Good v. Evil, Heroic v. Antihero, Chaos v. Law and "Save the Planet" - Bah!

[Mystery Man]

So I've finally come to the realization that I've been wasting my time. I enforce alignments and provide consequences to (extreme) violations of same in the hopes that they (my players) will somehow become more "heroic". With limited degrees of success. :\ They have their moments of great heroic roleplaying but for the most part its a "what's in it for me" type play. So I'm going to throw up my hands and give it up, let it go, run things a different way. Why fight it you know?

Why do Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser always end up saving Lanhkmar but at the same time try to rob it blind? Why does Conan always kill the bad guy, but at the same time he's a pirate and a thief?

I'm going to let go of the whole Good Vs. Evil schtick and present my next campaign as a struggle between powerful forces, and the fight against unnatural chaos and natural law. No "mastermind" pulling the strings, no over arching plot of worldwide domination. I don't plan on letting alignments go, they're nice for a guideline and fairly entrenched in the rules, smite Evil, aligned weapons etc, which I like.

So, tell me if I'm crazy! And for that matter, where the hell do I start?!

 

[Shadowslayer]

I'd suggest rethinking the role alignment plays in your game. I don't know your players and how they work, so I'll just tell you what I do.

First, you have to determine for yourself what each alignment entails and write it all down. Avoid making it cut and dried as far as actions go. For example, say something like a person who is Lawful Good will have an aversion to tomb robbing. Don't say a Lawful Good won't tomb rob...because thats relative to the reasoning behind it. (Are you going down there just to to grab loot, or are you going down there because you need the Sword of Whoopass to destroy a particular baddie, and its currently buried with Good King Ralphie the 8th? he LG guy may hate having to go down there, but I haven't prevented him from doing it)

So you have a list of philosophies for each alignment...they value this, they're averse to that etc. Give every player a copy. Then let the players play their roles according to that.

The rub is this...the players don't decide what alignment they are....I do, based on the guidelines I've laid out. (and their alignments are not kept secret from them) If a player has been acting evil, fine, protection from evil spells will work against him, paladins will be able to detect him, and good aligned weapons will hurt him. Easy enough.

When it comes to Paladins and PRCs that are supposed to be held to a higher standard of alignment, they may need a code or philosophy nailed down for them in the form of rules for their particular order. A paladin of Heironus will have a strict code, but may be slightly different from a paladin of St Cuthbert. They'll both be extreme LG but the phiolsophies behind them may be slightly different.

So, I hope this helps. This way, you've given them the outline and the means of designating alignments, and now there's nothing for you to enforce.

EDIT- In going back to your post I realize this may not be what you're actually asking. As for as your campaign story goes, how's this: Don't write one. Create a few initial adventures/options for them to bite at, then base the remainder on reactions to their actions. If they're treasure hunters, than base a larger scale scenario around that...maybe an ongoing battle with rival treasure hunters, then a point where both groups are after the same thing, then the reason and history behind the thing they're both after. etc etc But make it up as the campaign progresses. Its a way of keeping it fresh for you the DM too.

(Ive always been foozled by DMs that had the entire metaplot, bad guy, overarching storylines, NPC allies and monster encounters drawn up before anyone's even sat down to roll up characters. I usually feel like I'm just being taken along on a tour. Just my opinion. The DMs I always enjoyed playing under were the ones that didn't plan too far ahead.)

Its a "gaming truth" that if a player doesn't want to be heroic, then he won't enjoy being required to play heroic...no matter how you justify it. So you may as well come up with stuff they WILL like. Do it a little at a time.

Hope this better answers your question.

 

[Aaron L]

Good choice. Every fight isn't always GvsE. Good people fight each other too. And sometimes it doesnt even come into the equation. Playing free wheeling dungeon crawlers out for number 1 is whats its all about sometimes!

 

[painandgreed]

Good for you! But no need to do anything that different. If you don't want to change, just make sure the characters know that the evil guys are rich and nobody is going to come looking for the party if they take them out. Figure out what the players want for their characters and give it to them. Money or magic items? Bad guys have lots of those. Power? Plenty of good aligned people are ambitious. Give them the opportunities to take what they want. The big difference will be character interactions because they won't care.

