Forcing Players to create GOOD characters...

[Thanee]

Good and evil doesn't work well within a group. The game is based on he struggle between good and evil and therefore it's best to choose either side.

The huge differences in opinion might be fun for a while and actually add to the roleplaying, but in the end they only cause the party to fight each other or fall apart, if played consequently.

Only good is too much of a restriction, but non-evil seems fair to me and that is what we do for our parties.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Geoff Watson]

That said, there's nothing wrong with switching to AU for such a game, and AU may indeed be better suited to alignment-free gaming. I use alignment-light and relative-alignment games, rather than alignment-free, so I haven't felt the need to find a totally "alignment-free" system.

AU isn't alignment-free anyway. It has Champions of Light (Good) and Darkness (Evil).
Monte's view on alignments (as written in AU anyway) is really simplistic and shows he doesn't understand how they're supposed to work.

Geoff.

 

[blackshirt5]

Um no, the presenc of Champions of Light and Champions of Darkness does not mean that AU has alignment. Things and people can be good or evil; AU just doesn't have a system to quantify it with.

 

[MerakSpielman]

Evil is not something to be played out.

I weep for the people who truly think evil is fun.

I think playing evil characters is cathardic to a certain extent. We all feel certain levels of greed, hatred, anger, and other emotions that are difficult to express constructively in our real lives. Everybody finds an outlet for these emotions in one way or another. Some people do art. Some people watch violent sports. Some people bottle it all up and pretend that they don't need to express their negitive side - but it comes out in fits and spurts anyway, usually manefesting as depression or shouting matches with loved ones. I play D&D (2 evil-dominent campaigns) and play violent computer games. It's all fake and nobody really gets hurt. Nobody I know has any problems separating their fantasies from their reality, though I hear such people do exist.

That said, I recongnize the prepondency of evil parties to turn again themselves. In the evil campaigns I'm part of, the DM (that's me in one game) had to create a sort of artificial situation - a framework within which evil people would work together for a common goal. In one game the players are investigaters of events that could impact their employers, and in the other they are a task force that is given assignments (usually assassinations) by a villian trying to take over the world.

In my group evil must be played intelligently, or the DM will be quite ruthless about what happens. There are very real consiquenses for violating the law, and the local authorities have access to clerical divinations, scrying, and teleports to track down perpetrators. The players are aware of this and play accordingly. Your motives can be evil, but your actions have to be considered very carefully lest you invite disaster. Stupid evil people get dead fast. When they enter a civilized area, you will find few travelers who are more attentive to the law and local authority than our evil people because they don't want to draw attention to themselves.

As far as requiring all members of the party to be Good, well, just make sure that's the campaign you're wanting to play. The (third) campaign I'm in is very much a traditional heroic fantasy - right down to the party paladin I play. The characters are a bit more predictible, and adventure hooks are easy to attach. In good campaigns, you get to use moral quandries to drive character development, and I just love that. Both good and evil heavy parties can have complex and engaging campagns, but the complexity lies in different areas.

 

[Voadam]

Good and evil doesn't work well within a group. The game is based on he struggle between good and evil and therefore it's best to choose either side.

Bye
Thanee

You mean its not based on killing things and taking their stuff? Or about neat interactive roleplaying that creates fun stories?

Evil struggles against evil as well as against good. When I played a good character in a predominantly evil party (no prohibitions on interparty conflict or killing) I got them to do good by directing them against evil in a mercenary fashion. I got more done with them than I could have alone.

"Hey, this guy will pay us to kill the drow! Come on, you know you hate them, they enslaved you for a year. There will be lots of magic and treasure!"

 

[Rolzup]

As a player, I don't mind at all -- I don't have any real interest in plahing an out-and-out evil character, and I've had enough bad experiences with those who do to make me kind of wary of them.

Now eeeeevil characters, of the cartoonish sort, can be a lot of fun...but only if everyone's on the same page. If not, it's not gonna work.

As DM.... My current thinking, to be honest, is to drop alignments for most characters. Only in the cases of supernatural good/evil/law/chaos will alignment be of any significance.

For PCs, then, it will only matter for the paladins, higher-level clerics, and certain wizards. Normal folks won't *have* any alignment. They'll just be normal folks, capable of both good and evil.

Most of the adversaries that the PCs would face *will* be of the supernatural sort, of course. And in those cases, alignment-based spells and abilities will work as well as they ever do.

Rolzup

 

[Teflon Billy]

The first "evil" campaign I ever took part in (I was 13) was DM'd by my good friend Mike. Up until that point, I had been DM'ing, and we had ben playing with pretty standard "Save the Princess/Kill the Monster/Defend the Village" type tropes.

