative.

And how is GM enforcement of alignment going to solve this issue with this sort of player? As opposed to just preventing them from method-acting and forcing them to play some other style.

I find it solves the issue trivially. "Dude, we had that discussion. It is an evil act. Is this the point you wish to fall? No? After struggling with temptation, what is the character going to do?" It does not limit the player from method acting -- it helps the player method act the PC originally chosen consistently and in accordance with the group understanding for world norms.

Bottom line: how is the game better if we force power, tactical, butt-kicker, method, storyteller etc players to play fighters and wizards (for whom alignment is irrelevant) but don't let them play paladins and clerics? How is that improving my play experience?

The interesting thing about the player categorisations I used is they don't map to character classes and an individual player is a composite of the motivations obviously. I've seen butt-kickers play every class in 1e save the Thief and every class in 3.X, I've seen tactical and power players in every class in 1e and 3.X. Method actors, storyteller, and casual players have always been across the board.

What you are doing to reducing the number of potential stories (the fall of a paladin, the faithless cleric, the civilisation of a barbarian). And that's cool. I find it interesting that a proponent of Burning Wheel would ignore/dislike the obvious stake/motivational conflict/stress points baked into these classes. They are designed for the DM and/or other players to pressure and for the stressed PC to react and fall (or not) as appropriate within the world context.

Where is the conflict of interest in the player deciding whether or not his/her PC's behaviour answers to that PC's professed ideals?

If there are ramifications attached to behaviours (like falling for example), that is an answer right there. If there are no ramifications for behaviour then the biggest issue is player rationalisation/blindness to his own PCs actions and what those actions truly mean inside the world: how the PC is viewed by others and the reasons for it (from personal experience), Additionally, there is the potential for conflict when more than one person (multiple PCs OR NPCs) shares the same ideals but take radically different approaches that leave them diametrically opposed.

 

[Hussar]

A mixture of empirical observation, basic understanding of human behaviour, and application of the maxim "Hope for angels; plan for devils."

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...e-the-gaming-experience/page125#ixzz2wDsEN2PD

IOW, you're a proponent that mechanical alignment is required to make players play characters in a manner consistent with your views of what that class should be. Or to put it another way, alignment is necessary as a stick to enforce player behaviour.

Again, totally not interested in policing my players.

I note your paladin torture example has now taken a rather hyperbolic twist - the paladin is considering torture, not because it is the only available choice, but, because it's more convenient and players will always choose convenience over playing their characters. You are absolutely right and I would also find such a narrative uninspiring. But, then, I play in a group where the entire group would find your paladin uninspiring and thus, it would not happen at my table.