 

[jester47]

It took me a long time to figure this out. The flaw with the alignment system is that it assumes people are one or the other and not mixed. The battle between Good and Evil is an internal one. Alignment would work much better if it was about the side that the character would strive to have dominant.

Aaron.

 

[Whimsical]

I think that it would be best if you poll the players on what kind of adventuring group they would like to be, then have everyone decide on a specific focus. Or else you will have each character scattering to their personal agendas from the word "go". They would have no real reason to work together. So throw out some ideas, such as Xen'drik artifact hunters, thieves' guild, pirates, caravan of merchants/"gypsies"/circus/whatever travelling between civilized locations, royal knights in training, defenders of the sacred valley, whatever. But the players should be on the same page as far as what motivates them to work together.

As far as heroics, you can throw some hooks here and there. They should be real choices involved; they should be able to walk away from situations that would involve a heroic response. "You walk down a street and down a dark alley you see three thugs rob a kid and are about to beat him up. What do you do?" Similarly, there should be opportunitites for tempting unheroics to see what the player responds. A door to a secure location is found unlocked. "A very unwise country bumpkin is walking around in the city and your appraising eye notes that his dirty necklace is actually a rare historical artifact (that the player could probably easily buy or take from him). What do you do?"

 

[leporidae]

One of the basic decisions, in my opinion, in setting up a campaign is whether it will be internally or externally motivated. Perhaps that's a useful way of looking at this decision. A standard "Heroic" campaign is an example of an internally motivated campaign - things happen in the game because of a property of the characters - "Goodness".

If you drop that central motivation, but don't make any other adjustments the problem is how to keep the campaign together as a group game. You need to figure out why these characters would stay together for an extended period of time if they don't have any goals other than gathering resources for themselves. Probably the simplest example of an externally motivated campaign is that the characters are physically isolated in a location where their only option is to work together, like a small town surrounded by wilderness. (i.e., The Keep on the Borderlands, an oldie but goodie). They could be isolated in some other way for example, the only dwarves in a human kingdom. Or they could have something in common that binds them together - family ties, on the run from the same archmage, employees of the same trade guild...

Also discussing (and perhaps getting input from) the players prior to starting the campaign will help the structure to fade into the background, so you get the advantage of a way to keep things moving and the characters together, without it feeling like railroading to the players.

 

[SweeneyTodd]

Personally, I get a lot more satisfaction out of campaigns where the players are internally motivated. It's not necessarily giving anything up -- it can be liberating.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Alignment would work much better if it was about the side that the character would strive to have dominant.

Who says that it isn't? Alignment detection may indicate which side is dominant at the moment. It doesn't mean there isn't a struggle to keep it so. A Neutral-Good fighter can still struggle against an urge to take the violence too far. A Lawful-Good cleric can still fight against her own morbid fascination with the undead. A Chaotic-Good thief can still admire the cleanliness and order of a tyrannical Lawful-Evil nation.

Playing a Good character is only as black-and-white as you want it to be.

 

[sniffles]

One of the basic decisions, in my opinion, in setting up a campaign is whether it will be internally or externally motivated. Perhaps that's a useful way of looking at this decision. A standard "Heroic" campaign is an example of an internally motivated campaign - things happen in the game because of a property of the characters - "Goodness".

If you drop that central motivation, but don't make any other adjustments the problem is how to keep the campaign together as a group game. You need to figure out why these characters would stay together for an extended period of time if they don't have any goals other than gathering resources for themselves. Probably the simplest example of an externally motivated campaign is that the characters are physically isolated in a location where their only option is to work together, like a small town surrounded by wilderness. (i.e., The Keep on the Borderlands, an oldie but goodie). They could be isolated in some other way for example, the only dwarves in a human kingdom. Or they could have something in common that binds them together - family ties, on the run from the same archmage, employees of the same trade guild...

Also discussing (and perhaps getting input from) the players prior to starting the campaign will help the structure to fade into the background, so you get the advantage of a way to keep things moving and the characters together, without it feeling like railroading to the players.

Well, you don't have to come up with a reason for these characters to stay together - you can run a campaign in which the characters are just there to give the players a reason to come to the game. For some people, that's all they want.

I don't personally find that very satisfying, but it doesn't stop me from being involved in a campaign that is just an excuse to play. Luckily I have other campaigns that fulfill my desire for something deeper.