Mike had something else in mind. His world was bleak.

Warring city-states in a blasted wasteland. We were mercenaries who, often as not were paid in food. The starvation rules were often in full effect, and we were fighting while weakened most of the time.

Our greatest assets were our two spellcasters (Wizards) and our equipment (Good arms and Armor), other than that we were basically screwed at all times (lucky for us, most NPC's were equally screwed).

The city staes tended to be run by Evil Overlords, and pretty much the best result you could hope for was that you had been hired by a Lawful Evil guy, as he would most likley actually pay you what he had agreed. Neutral Evil guys would--often as not--send you away without payment, or would "renegotiate" after you had completed the job. Chatic Evil Overlords would usually try and kill you as "payment"

The jobs we were set on were of the "retrieve my daughter, and bring me her captor's head (she had escaped with her one true love)" , "Burn the fields of The Neighbouring Overlord and bring me his peasants as slaves", and "kill that pesky unicorn" variety.

It was the first RPG where we were constantly thinking; nothing was guaranteed, trust was a precious a commodity and--though our alignments varied from Neutral down to CE--by God we stuck together..because honestly, who else was going to look out for us?

I ran into Mike the DM a few years back and told him how great I thought his "Zorbonian City States" game was and he let me in on a little secret...

It was, in his mind, a total disaster.

We were expected to, for the first few levels, engage in atrocities; then as we grew more powerful and saw the suffering being caused, he thought we would start defending the weak and using our position as Mercenary leaders/City State Overlords/Whatever to effect a change for the better in the culture of the city states.

All that happened was we became phenomenally good at Burning Crops, Enslaving Populi, Assassinating Competitors and Debauchery.

Lesson learned: Don't let 13-year olds run a country

I'm not sure there was a point to this post.

 

[Norfleet]

The city staes tended to be run by Evil Overlords, and pretty much the best result you could hope for was that you had been hired by a Lawful Evil guy, as he would most likley actually pay you what he had agreed. Neutral Evil guys would--often as not--send you away without payment, or would "renegotiate" after you had completed the job. Chatic Evil Overlords would usually try and kill you as "payment"

Lawful evil can be a "good" alignment, too. It means you make sure things are done in a properly orderly and efficient manner, even if you have to impale a few people on pikes to make it happen.

I ran into Mike the DM a few years back and told him how great I thought his "Zorbonian City States" game was and he let me in on a little secret...

It was, in his mind, a total disaster.

His loss. Clearly, he missed out on the joy of running an Evil Overlord campaign.

We were expected to, for the first few levels, engage in atrocities; then as we grew more powerful and saw the suffering being caused, he thought we would start defending the weak and using our position as Mercenary leaders/City State Overlords/Whatever to effect a change for the better in the culture of the city states.

Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing a few more statues of me. All those little peasants, laboring for the glory of the Mighty Norfleetian Empire. I wouldn't mind a bit of peace and quiet, too. Peace through Empire sounds good to me. People would like living in my empire. My +23 in Knowledge(Anthromancy), the science of forseeing the future through human entrails, will come in handy at foiling plots against me.

All that happened was we became phenomenally good at Burning Crops, Enslaving Populi, Assassinating Competitors and Debauchery.

Lesson learned: Don't let 13-year olds run a country

Mmmm. Burning. Enslaving. Assassinating. And Debauchery. Can't forget the debauchery. What a great campaign. I can't believe Mike thought it was a disaster.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Monte's view on alignments (as written in AU anyway) is really simplistic and shows he doesn't understand how they're supposed to work.

Note: I just laughed so hard and spontaneously, that my fiance came out of the shower to make sure I was ok. If I had been eating at the time, there would be a major cleanup. Thanks for making my morning a little more surreal...

Kahuna Burger

 

[Null Boundry]

I have never had a problem with a DM deciding that we can only play good (or evil) charecters. If thats the way the game is going to be run then I trust him to make it enjoyable. If its not then I'll stop playing, there is no loss its only a game. I can stop playing and still remain friends with the DM and be invited back to another session.

One problem I do have is if being when having to play a good charecter being told that under no circumstances can you commit an evil or dishonourable act. A few years ago in the campaign of good guys an orc was taken prisoner, no we knew this guy was a nasty peice of work, he was part of a warband that had slaughtered several villages we had come across. He had been found asleep and the ranger wasn't allowed to kill him in his sleep because it was evil. To kill him when he was awake was evil and so on. It was several weeks to the next secure settlement with some form of law and order to conduct a trial and the rest of his mates were out there. No idea what we were meant to do with him but whoops the rope slipped from my hands whilst we were carrying him across a gorge.